What Does It Cost to Hire a Legal Bookkeeper?
Aug 18, 2025Welcome to the third post in our series! This time, we’re diving into the dollars and cents of bringing someone new onto your team. If you run a legal bookkeeping firm, knowing what it costs to hire is super essential, so you don’t end up with any unpleasant surprises.
Below, I break down the steps to figure out those costs and give you an easy chart to compare hiring in-house, outsourcing, or going global. (Spoiler: The average bookkeeper salary is around $50,000 a year in 2025, but there’s more to it than just that!)
How to Figure Out Your Real Hiring Costs
Start by looking at how busy your firm is. How many transactions do you handle? How many bank accounts? What kind of tasks will your new hire take on? If you’re a small firm, you might only need 10–20 hours a month to start—use that as a rough guide for how much help you’ll need. A part-time employee is a great way to start and dip your toes into being an employer..
Decide How You’ll Pay Them
Will you pay hourly, monthly, or give them a salary? Hourly rates for bookkeepers range from $15–$29 for newbies, up to $50–$70 for the pros. Don’t forget to add 20–30% extra for benefits like health insurance and retirement (if you’re offering them).
Don’t Forget Hidden Costs
Think about things like recruiting fees, training, office space, hardware, and software. There’s also the “opportunity cost”—what you could be earning if you weren’t stuck doing the books yourself, which can be around $100/month in lost productivity. This is an important metric to factor in!
Extras and Special Cases
Taxes, bonuses, or specialized work might bump up the cost. If you look overseas, you might find bookkeepers for $10–$25 per hour. You must think about security. Especially when working with any type of client, but with attorneys and their sensitive client data, it is paramount. Where are the servers located for the offshore team? What security measures are in place for any contractor you hire? It is highly recommended that you assign individual logins for all users from outside firms. Treat these overseas contractors with the same care you would for an employee sitting in your office. Believe me, you will be so glad you have the audit trail when things go awry.
Add It All Up
Tally both the obvious stuff (like salary) and the behind-the-scenes expenses. For a full-timer, you might be looking at around $3,516/month, all in. If you just need part-time or freelance, you can adjust down. Turnover is also worth considering—bookkeeping has a 19% turnover rate, and rehiring can be costly.
Below is a helpful chart to assess the different types of staff:
You can see that outsourcing or hiring globally can cut costs, especially if you’re running a smaller shop. But every option comes with its quirks, so think about what matters most to your business.
In our last post, we’ll help you write a job ad that stands out, and show you the best places to post it.
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