# Bench review (2026): is it worth $199 a month? > Bookkeeping done by an assigned bookkeeper, with optional tax filing Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Bench is a bookkeeping service for U.S. businesses: an assigned bookkeeper categorizes and reconciles transactions each month and delivers financial statements through Bench's own software. Tax filing and catch-up bookkeeping for past months are sold separately. Bench says it is now owned by Employer.com, which acquired it in December 2024. - **Category:** Accounting & Invoicing - **Made by:** Bench Accounting (since 2012) - **Website:** https://www.bench.co - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Pricey if you're a small outfit: $399 a month for the base plan and $649 with tax filing. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Bench is a paid product, starting at $199 per month, billed monthly (Bookkeeping Light). - **Pricing model:** Paid - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Bookkeeping Light | $199 per month, billed monthly | Monthly books for micro businesses with $250K a year or less in revenue; 20% off with annual payment. | | Bookkeeping | $399 per month, billed monthly | Monthly books, year-end tax-ready financials and unlimited contact with your bookkeeper; $3,830 a year if paid annually. | | Bookkeeping + Tax | $649 per month, billed monthly | Bookkeeping plus business income tax filing and up to four tax advisory calls a year; $6,230 a year if paid annually. | | Full-service tax | $300 per month, 12-month commitment | Tax filing and year-round advisory without bookkeeping; $2,880 a year if paid annually. | | QBO Bookkeeping: Complexity 1 | $399 per month, billed monthly | Cash-basis books kept inside your own QuickBooks Online, up to 500 transactions a month. | | QBO Bookkeeping: Complexity 2 | $699 per month, billed monthly | Cash or accrual books in your QuickBooks Online, up to 2,000 transactions a month. | Read from https://www.bench.co/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Bench before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Save 20% on a 12-month plan** (Annual discount): Bench's pricing page lists 20% off its bookkeeping, tax and QuickBooks plans when you pay for 12 months at once. Source: https://www.bench.co/pricing ## Key features - **Assigned bookkeeper:** Each business is matched with a bookkeeper who reconciles accounts transaction by transaction and can be reached by phone, message or video call. - **Monthly books and year-end financials:** Plans deliver up-to-date monthly books and year-end tax-ready financial statements, with reviews by multiple bookkeepers each month. - **Business tax filing:** The tax plans add filing of business income tax returns by licensed tax professionals, with up to four advisory calls a year. - **Catch-up bookkeeping:** Past months that were never reconciled can be cleaned up; the page says catch-up for the current year is free with an annual plan. - **Work inside QuickBooks Online:** A separate QBO plan has Bench's bookkeepers work in your existing QuickBooks account instead of Bench's own software. - **Read-only account access:** Bench says it connects to financial accounts with read-only access to import transactions for bookkeeping. ## Good for - Owners who want someone else to do the bookkeeping each month - Small U.S. businesses that also want tax filing from the same provider - Businesses that already run QuickBooks Online and want a bookkeeper working in it ## Worth knowing - Bench serves U.S.-based businesses; it is a service with a monthly fee, not software you run yourself. - The base Bookkeeping plan is $399 a month, and Complexity 3 QuickBooks plans start at $999 a month. - Monthly tax pricing needs a 12-month commitment bought at least 3 months before the filing deadline. - Bench paused operations in December 2024 and resumed in January 2025 under Employer.com. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 1.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Bench is a bookkeeping service: an assigned bookkeeper does your monthly books, and tax filing costs extra. There is no free plan or trial, the cheapest plan is $199 a month and the base one $399, and it only serves businesses in the US. If you'd rather keep your own books, look elsewhere. - **Value for money: D.** $199 a month for Light and $399 for the base plan, against $26 in the middle for this category. A person does the work, but that's still the dearest tenth. - **Free plan and trial: F.** No free plan and no trial on the pricing page. The 20% discount only comes with paying for 12 months at once. - **Features: B.** Monthly books, year-end financials, tax filing, catch-up work and a QuickBooks Online option from one provider. The listing shows no gap in the bookkeeping job. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. It's a service, so you hand over account access and answer your bookkeeper's questions instead of learning software. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** Web only, for US businesses only. It reads your accounts, and works inside QuickBooks Online on the QBO plans. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Bench's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among accounting and invoicing tools - Bench's GPA of 1.6 is higher than 1 of the 65 other accounting and invoicing tools we grade, and level with 5. - It stands best on features (B, above 51 of 65) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $199 a month, against a middle price of $18.09 for the category: 53 of the 54 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 16 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/accounting ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Bench you would be making live feeds from your bank, which take an agreement with each bank or a service that has them. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 59 of the 65 other accounting and invoicing tools grade higher. It costs $2,388 a year. - You could make: Reports: an app builder makes this well. - You could not: Live feeds from your bank, which take an agreement with each bank or a service that has them. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with QuickBooks Online **Tags:** Bookkeeping, Reports ## Alternatives - [QuickBooks Online](https://toolgpa.com/tools/quickbooks): Cloud accounting from Intuit, from a free plan to 25-user Advanced. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bench-vs-quickbooks) - [Xero](https://toolgpa.com/tools/xero): Cloud accounting for small businesses, with unlimited users. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bench-vs-xero) - [Wave](https://toolgpa.com/tools/wave): Free invoicing and bookkeeping for US and Canadian small businesses. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bench-vs-wave) - [Found](https://toolgpa.com/tools/found): Business bank account with bookkeeping and tax tools built in. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bench-vs-found) - [Kashoo](https://toolgpa.com/tools/kashoo): One-plan online accounting with unlimited users and bank feeds. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bench-vs-kashoo) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://www.bench.co/pricing - https://www.bench.co/bookkeeping - https://www.bench.co/about Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/bench Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).