How does an industry that prices everything
price itself?

Section 2 / 7 · The room

Who answered.

Before we get to the prices, here's the room itself. Each dot below is one respondent — the same 49 accountants, viewed three ways: firm size, time in the industry, and how they primarily price work. Hover a dot (or tap on mobile) to see that respondent's full demographics, and switch tabs below to recolor the room by each dimension.

Section 3 / 7 · The spread

Six clients, one room.

Now the prices. Below is every quote the room gave — each dot is one respondent pricing one scenario, all six scenarios side by side. The High-Maintenance Client and the Cleanup Job draw the most declines (41% and 39% — relationship friction and scope risk); the W-2 Homeowner and the Real Estate Investor are most accepted (10% declined each), at opposite ends of the price ladder. Toggle the lens to see what predicts where the quotes land — and what doesn't.

Four ways a firm can set its fees: hourly, billed by time spent; fixed, a flat price quoted up front; value, tied to what the work is worth to the client; and hybrid, a mix of the three.

Value-based pricers top all six scenarios and decline the least — just 12% of bids. Fixed-fee firms quote lowest and decline most (35%). Hourly billers sit in between, and never admit a gap between price and worth.

● Yes · ◯ Conditional · × Declined

Each shaded box covers the middle 50% of accepted quotes in that band; the tick through it is the median. Declines are excluded from the box. Hover a dot for the respondent's full profile.

Section 4 / 7 · The gap

The gap that doesn't close.

Every scenario asked two questions: what would you actually charge? and what do you think they should pay? Each line is one respondent. Here's the tell: every line either stays flat or slopes up. Across all six scenarios, not one respondent said a client should pay less than they'd charge — the gap only ever runs one direction. The steeper the diagonal, the bigger the gap they admit to. Switch scenarios to compare honesty across types of work.

The widest gap of any scenario — a 100% median, and more than half say the client should pay at least double. Hybrid pricers admit 165%; only 10+ year veterans (41%) and hourly billers stay near flat. The takeaway: the high-maintenance client eats far more time and attention than anyone else, the whole room knows it, and almost no one actually charges for it. They're getting double the service at the same price — quietly subsidized by the accountant's patience.

Hover or tap a line for respondent details · color = pricing model, slope = the gap · tap a legend key to filter · switch scenarios above to recompare

Section 5 / 7 · The admission

How honest are we, really?

Everyone in the survey picked a label for their own pricing — from "I'm definitely undercharging" to "fully confident in my rates." This section asks whether the label holds up. We checked it two ways, both pulled from the same answers: the gap a respondent admits in their own numbers — the distance between what they'd charge and what they themselves say the client should pay — and where their quotes rank against everyone else's, from the bottom of the room to the top.

Measured against the room, the label holds up. The more confident the label, the higher people actually price. The typical "definitely undercharging" firm out-prices just 18% of the room; "about right" firms land mid-pack; "fully confident" firms out-price 89%. Every step up in confidence is a real step up in price. People know where they stand in the market.

Measured against their own numbers, it doesn't. If the labels were honest, "definitely undercharging" would own up to the biggest gap of all. It doesn't — it admits +23%, while the gentler "probably slightly undercharging" admits +77%, more than triple. And "fully confident" respondents admit almost nothing as a group (+2% median) — yet one of them, doing the math on their own numbers, says the client should pay +110% more. So the label predicts where you sit in the market. It says nothing about how honest you're being with yourself.

How to read the chart below: five rows, one per label, stacked least confident at the top to most confident at the bottom. Each row has two strips. The left strip is the admitted gap — the further right a dot sits, the more that person thinks the client should be paying them. The right strip is price rank — the further right, the more of the room that person out-charges. Every dot is one accountant, colored by how they price. The tall line in each strip marks that row's median: scan those lines top to bottom, and if the labels mean anything, they should step steadily rightward.

Hover or tap a dot for respondent details · tap a pricing key in the legend to filter the room and recompute the medians · 4 respondents (3 "definitely under," 1 "fully confident") declined every scenario and aren't plotted.

Section 6 / 7 · The habit

How often do you raise?

Each tile sizes to the share of respondents on that cadence — "every few years" (33%) and "annually" (29%) lead; only 7 firms (14%) never raise at all. Inside each tile: the median out-of-scope hourly rate and the share who have a minimum fee.

The interesting part is what doesn't change. The out-of-scope hourly rate sits between $225 and $325 no matter how often a firm raises its prices — how often you raise barely moves the number. How long you've been in business matters a bit more, and so does the size of the firm. The real story is the minimum fee. None of the 7 firms that never raise their prices have one. Of the firms that raise every year, 71% do — and their typical floor is $6,000. It looks like the firms that bother to raise their prices are the same firms that bother to set a floor: you either do both, or you do neither.

Tile size = share of respondents · color = rate band · bar = min-fee adoption

Aside · When the meter runs

The out-of-scope rate, dot by dot.

What you charge per hour for work outside a client's normal scope. Every respondent who answered is on the line. $120 to $750. Most cluster at $250–$375, but Hybrid pricers stretch into premium territory while Fixed-fee respondents anchor the lower end.

Hover or tap a dot for details · 5 of 49 don't charge hourly and aren't plotted

Section 7 / 7 · The identity

Which one are you?

The same five questions resolve into five archetypes via a first-true-wins decision tree: if you bill hourly you're the Hourly Defender; if you declined the high-maintenance client you're the Scope Creep Survivor; and so on. Tile size is share of the room. Tap a tile to see the canonical description and how the group's measured behavior differs from the N=49 baseline.

Tile size = share of respondents · fingerprint bars compare each personality to the overall N=49 baseline