Marie Greene once spent more than 20 hours on a client she was charging just $12. But she only realized how little she was charging for her time when her firm started tracking time. While extreme, Greene’s story highlights a problem that plagues accounting firms everywhere: chronic underpricing that leaves practitioners exhausted and struggling to grow.
In this episode of the Earmark Podcast, recorded live in Los Angeles during the Advisory Amplified tour, host Blake Oliver explores the pricing puzzle with Greene, a CPA and founder and CEO of Connected Accounting, and Ryan Embree, Director of Partnerships at Ignition. Together, they tackle one of the profession’s toughest challenges: how to charge what you’re worth without losing clients.
The Time-Tracking Wake-Up Call
Greene’s journey to better pricing started with tears of frustration. “I literally cried, but I didn’t know it was so bad. My pricing was so bad until we started tracking time,” she admits. Even though Connected Accounting had always used fixed fees instead of hourly billing, they had no real grasp on whether their pricing made sense.
The problem got worse when Greene hired her first team member. She’d been pricing based on how quickly she could complete tasks, not realizing she was “super mega efficient” compared to most people. “When it takes someone a normal amount of time, I was destroying my budgets and I couldn’t delegate fast enough. And then I was just buried in work,” she explains.
This pattern isn’t unique to Greene’s firm. Embree sees it repeated across hundreds of firms he works with at Ignition. The problem often hides in compliance services, where firms fall into the trap of charging “the same as last year.”
“If you quoted someone X amount of dollars seven years ago and they’re still paying that fee, that is the biggest opportunity,” Embree points out. Many firms hesitated to raise prices during COVID when clients were struggling. But as Embree notes, “price increases are normal. They’re a part of business.”
Eventually, Greene’s managers staged an intervention. They took over pricing and told her to stop selling certain services at unsustainable rates. Six years later, the firm has a much more realistic pricing model. But it all started with that uncomfortable first step of tracking where time actually goes.
Pricing the Whole Relationship, Not Just the Deliverable
The real breakthrough came when Greene realized she was charging two clients the same amount for identical services, but one required far more time and attention than the other.
“You can’t just price the deliverable, which is a P&L at the end of each month,” Greene discovered. “You have to also price the number of touchpoints. You have to price how often they have ad hoc random questions that are not part of the scope.”
Connected Accounting now looks at multiple factors when setting prices:
- Number of bank accounts (17 credit cards vs. one checking account makes a difference)
- Transaction volume (one account with 1,000 transactions can be more work than multiple quiet accounts)
- Number of bills and invoices processed monthly
- Meeting frequency (weekly touchpoints vs. monthly check-ins)
- Communication style and expectations
This approach also creates natural price escalators. “We’ve always been very clear up front that we grow with you,” Greene explains. “As you add employees, as you add bank accounts, as your transaction volume increases, our fees increase.”
Embree adds that this reframing helps clients understand price changes. “They know they’re growing. They know they’ve exceeded scope. So they know they’re just kind of leveling up to a new level of service.”
Beyond pricing existing services correctly, firms often miss revenue by not telling clients about everything they offer. Greene discovered this after creating a comprehensive list of which clients used which services. “I was like, oh, we only have six accrual clients, or we only have three that use X.”
This led to casual conversations during client meetings. “We’d say, hey, by the way, we notice you do this. Who does your payroll?” Greene recalls. “We’re not saying we sell payroll and you should buy it, but it was just planting a seed.” Often, clients would respond enthusiastically, not even knowing Connected Accounting offered that service.
Having the Conversation: A Live Repricing Role-Play
During the discussion, Greene demonstrated her approach to repricing conversations in a role-play with Embree acting as the client. She showed how her strategy turns a potentially awkward discussion into a collaborative planning session.
Greene starts with enthusiasm, not numbers: “Hey, Ryan, how excited are you about next year? What are you looking forward to doing with the business?”
When Embree shares his growth plans, she follows with genuine concern: “And with the growth, what are some of the things that keep you up at night?”
Only after understanding his challenges does she pivot to solutions: “Would you be interested if we can find a way to help you lower some of your costs by not having to hire one more admin, and we can take on some of the grunt work?”
The conversation naturally flows into discussing additional services like benefits renewal and talent retention strategies—services Embree’s character didn’t even know Connected Accounting offered.
After these discovery conversations, Greene presents three-tier proposals. “I was no longer trying to force a single price. I showed three and then they could choose. And that was the relief,” she explains. This approach gives clients control while removing the pressure of “selling” a single option.
Despite common fears, clients rarely leave over price increases. Embree observes, “A lot of firms that want to cut clients think raising fees is the way to go. And the short answer is no, they actually still stick around.”
In fact, the worst clients often prove surprisingly price-insensitive. “Whatever the fee is, you can’t actually price them out,” Embree notes.
Technology makes these conversations easier. Connected Accounting now automates annual increases using opt-out language in engagement letters. “Every year in December, we send a notice saying, hey, you have 30 days to cancel your services. But just so you know, effective January 1, all pricing across the firm is going up 3%,” Greene explains.
This mirrors how services like Amazon Prime handle increases: making them expected rather than exceptional. As Oliver points out, “That fee just goes up every year. And we get the email and we look at it and we accept it.”
Your Pricing Transformation Starts Now
Greene’s journey from charging $12 for 20-plus hours of work to running a profitable firm with systematic pricing shows that transformation is possible, even if it takes time. The lessons are: track your time to understand true costs, price the entire client relationship rather than just deliverables, and reframe price discussions around growth and value.
The fear of losing clients to price increases is largely unfounded. When one client left Connected Accounting for a competitor offering a deal, they returned after 12 months and started paying the competitor’s higher rate, which Greene then maintained. “The market often values accounting expertise far more than practitioners themselves realize,” she discovered.
Greene admits she still gets nervous before pricing calls. But she’s learned that authenticity matters more than perfection. “They see how excited I get. They know I’m a huge nerd, I love technology, I love accounting,” she says. “Eventually, they’re like, okay, cool. She sounds like fun to work with.”
Embree emphasizes that positioning yourself as an expert dramatically increases what clients will pay. “People’s willingness to pay is infinite for that piece of mind,” he notes. “To know that you have an expert in your corner that has done this with other clients and knows everything about you and your business.”
The profession’s chronic underpricing doesn’t just hurt firm owners; it limits the entire industry’s ability to innovate and serve clients well. When accounting professionals charge appropriately, they can invest in better tools, training, and talent.
Ready to stop leaving money on the table? Start by tracking where your time really goes. Then look at your client list and identify who’s grown beyond their current service tier. Finally, practice having value-focused conversations that celebrate client success rather than apologizing for price increases.
The full episode includes the complete repricing role-play, detailed pricing metrics, and specific strategies you can implement this week. Because as Greene’s story proves, the biggest barrier to profitable pricing isn’t your clients’ willingness to pay. It’s your own reluctance to ask.