Issue #28 & August 3rd, 2026

Happy Monday!

This week I quoted a client, and I realized I was mostly pricing on vibes.

My process isn't complicated.
I estimate the work.
I think about how long it'll take.
I multiply that by our hourly landed costs.

Then... I change it.
Sometimes because the client seems like a great fit.
Sometimes because the work feels good for the world.
Sometimes because it just feels right.
Which is another way of saying... vibes!

It also made me realize something.

I think the ground is shifting on how we price our services.

I was at Bridging the Gap Accounting Conference last week and having an interesting conversation with a leader at a larger accounting firm.

At one point we got on the topic of pricing.

They still bill hourly.

My immediate reaction was...

Wait, really?

I’m not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did.

I’ve always kind of assumed the whole profession was moving towards fixed fees. It seems like every conference, podcast, and expert is saying the same thing: Hourly billing is out of style.

But the more I sat with that conversation, the more I realized I wasn't actually interested in why they bill hourly. I was interested in what hourly billing gets right.

I think we’ve framed the debate as two different pricing models. However, I’m starting to think it’s actually one question with two very different answers.

Hourly billing says the client should.

If I get faster at the work, you pay for fewer hours.

Fixed fees flip that idea. The firm benefits from the efficiencies.

If I've spent years building better systems, hiring better people, and improving my processes... shouldn't I benefit from that investment? Or is that table stakes?

Neither way feels too far off base, they’re just different philosophies.

For years, this felt like it was mostly theoretical.

AI is forcing us to answer it sooner than we expected.

What happens when firms get 5x… or even 10x… more efficient?

What if the same outcome takes 10% of the time.

Should our prices fall with it

Should firms keep that 90% or should the client?

What if clients and firms shared the benefits?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Here’s the question I think hourly vs. fixed debate allows for us to ignore.

What is the client actually buying?

For the last… century? This answer didn’t matter because we priced based on our time spent. More hours meant more effort. More effort meant more output. Both models still lean on it. Hourly tracks the hours. Fixed fee estimates them.

But a client doesn’t care if you spent 10 hours or 2 hours on a reconciliation. They want to actually trust their numbers. They don’t care about the tax return, they care about staying compliant and saving money on taxes.

Clients were never buying hours. They were buying outcomes. We just happened to invoice them for the ingredients.

This feels like the whole hourly vs. fixed debate is out of touch.

Lately, I’ve felt like it’s actually about something so much deeper.

It’s about who captures the efficiency dividend. Who benefits?

I don’t know what the right answer is.

Maybe neither model is wrong. Maybe they were both designed for a world where efficiency improved slowly.

I'm just not convinced that's the world we're entering now.

Whatever comes next, I don't think we'll be pricing accounting the same way five or ten years from now.

Question of the week

Still thinking through this one so if you have any insights, click reply.

Have a lovely week,

- Tailor