Top US accounting firms are developing future pricing models for corporate clients as they pour billions of dollars into artificial intelligence tools that stand to slash billable hours with promised leaps in productivity.
The efficiency boost from using AI to comb through data and summarize information creates a tension. It lets employees at audit, tax, and advisory firms like KPMG, PwC, and RSM focus more on client interactions and meaningful analytical work, but it strains pricing models based on billable hours still used widely across the professional services industry.
Firm leaders are brainstorming ways to charge clients based on value and outcomes. These methods could help fill the revenue gap from reduced billable hours while attracting talent and offsetting technology costs.
“Time’s becoming less and less of relevance,” PwC US Tax Leader Krishnan Chandrasekhar said.
Hourly models multiply total hours worked by a set rate. In contrast, a value-based approach assigns a price based on what a firm’s services are worth to the client.
Today’s licensed accountants have been taught by their predecessors that they sell time, said Michelle River, CEO of Fore LLC, which consults with firms about revenue models. AI exposes the flaws of that approach, she said.
If firms don’t adopt “a more worth-based approach, they will have to add more clients to fill that void—and that’s not sustainable,” River said.
The median net hourly billing rate rose nearly 7% over two years to $170, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants found in a 2025 survey of more than 1,000 firms, most of which have net client fees below $5 million. The report recommended firms consider accelerating their shift away from hourly billing.
Pricing Dilemma
AI allows firms time for deeper advisory work and strategy discussions with clients, RSM US LLP partner and enterprise digital leader Sergio de la Fe said.
If it typically takes tax advisory teams 20 hours to create certain reports for clients, integrating generative AI and checking the outputs could cut down that time to 10 hours, de la Fe said.
“Is that all margin for me or is that all price reduction for our client?” de la Fe said. “And yet they’re getting the same report, maybe better quality than they got two years ago or last year.”
In some areas, de la Fe said, RSM US would be able to cut prices, while in others it won’t be able to make that move. The firm, focusing on mid-sized companies, uses multiple pricing models and is increasingly working with clients to bill them based on value, he said.
AI carries hefty development costs that top firms have chosen to embrace as the industry races to leverage the technology. RSM US, for example, announced last June it will invest $1 billion over the next three years in AI tools used across the firm.
More than 90% of firms planned to raise their overall technology spending up to 20% over that of the previous year, according to the AICPA report.
When firms are investing in AI tools, “all of that is cost that you can’t directly attribute often to individual projects,” KPMG US Vice Chair of Advisory Rob Fisher said.
Fisher noted the contributions of agentic AI, which can complete tasks solo using capabilities known as “agents.” The technology allows teams to examine datasets rather than samples, for instance, delivering more comprehensive work, he said.
“Having value-based pricing around those things is, from our view, incredibly important,” said Fisher, who’s also global head of advisory for KPMG International.
New Pricing Options
Clients can benefit from a change in pricing model as well, because hourly billing often doesn’t provide complete clarity on the front end about projects’ price or scope, said Jonathan Clark, a partner in the tax services group at RKL LLP.
RKL has onboarded several dozen new clients under the alternative pricing model that Fore’s River created using value-based tenets as the firm pilots the approach.
“We were really intrigued by what that could mean just for the relationship we have with clients,” Clark said.
Accounting firms’ client advisory services naturally lend themselves to value-based models given their ability to be tailored and continued throughout the year, said Lisa Simpson, vice president of firm services at the AICPA.
It’s possible to use a mix of models during stages of advisory work, PwC’s Chandrasekhar said. While the early, brainstorming phase of a project may be better suited for a time-based pricing model, that may change when the team identifies options.
“Based on the different appetites of those clients, we might price it based on the value the client ascribes to it,” Chandrasekhar said. “We might say, ‘OK, I’m generating this much for you. Would this fee be a fair price for us executing this transaction for you?’”
Employee Incentives
Changing pricing models can shift how firms measure employee success.
There’s likely to be a conflict at a firm level if workers are encouraged to embrace technology yet their performance is evaluated based on “the exact same metrics that we did a decade ago,” Wipfli Advisory LLC Chief Practice Officer Kelly Fisher said.
Wipfli is introducing nontraditional metrics such as client satisfaction and cycle time, a measure of efficiency, Fisher said.
Dominic Piscopo, founder of compensation data analytics firm Big 4 Transparency, said people “light up” when he talks to them about the prospect of working at firms with alternative pricing models.
Workers often feel like efficiency isn’t rewarded under hourly billing, he said. Firms using value-based pricing models can use different metrics for bonuses, like revenue generated, that can better align with employee incentives.
“Are you really incentivizing people to bring the most value to the firm or are you incentivizing them to just clock in a bunch of hours?” Piscopo said.
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