Every quote you will receive for outsourced finance bundles three different things into one monthly number: government fees that are fixed and published, compliance work that is predictable, and advisory work that is not. Only the first of those has a right answer. This page separates them, so you can tell which part of a quote you are actually negotiating.
Start with the part nobody can discount
A private limited company pays these whether it trades or not, and no provider can reduce them. They are the floor under any quote.
| Filing | Government fee |
|---|---|
| AOC-4, financial statements | ₹200 to ₹600, by nominal share capital |
| MGT-7 or MGT-7A, annual return | ₹200 to ₹600, on the same slab |
| DIR-3 KYC, per director | Nil if filed on time |
| GST returns | Nil on the portal |
| TDS returns | Nil on the portal |
| Income tax return | Nil on the portal |
MCA slab in full: ₹200 below ₹1 lakh of nominal capital, ₹300 from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh, ₹400 from ₹5 lakh to ₹25 lakh, ₹500 from ₹25 lakh to ₹1 crore, ₹600 above ₹1 crore. Verified 16 September 2026.
So the government's share of a typical small company's annual compliance is a few hundred rupees. Everything else in a quote is somebody's time, and that is the part worth examining.
What gets filed, and how often
Cost tracks the count of obligations, not the size of the business. This is the annual load for a company running monthly GST:
| Obligation | Frequency | Filings a year |
|---|---|---|
| GSTR-1, outward supplies | Monthly | 12 |
| GSTR-3B, summary and payment | Monthly | 12 |
| TDS return, Form 24Q and 26Q | Quarterly | 4 to 8 |
| Advance tax instalments | Quarterly | 4 |
| AOC-4 and MGT-7 | Annual | 2 |
| DIR-3 KYC, per director | Annual | 1 each |
| Income tax return | Annual | 1 |
That is upwards of forty filings a year before a single strategic question is asked. A business on the QRMP scheme files fewer; one with several TDS sections and multiple directors files more. When a provider quotes a monthly figure, this is the volume they are pricing.
The four things that actually move the number
Transaction volume, not turnover
Two companies at the same turnover can be an order of magnitude apart in work. Fifty invoices a month against five thousand is the difference, and so is whether purchases arrive reconciled or as a shoebox. Turnover is the wrong question; anyone quoting from turnover alone has not asked the right one.
Whether an audit applies
Statutory audit applies to every company regardless of size, and is a separate engagement from your accounting provider because the auditor must be independent. Tax audit under Section 44AB is what changes with scale:
| Test | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Business, ordinary case | ₹1 crore of turnover |
| Business, where cash receipts and cash payments are each 5% or less | ₹10 crore of turnover |
| Profession | ₹50 lakh of gross receipts |
The ₹10 crore ceiling is a cumulative test. Both limbs must hold — cash receipts within 5% and cash payments within 5%. Fail either and the threshold falls back to ₹1 crore.
Whether GST annual filings apply
GSTR-9 becomes mandatory above ₹2 crore of aggregate turnover. GSTR-9C, the self-certified reconciliation between your returns and your audited accounts, applies above ₹5 crore. Both are substantial pieces of work and both are commonly quoted separately from the monthly retainer, which is worth establishing before you sign rather than in December.
Whether advisory is included or billed
This is where two quotes that look similar stop being comparable. A compliance retainer prices a known list of filings. A CFO engagement prices judgement, and judgement has no natural unit. Ask what the monthly deliverable is in writing, and what falls outside it.
What clean compliance costs at the bottom of the range
For a small company with modest volume, we publish these on our fee pages and they hold here:
| Entity | Annual compliance, professional fees |
|---|---|
| Private limited company | ₹15,000 to ₹25,000, covering statutory audit, AOC-4 and MGT-7 |
| Small LLP below the audit threshold | ₹10,000 to ₹20,000 |
Those figures cover the statutory minimum being done correctly. They do not cover monthly GST and TDS execution, and they do not cover anyone thinking about your business. A retainer that folds in the filings adds the second. A CFO engagement adds the third, and is a different order of cost because it is a different order of work.
The cheapest quote in the market is almost always the one that excludes the annual filings, the audit coordination and the notice responses, and bills each of them when they arrive. Compare the exclusions, not the headline.
The cost of getting it wrong, which is the real comparison
Compliance pricing only makes sense against the downside, and the MCA penalties are the ones people underestimate because they do not stop accruing.
| Default | Consequence |
|---|---|
| AOC-4 or MGT-7 filed late | ₹100 per day, per form, with no upper limit |
| DIR-3 KYC filed late | Flat ₹5,000, whatever the delay |
| TDS deducted but deposited late | Interest at 1.5% per month from deduction to deposit |
| TDS return filed late | ₹200 per day under Section 234E, capped at the TDS amount |
| Tax audit report not filed | 0.5% of turnover or ₹1.5 lakh, whichever is lower |
Two annual forms left for a year is ₹73,000 between them, on filings whose government fee was a few hundred rupees. That is the arithmetic that makes a retainer look inexpensive, and it is why we would rather quote the exclusions clearly than win on a headline.
Questions that make two quotes comparable
- Is the annual filing set — AOC-4, MGT-7, DIR-3 KYC, the income tax return — inside the monthly fee or billed separately?
- Is GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C included once turnover crosses ₹2 crore and ₹5 crore?
- Who coordinates the statutory audit, and is the auditor's own fee inside or outside this number?
- If the department raises a notice on a return you filed, is the response included?
- What is the monthly written deliverable, and what does it contain?
- What is explicitly excluded? The answer to this question is the quote.
Questions
The short version
The government's share of a small company's annual compliance is a few hundred rupees. Every other number in a quote is professional fees, and the useful question is not how large that number is but what it excludes.
Price the work against the downside rather than against the cheapest proposal. Two annual forms left unfiled for a year cost ₹73,000 in daily penalties on filings whose government fee was under ₹1,200.
Statutory figures on this page verified 16 September 2026. Reviewed by Anand Dhull, Advocate (Enrolment No. PH/1213/23).