The FirmLever Weekly Roundup: Issue #50
The 'It's Time to Fix My Pricing' Edition.
Last week I told you the biggest announcement of the year was coming.
About 62% of FirmLever Network members told us during onboarding that pricing was the one thing they'd most want help fixing. So I spent the last few months building specifically for that.
Introducing FirmLever Optimizer.
If you've ever spent a Sunday rebuilding pricing on a single engagement, opened a proposal three months later and realized you're losing money on it, or watched a peer raise fees and wondered if you should – Optimizer is for you. Built for accounting firms doing roughly $200K to $5M in revenue.
Use it two ways: on your existing book, to find every reprice, divest, upsell, and advisory opportunity hiding in your roster -- or on new prospects, by dropping in a discovery-call transcript (Zoom, Fathom, Otter, any recorder) or pasting in your client notes--and yes, even tax returns.
What you can drop into Optimizer:
- Tax returns -- 1040s, 1120s, 1065s, 1041s, 990s, K-1s, etc. -- PDFs up to 100 pages
- Discovery-call transcripts from Zoom, Fathom, Otter, or any recorder
- Client notes -- paste them in raw, however you write them
- Your full client roster -- CSV or spreadsheet import
What Optimizer surfaces:
- Roster diagnostic -- who to reprice, who to divest, who to upsell, and where the advisory opportunities live
- Advanced tax strategies hiding in plain sight -- cost segregation, 1031 exchanges, R&D credits, 179D deductions, SALT plays, opportunity zones
- RSU, stock comp, and equity-vesting strategies for high-comp clients
- K-1 pass-through opportunities and partnership-level optimizations
- Real estate plays -- depreciation recapture, like-kind exchanges, cost-seg layering
- Cash-flow optimization, retirement-plan design, and entity restructuring for owner-level moves
- Bronze / Silver / Gold proposals -- auto-built and ready to send before the prospect's coffee gets cold
The work a senior CPA or Fractional CFO normally spends days on, surfaced in seconds. From the obvious upsells to the things you didn't even know to look for. No more square-footage spreadsheets, hourly estimates, or "let me get back to you with a number."
Customer #1 onboarded this week. I'm bringing on the next cohort over the next few weeks.
If you're interested and want to see how it could work in your firm, reply "Optimizer" (or email me at marc@firmlever.com) and I'll shoot you a 1:1 scheduling link with me.
Optimizer is a sister product to the FirmLever Network – different focus, same mission (firms doing better economically). You can be a Network member, an Optimizer customer, or both.
Most firms underprice because of self-doubt or lack of confidence to position themselves as a premium services firm. That's the real problem I'm helping firms solve with FirmLever Optimizer.
Here's a visual breakdown of some of the things Optimizer actually does:
Think of Optimizer as the trusted AI copilot you always wished you had...
This Week's Numbers (the FirmLever Network)
Quick context if you're new: the FirmLever Network is a private network where vetted accounting firms, CPAs, and fractional CFOs refer, buy, sell, and trade clients with each other. No brokers. No success fees. No BS. Members post what they want; the platform auto-matches based on what each firm actually does:
- 317 admitted member firms on the platform to date
- 218 firms still pending on the active waitlist
- 534 firms have applied since launch
- 43 states represented
- $126M in combined member-firm revenue
- 108 firm-to-firm connections formed
- $2.44M+ in client value listed since launch
What's New This Week
1. The first wealth referral match closed this week.
A CAS firm posted a wealth referral on the platform. A CPA member who offers wealth services in-house picked it up. The intro step closed Wednesday. End-to-end wealth referrals are now happening.
If you're a CPA and offer wealth or financial planning services in-house (or via a separate entity) and want to be on the receiving end of these referrals, the opt-in is now live.
→ Opt in to receive wealth referrals (must be a FirmLever Network user; if not, join here for free.)
2. Three FirmLever Pulse polls closed since last issue.
The strongest signal: when we asked what percent of clients you intentionally fired this season, 50% said none and 42% said under 5%. Combined: 92% of voting members barely pruned their roster.
That's the underpricing trap in one stat. You can't fire bad clients when your good ones aren't priced right enough to backfill the gap. That's the gap Optimizer was built to close--and the two pieces in In Other News below explain why.
The other two polls--AI time saved during tax season and fee increases for 2026--are archived in-app for FirmLever Network members.
3. Buy/sell-entire firm beta – a few seats still open.
Spots from last week's launch filled fast. A few still open. If you're considering buying or selling an entire firm in the next 1-3 years, reply "buy/sell beta" and you're in. (No transaction or success fees. No commitment to transact--just early access to matches when it goes live.)
Deal Flow Spotlight
Two listings members are competing on right now--up for grabs (FirmLever Network does not charge any fees for these):
- NEW: $80K/yr Bookkeeping block -- posted Tuesday. 5 firms expressing interest by Friday. Bookkeeping blocks move fast on the platform.
- Still hot: $200K/yr PE fund admin client -- 7 firms in (was 6 last week). Alt-credits strategy: needs fund admin, portfolio management software, and bank/workflow automation.
Both still open as of this posting.
In Other News
Two pieces my team and I published this week -- the diagnostic and the playbook for what Optimizer was built to fix:
- The Underpricing Trap: How to Spot It and Fix It Before Year-End. The diagnostic side -- how to see the signals you're underpricing.
- Accounting Firm Pricing Strategy: How to Increase Fees, Fix Margins, and Stop Leaving Money on the Table. The strategic side -- the actual playbook for moving fees without losing clients.
A Quick Heads-Up
I'll be on vacay in Chiang Mai through next week but should have another newsletter out by Saturday. If not, assume I decided not to come back. 😄
One ask
If any of the above is useful, forward this to one peer who'd want it. Email me at marc@firmlever.com if you have something interesting our members would find helpful -- get it in front of over 1,000 firm owners who read this weekly.
If you're reading this from a forward and not in the Network yet -- line skip works the same way. Get invited by a current member, or apply directly.
That's it for week #50 of this newsletter.
Marc
Founder, FirmLever
P.S. - Only if you really love this newsletter--if you share on LinkedIn and tag me, I'd appreciate you helping us attract more great firms! 🙏
