Deltek Costpoint Alternative: FieldLedger at $149/mo vs $800/mo Costpoint

A Deltek Costpoint alternative is a DCAA-compliant accounting platform built for small federal contractors that delivers the FAR 31.2 indirect rate math, signed timekeeping, and CLIN-level invoicing Costpoint provides — without Costpoint's $800/month entry tier, $15K–$50K implementation, and per-seat licensing. FieldLedger is that alternative at $149/month flat for unlimited users, sized for the 5-to-50 person SDVOSB, 8(a), and HUBZone contractor whose federal revenue sits between $1M and $20M.

If you run a 15-to-40 person federal contractor, Costpoint is probably eating 30 to 40 percent of your software spend. You got told it was the industry standard. Your prime uses it. Your consultant recommended it. Three years in, you've paid $30K in consulting, you have three unused seats, and the UI still looks like it's 2008.

You don't need a full ERP. You need DCAA-compliant cost accounting. Those are different things, and you're paying for the first when you only need the second.

This is the honest comparison. When Costpoint wins, when it doesn't, and what the TCO actually looks like over three years.

Why Costpoint became the default

Deltek Costpoint ships with everything a $50M-plus federal contractor needs: full general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchase orders, multi-company, multi-currency, project profitability by project manager, budget-to-actual variance reporting, and direct integration with Deltek Vantage for procurement. It has been the reference implementation for federal cost accounting compliance for two decades. Primes recognize it. Auditors recognize it. You can hire staff who already know it.

That's the pitch. And for firms doing $50M-plus in federal revenue, it still holds up.

The problem is that Deltek sells the same product to a 20-person SDVOSB with $3M in federal revenue. Same complexity. Same consulting bill. Same per-seat licensing. For that size of contractor, 80 percent of Costpoint is unused weight.

The Costpoint entry-tier price nobody talks about

The Deltek Costpoint entry point is often $800 per month for a 10-user license, but that quote hides a 12–16 week implementation timeline, a $15–50K consulting bill for initial setup, and the expectation that you'll hire a dedicated Costpoint admin. For a 20-person federal contractor, you're looking at $800/mo + $2,500/mo admin resource + customization lag. FieldLedger is $149/month flat, unlimited users, designed for that exact contractor size, with a 10-day ramp.

Here's what the $800/month actually buys you: base license access. Not training. Not setup. Not integration with your GL. Not customization to your rate structure. Not the Vantage connector if you need AP/procurement. Each of those is a separate line item, billed by a Deltek-certified consultant at $200 to $350 per hour.

The consulting bill is where the number moves. Typical Costpoint Essentials implementation for a 20-person contractor:

• Initial setup and chart of accounts mapping: $8K to $15K
• Rate pool configuration and testing: $4K to $10K
• Timekeeping rollout and training: $3K to $8K
• Custom reports for your specific contracts: $5K to $15K
• Vantage GL integration (if needed): $10K to $20K

You're looking at $30K on the low end before the first employee enters a timesheet. Annually, expect $5K to $15K in ongoing Deltek-certified consulting for rate year-end, audit prep, and whatever broke in the last release.

Integration lock-in is the real tax

The hidden cost of Costpoint is integration lock-in. The system is designed to flow into Deltek Vantage (the GL and AR platform). If you use QuickBooks Online for GL instead, you're building custom connectors or hiring a consultant. FieldLedger is built for that reverse scenario — cost accounting + timekeeping flows out to QuickBooks Online (native OAuth sync), or to any standard accounting system via CSV export.

This is the trap. You buy Costpoint for DCAA compliance. Two years later you realize you also need Deltek's AP module, or Deltek's proposal pricing module, or Deltek Talent Management. Each module is another license, another consulting engagement, another integration. By the time you've bought the full Deltek stack, you're at $2K to $4K per month and you can't leave without a migration project.

FieldLedger is the inverse bet. We do cost accounting. We don't do GL, AP, or CRM. QuickBooks Online does your GL for $35 per month. HubSpot does your CRM. Gusto or ADP does payroll. Each of those is best-of-breed, swappable, and cheaper than the equivalent Deltek module. If you outgrow FieldLedger at $30M-plus federal revenue, you export your data and move. No ten-year lock-in.

Per-seat licensing punishes growth

Per-seat licensing in Costpoint means every hire is a new cost center. You're optimizing for small teams to stay small. FieldLedger's flat-fee model (unlimited users) inverts that incentive: you can hire, and your software cost stays $149/month. At 10 employees it costs $14.90 per user; at 25 employees, $5.96 per user.

Think about what that means in practice. You win a new contract that requires five field supervisors and two project managers. In Costpoint, that's seven new seats. If you're at the 10-user Essentials tier, you're bumping to the 15 or 20 user tier — which is a price jump, not a linear add. Plus admin time to provision them. Plus more consulting to configure their access.

In FieldLedger, you add them from the dashboard in 90 seconds. Your bill doesn't change.

Feature-by-feature comparison

Capability	Deltek Costpoint Essentials	FieldLedger
Starting price	$800/mo (10 users)	$149/mo flat
Per-user cost at 25 employees	~$80/user/mo (tier bump)	$5.96/user/mo
Implementation cost	$15K–$50K consulting	$0 (self-serve, 10-day ramp)
Setup timeline	12–16 weeks	10 days
Annual ongoing consulting	$5K–$15K typical	$0
DCAA-compliant timekeeping	Yes	Yes
Signed period lockdown	Yes	Yes
Full audit trail	Yes	Yes
Indirect rate engine (FAR 31.2)	Yes	Yes (Structure A or B, 14 ASBCA case tests)
USACE EP 1110-1-8 equipment rates	Add-on module	Included
Multi-CLIN federal invoicing	Yes	Yes
ICE Model Schedules (H/I/K/L)	Yes (report customization $$)	Included as CSV export
General ledger	Native	Via QuickBooks Online sync
Accounts payable	Native	Via QBO
Project profitability by PM	Yes (deep)	Basic (cost-to-contract rollup)
Multi-subsidiary / multi-currency	Yes	No
CAS-covered contractor support	Yes	Partial (FAR 31.2 only)
Proposal pricing module	Add-on	No
Resource capacity planning	Add-on	No
UI era	Legacy client-server feel	Modern SaaS
Unlimited users	No (per-seat)	Yes
Contract minimum	12 months typical	Month-to-month
Data export	CSV, custom SQL	CSV, any time

Read the table honestly. Costpoint does more. If you need multi-subsidiary consolidation, deep project profitability by PM, CAS-covered compliance, or a native GL, Costpoint wins. If you need DCAA-compliant cost accounting and federal invoicing, FieldLedger plus QuickBooks Online covers it at 20 percent of the cost.

TCO over three years at 25 people

Here's the math. 25-person federal contractor, $4M federal revenue, three-year view.

Deltek Costpoint Essentials path:

• License (20-user tier, approximate): $1,200/mo x 36 = $43,200
• Initial implementation consulting: $30,000
• Vantage GL integration: $15,000
• Annual ongoing consulting (rate year-end, audit prep): $10,000/yr x 3 = $30,000
• Internal admin time (0.25 FTE at $90K loaded): $22,500/yr x 3 = $67,500
• Three-year total: $185,700

FieldLedger + QuickBooks Online path:

• FieldLedger: $149/mo x 36 = $5,364
• QuickBooks Online Plus: $90/mo x 36 = $3,240
• Implementation consulting: $0
• Annual ongoing consulting: $0
• Internal admin time (0.05 FTE): $4,500/yr x 3 = $13,500
• Three-year total: $22,104

Delta: $163,596 over three years. That's one senior engineer. That's three new pieces of equipment. That's runway.

The best-of-breed stack

What you actually want at sub-$10M federal revenue:

• FieldLedger: timekeeping, indirect rates, equipment costing, federal invoicing, DCAA reports ($149/mo)
• QuickBooks Online: GL, AP, bank reconciliation, 1099s ($90/mo)
• Gusto or ADP RUN: payroll and benefits ($40–$80/employee/mo)
• HubSpot Free or Pipedrive: CRM and proposal tracking ($0–$50/mo)

Total software spend: under $400/month for a 20-person team. Every piece is swappable. Every piece is best-in-class at its job. No single vendor can hold your data hostage.

When Costpoint is still the right answer

Don't switch if any of these apply:

• You're at $25M-plus federal revenue with complex multi-subsidiary structure
• You're CAS-covered (contract over $7.5M triggering Cost Accounting Standards)
• You need native GL because your accounting team refuses to use QuickBooks
• You have three-plus concurrent government contracts requiring deep project profitability reporting by PM
• Your prime contract requires Costpoint specifically (rare but happens)
• You already have a Costpoint admin on staff who won't transition

If you check two or more of those, stay on Costpoint. Upgrade to Premier if you need it. The switching cost isn't worth the savings at your scale.

If you check zero, you're overpaying. Significantly.

Migration path: how to leave Costpoint

The practical mechanics, if you decide to move:

1. Export your master data from Costpoint: employees, projects, CLINs, rate pools, prior-year actuals. CSV is standard. Your consultant can pull this in a day.
2. Lock the final Costpoint period: close out your current rate year in Costpoint. Get the provisional rate letter signed. That's your audit boundary.
3. Stand up QuickBooks Online: if you're not already on it. One-time setup, a few hours with a QBO-literate bookkeeper.
4. Import into FieldLedger: upload your employee CSV, project CSV, and prior-year rate pools. Connect QBO via OAuth (5 minutes).
5. Run parallel for one month: keep Costpoint active for one billing cycle. Enter timesheets in FieldLedger. Reconcile against Costpoint to prove the math matches.
6. Cancel Costpoint: export your full data archive before cancellation. Keep it for seven years per FAR 52.215-2.

The full migration takes four to six weeks including parallel running. Zero consulting required. Your DCAA audit trail is unbroken because you exported the Costpoint records and continued fresh in FieldLedger.

Frequently asked questions

Costpoint does X, Y, Z that FieldLedger doesn't. Isn't that a problem?

Correct. Costpoint is a full ERP. FieldLedger is the cost accounting layer. If you need multi-subsidiary consolidation, deep project profitability by PM, or sophisticated CAS compliance, stay on Costpoint. If you need timekeeping, indirect rates, invoicing, and QBO sync, FieldLedger covers it at a fraction of the cost. Pick based on what you actually use, not what's in the feature list.

Will we lose functionality if we leave Costpoint?

Yes. You'll lose the native GL and AR integration with Vantage. You'll lose project profitability by PM at the depth Costpoint provides. You'll lose any custom reports your consultant built. You'll gain a modern UI, a 10-day setup, unlimited users, and roughly 80 percent cost savings over three years. The question is whether the functionality you lose is functionality you actually use.

What if we outgrow FieldLedger?

Most contractors outgrow us somewhere between $25M and $30M federal revenue, when multi-subsidiary structures, CAS compliance, or deep project analytics become real needs. When that happens, your data exports as standard CSV. Your rates are computed and documented. Your audit trail is intact. You move to Costpoint, Unanet, or whatever the right fit is at that scale. You'll have saved $150K-plus in the years before the switch. That pays for the migration.

Is FieldLedger actually DCAA-compliant?

No accounting system is "DCAA-approved" — FAR 31.105(d)(3) explicitly prohibits vendors from claiming approval. DCAA audits the contractor, not the software. What DCAA wants to see is signed electronic timekeeping with period lockdown, an indirect rate methodology you can defend, a complete audit trail for every cost entry, and clear segregation of direct and indirect costs. FieldLedger produces all of that. Our FAR 31.2 indirect rate engine passes 14 ASBCA case-law edge tests. Our timekeeping enforces daily entry, signed certification, and reopen justification. Your audit survives on that work product, not a vendor badge.

Do you have a TCO calculator so I can run my own numbers?

Yes. Ping us from the billing page and we'll send the spreadsheet. Input your employee count, current Costpoint tier, annual consulting spend, and we'll show you the three-year delta. Most 20-to-40 person contractors save $100K-plus over three years.

We're mid-contract with Deltek. Can we switch?

Yes, but time the move to your renewal window. Most Deltek contracts auto-renew 30 to 60 days before expiry — mark that date and send cancellation notice. In the meantime, set up FieldLedger, run parallel, and be ready to fully cut over when Costpoint stops. You don't want overlapping billing months.

What about data security and audit defense during migration?

All FieldLedger data is encrypted at rest (AES-256), tokens are stored in Azure Key Vault, and every write is logged to an immutable audit log with actor, timestamp, and IP. Soft deletes only — nothing is hard-deleted, ever, per DCAA retention requirements. You export your complete audit trail as CSV any time. If DCAA shows up mid-migration, you have the Costpoint archive plus the FieldLedger audit log. Both sides of the boundary are defensible.

The short version

Costpoint was built for $50M-plus federal contractors with dedicated Deltek administrators and multi-subsidiary structures. You probably aren't that. You're a 20-person SDVOSB or 8(a) doing $3M-to-$8M in federal revenue, and you need DCAA-compliant cost accounting, not a full ERP.

FieldLedger does the cost accounting layer — timekeeping, indirect rates, equipment, invoicing, DCAA reports — for $149 per month, flat, unlimited users. Pair it with QuickBooks Online for your GL. Total stack runs under $400 per month. You keep your audit trail, cut software spend by 80 percent, and keep your options open for when you actually outgrow the tooling.

We made the same call ourselves. Startvest, the SDVOSB behind FieldLedger, runs federal contracts, so we built the thing we wanted to use. No consulting upsell, no per-seat fees, no ten-year lock-in.

Next steps

• See the structured FieldLedger vs Costpoint comparison — at-a-glance table of segment, pricing, deployment, DCAA approach, and integration footprint.
• Start a 14-day free trial — no credit card, unlimited users, full feature access.
• See how the Indirect Rate Engine works — FAR 31.2 Structure A or B with 14 ASBCA case tests baked in.
• Read the DCAA overview — what DCAA actually audits and how FieldLedger's work product holds up.

Or come back to the homepage for the full product picture. If you're mid-Costpoint renewal and want a second opinion on the math, email us from the billing page — we'll run your TCO numbers against your current setup and send them back within a day.