Polling nearly 250 executives who represent both U.S. publicly held companies and private companies, along with some non-profit organizations and foreign companies, the survey found that publicly held companies paid an average $3.3 million in total audit fees for fiscal 2010, an increase of 2% from the audit fees that these same respondents paid for the prior fiscal year audit.

Private company respondents reported an average fee of $222,300 in 2010, essentially the same amount that they paid for audits in the previous year. The average public company was billed for about 12,540 hours of audit work in 2010. Audits for private companies averaged about 3,394 hours.

"Public and private companies are continuing to demonstrate overall comfort with the external audit process, and we see the fact that there are no particular surprises in fees and hours as a strong indicator of their understanding and solid relationships with their auditor," said FEI President and CEO Marie Hollein.

Overall, financial executives cited internal audit staff work, and changes in company operations as some of their primary reasons for the difference in fees.