How much does a carpenter charge per hour?
Rate surveys put self-employed tradies at roughly $60 to $100 an hour across all trades, with general trades like carpentry usually below the licensed trades in that band. But carpentry has a cost the band hides: it's a quote-heavy trade, and every unbillable quoting hour has to be paid for by the hours you do bill. The going rate is not your rate - yours has to carry your quoting time, your tools and your trailer, and still pay you.
A deck, a pergola, a renovation - carpentry is project work, and project work means quoting. Site visit, measure up, price the timber, write it up, follow it up. Hours of it, for every job you win, and the same hours again for the jobs you don't. None of it appears on an invoice - which is exactly why it has to live in the rate.
The costs a carpenter's rate has to carry
- Quoting time - the defining overhead of project trades. Every hour spent measuring and pricing is an hour you can't bill, funded by the hours you can.
- Tools that wear - saws, blades, bits, batteries and fixings are consumed by the work. Replacement is a running cost, not a one-off.
- Ute and trailer - registration, insurance, fuel and depreciation on the gear that gets materials to site.
- Materials handling and wastage - offcuts, damaged boards, over-ordering. Price it in the materials line or carry it in the rate - somewhere deliberate.
- Insurance and the quiet weeks - public liability, income protection if you carry it, and the fortnights between projects that the busy fortnights have to fund.
The rate you charge isn't the rate you keep
Out of every billed hour you're also covering super, your own pay and all of the above, before a cent of profit. A rate that looks fine against the market can still leave you behind once your real costs come out. Busy and broke usually means the rate was set from the market, not from the costs.
Build your rate from your numbers
The method is four lines of arithmetic. As a worked example - these are illustration figures, not market data; put your own numbers in:
- Yearly overhead - say $28,000: ute and trailer running costs, insurance, tools and blades, phone, software.
- Your pay plus super - say $85,000 wages, plus 12% super = $95,200.
- Divide by billable hours - say 1,050 hours you can actually invoice in a year, because quoting eats the rest. ($28,000 + $95,200) / 1,050 = about $117 an hour just to break even on those numbers.
- Add a margin - 10% on top brings it to about $129 an hour (ex GST).
Change any input and the answer moves - that's the point. Your overhead, your wage, your billable hours: your rate.
Work out your real hourly rate
Fixed-price jobs still need an hourly rate
Most carpentry is quoted as a fixed price, not an hourly rate - which tempts people into skipping the rate question entirely. But a fixed price is just your hours multiplied by a rate, plus materials, whether you did that sum consciously or not. If you never set the rate, the market sets it for you - and the market doesn't know your costs. Work out the rate first, then let it price your fixed quotes.
Sources Average hourly rates: ServiceSeeking tradie rate data. Super guarantee rate (12%): Australian Taxation Office. Employee award baseline: Fair Work Ombudsman (Building and Construction Award pay guide). Worked example figures are illustrations only.
Straight answers.
Why does a quote-heavy trade like carpentry need a higher rate than it looks?
Because project work means quoting, and quoting is unbillable. Site visits, measuring, pricing materials and writing the quote consume hours per job won - and the jobs you don't win cost the same hours for nothing. All of that time is paid for by the hours you do bill.
Should materials wastage be in my hourly rate or my materials price?
Either works - what loses money is neither. Offcuts, damaged boards and over-ordering are real costs. Price materials with a wastage allowance, or carry a handling margin in the rate, but put it somewhere deliberate rather than absorbing it.
I was on wages - can I just charge my old hourly rate plus a bit?
No - as an employee your wage was the smaller part of what you cost the business. On your own you now carry the super, leave, quiet weeks, ute and trailer, insurance, tools, and every unbillable quoting hour. Build the rate from your own costs, not your old payslip.