Hourly rate calculator for trade businesses
Find out what you're actually making per hour after the cost of running your business.
Everything you pay to keep the business running, whether you're on a job or not.
Your real hourly rate: $53/hr - not $85.
This is a rough guide. figrd does it in the quote builder, using your actual running costs and current fuel and travel for the trip.
Why your charge-out rate isn't your real hourly rate
Every trade business carries costs that eat into the hourly rate you charge customers. The gap between what you charge and what you keep is your overhead - and it's easy to never work it out until tax time, if ever.
A rate that was set by asking around, or by matching what the last boss charged, carries none of your own numbers in it. This page puts them back in.
How this calculator works
It takes three numbers: the hourly rate you charge, what it costs to run your business each week, and how long a typical job takes. The method is deliberately simple, and it's the same arithmetic whether you're a sparkie, a plumber or a landscaper:
- Overhead per hour = weekly running costs divided by a 38-hour working week - the standard full-time week under the National Employment Standards. Inside figrd you set your own hours, and costs are spread over the hours you can actually bill rather than every hour you work.
- Real hourly rate = your charge-out rate minus overhead per hour. This is the pool your own pay, tax and profit all come out of.
- Margin = real rate as a percentage of the charge-out rate. The result shows green above 50%, amber between 25% and 50%, and red below 25%.
Those thresholds aren't an industry rule - they're the signal this tool uses. Under 25% means most of every charged hour is going to running the business, which leaves very little for quiet weeks, warranty work or a wage that reflects your licence.
A worked example
Using the calculator's starting numbers as an illustration: a charge-out rate of $85 an hour and running costs of $1,200 a week. Spread over a 38-hour week, $1,200 is about $32 of overhead per hour. That leaves a real rate of about $53 an hour - a margin of roughly 63%, which shows green.
On a two-hour call-out at that rate, the customer pays $170, about $63 of it goes to running the business, and about $107 is left before tax and your own pay. If the same business charged $65 an hour instead, the real rate would drop to about $33 - and the same call-out would leave about $67. The costs don't care what you charge; they come out either way.
What belongs in weekly running costs
Count everything it costs to be available for work, whether or not a customer is paying that day. Divide annual bills by 52:
- Vehicle: rego, insurance, fuel, servicing, tyres, finance.
- Tools and equipment, including replacing what wears out.
- Licences and cards - they vary a lot by trade and state, and our licence-cost guide breaks down the annual figures.
- Insurance: public liability, income protection if you carry it.
- Phone, software, accounting and bookkeeping.
- Your own super - the guarantee rate is 12% of earnings since 1 July 2025, and nobody pays it for you.
Where a quick number falls short
This calculator spreads your costs across every working hour. In a real week, some of those hours are quoting, driving and paperwork - hours nobody pays for - so each billable hour has to carry more than its share. If half your week is unbillable, your true overhead per billable hour is roughly double what a flat spread shows. Treat the result here as the optimistic floor, not the ceiling.
figrd runs the same calculation in the quote builder, using your actual costs and current fuel and travel figures. To see what a single job really made you, try the job profit calculator, or read how much tradies charge per hour for sourced market rates by trade.
Common questions
Why isn't my charge-out rate my real hourly rate?
Because overhead - vehicle, tools, insurance, admin, and unbillable time - comes out of what you charge before you keep anything. The money you invoice has to cover all of those costs first.
What counts as overhead in a trade business?
Overhead includes everything it costs to be available for work: vehicle running costs, tools and equipment, insurance, licences, phone and admin time, and any hours spent quoting, travelling, or waiting that you can't bill a customer for.
Why does unbillable time matter so much to my real rate?
Because every hour you spend on quoting, driving, or doing admin is an hour you're not billing. Those hours still cost your business money, so they reduce what each billable hour is actually worth.
Should I include GST in the rate I enter?
No. Enter your rate and costs excluding GST if you're registered. The GST you add to invoices is collected for the ATO, not income - including it makes your rate look better than it is.
What do tradies charge per hour in Australia?
Common charge-out rates sit in a band of roughly $60 to $100 an hour, varying by trade, state and job type. What matters more than the going rate is whether your rate covers your costs - that's what this calculator shows.