Pricing a trade business isn't guesswork - it's a build-up. This guide walks through what to charge per hour, how to price a job, how to mark up materials, and what you must bill just to break even.
Before you can set a rate, you need to know what each hour of work actually costs your business - not just your wage, but every dollar it takes to keep the business running: vehicle, tools, insurance, phone, admin, and the unbillable hours spent quoting, travelling, and chasing invoices.
Divide your total weekly costs by the number of hours you bill in a week. That's the overhead each billable hour has to recover before you make a dollar.
Use the hourly rate calculator to see what you actually keep per hour
The right way to set a charge-out rate is to build it up from what an hour of work costs you - wage, super, overhead share, and a profit margin on top. Picking a number because “that's what the market charges” means you might be undercharging without knowing it, or overcharging in a way you can't defend.
The wage figure is pre-filled from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Employee earnings release (August 2025) - a median employee wage, not a charge-out rate - and super uses the ATO's 12% guarantee rate; both are just starting points you should edit to your own numbers.
Use the charge-out rate builder to build your rate from the ground up
Your hourly rate tells you what you need per hour. Pricing a job means counting all the hours honestly - not just the hands-on work, but the quote, the travel, the supplier run, and any callbacks. The jobs that look the same on the invoice can pay very differently once you count the real time.
Use the job profit calculator to see what a specific job actually made you
Materials aren't a pass-through. Sourcing, carrying, and managing materials takes your time, ties up your cash, and exposes you to pricing changes. A markup covers that cost. The trap is confusing markup and margin - a 20% markup is only a 16.7% margin on the sale price, so many tradies are leaving more on the table than they realise.
Use the markup vs margin calculator to find the markup you actually need
Before you make any profit, there's a floor - the minimum you need to bill in a week to cover your overheads and your own pay. Knowing that number makes it easier to decide which jobs to take, which to pass on, and what happens to the business in a slow week.
Use the weekly breakeven calculator to find your floor
figrd applies all of this on every quote - charge-out rate, job costs, markup - using your actual running costs and live fuel and travel, so the number you send a customer always reflects what the business needs.
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