Tradie Charge-Out Rate Calculator
The number on the quote is never your wage divided by your hours.
Work out the hourly rate that actually covers your wage, your own super, your business overheads and a profit — spread across the hours you can genuinely bill, and shown ex-GST (with the inc-GST invoice rate too). It's a formula, not a market price: it tells you the floor your rate can't drop below, so you can check it against what your trade actually charges.
Worked from a typical solo-tradie example — your own wage, overheads, billable hours and margin change the number.
How the charge-out rate is worked out
Wage + super + overheads, over the hours you can bill, plus a margin
The rate is built from the bottom up, not picked off a survey. Add the wage you want to earn, the super you owe yourself and your business overheads to get the revenue you have to make. Divide that by the hours you can actually invoice for your break-even rate. Then add a profit margin — because break-even keeps the lights on but doesn't reward the risk of working for yourself. The margin is a share of revenue, so it's divided, not multiplied:
rate = (wage + super + overheads) ÷ billable hours ÷ (1 − margin), quoted ex-GST
Worked example
A tradie who wants a $90,000 wage adds $10,800 of super (12% of the wage) and $24,000 of overheads — $124,800 of revenue to make. Spread over 1,196 billable hours that's a break-even rate of $104.35/hr. Adding a 15% margin ($104.35 ÷ 0.85) gives $122.76/hr ex-GST — the number to put on the quote. If they're registered for GST, the homeowner's invoice shows $135.04/hr inc-GST. Divide the same $90,000 by the ~1,840 hours actually worked and you'd get $48.91/hr — which is why that sum never works.
Billable hours — the number that changes everything
The hours you work and the hours you can bill are two very different numbers, and the gap between them is the single biggest reason tradies underprice. Every hour spent quoting, invoicing, chasing payment, picking up materials, travelling between jobs or doing the books is real work — but you can't put it on a client's invoice.
- Worked hours — 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, minus about 6 weeks off, is roughly 1,840 hours a year on the job.
- Billable share — only about 65–75% of that is billable once quoting, travel and admin are taken out. At 65% of 1,840, that's about 1,196 billable hours.
- Leave isn't a separate cost — annual leave, sick days and public holidays simply mean fewer billable hours, so they're funded by a higher rate, not charged as an extra line.
Set your working week at the Standard level and the calculator works billable hours out for you (it makes the field read-only so the two can't disagree). Halve your billable share or drop a day a week and watch the rate jump — because the same fixed costs now have to be recovered over fewer invoiced hours.
Overheads, super, tax & GST
Overheads
These are the costs of being in business at all, whether or not you win a job. For a typical solo tradie they add up to around $24,000 a year:
- Public liability and tool insurance
- The vehicle — finance or depreciation, fuel, rego, servicing
- Tools, replacements and consumables
- Phone, internet and job-management or quoting software
- Accounting and bookkeeping
- Trade licences, registrations and professional memberships
Super
As a sole trader nobody pays your super but you. The super guarantee is 12%, so to match an employee's package you'd put 12% of your wage aside — $10,800 on a $90,000 wage, about $9 on every billable hour.
Tax & GST
Once your turnover passes $75,000 a year you must register for GST and add 10% to consumer invoices; the GST isn't yours — you pass it to the ATO on your BAS and claim back the GST on your purchases. And if the figure you typed is what you want to keep rather than a pre-tax wage, switch to take-home mode: the calculator grosses it up using the ATO 2025-26 resident tax brackets (plus the 2% Medicare levy), which is why a take-home target needs a noticeably higher rate.
❓ Frequently asked Frequently asked questions
What hourly rate should a tradie charge?
Enough to cover the wage you want, your own super, your business overheads and a profit — spread across the hours you can actually bill. Take a $90,000 wage, 12% super ($10,800) and $24,000 of overheads: that's $124,800 to recover over about 1,196 billable hours, or $104.35/hr just to break even. Add a 15% margin and you get about $122.76/hr ex-GST. Published Australian trade rates broadly run $80–150/hr ex-GST, but that's the market, not your costs — this tool works out your floor.
Why isn't it just my wage divided by my hours?
Because you don't bill every hour you work, and your wage isn't your only cost. A tradie who works about 1,840 hours a year but only bills roughly 1,196 of them can't just divide $90,000 by the hours worked — that gives $48.91/hr, which covers nothing but the wage and ignores super, overheads and profit. You have to divide the full cost of running the business by the hours you can actually invoice.
How many hours a year can I actually bill?
Far fewer than you work. Quoting, invoicing, chasing payment, buying materials, travel between jobs and admin all eat into the week and none of it is billable. A solo tradie on the tools 5 days a week typically works around 1,840 hours a year but bills only about 1,000–1,300 of them — a billable share of roughly 65–75%. Annual leave, sick days and public holidays lower billable hours further; they're funded by a higher rate, not charged as a separate line.
Do I include my own super?
Yes. As a sole trader nobody pays your super but you, so if you want the equivalent of an employee's package you have to fund it from your rate. At the 12% super guarantee rate, super on a $90,000 wage is $10,800 a year — about $9 on every billable hour. Leaving it out means quietly working for less than an employee doing the same job. It's optional in the calculator, but including it is the honest number.
Is the rate with or without GST?
The calculated rate is ex-GST — that's the convention for quoting trade work. Once your turnover passes $75,000 a year you must register for GST and add 10% on top when you invoice, so a $122.76/hr ex-GST rate becomes $135.04/hr on a homeowner's bill. The GST isn't your income; you collect it and pass it to the ATO on your BAS, claiming back the GST on your business purchases. Quote ex-GST to other businesses and show the inc-GST figure to consumers.
How do I work out the rate for a take-home target?
Switch to take-home mode at the Detailed level. If $90,000 is what you want after tax rather than before, the calculator grosses it up using the 2025-26 resident tax brackets (plus the 2% Medicare levy if selected): earning $90,000 net means about $118,800 before tax. Run that larger wage through the same stack — super, overheads, billable hours and margin — and the rate rises to roughly $154.50/hr ex-GST. Tax is the quiet reason take-home targets need much higher rates than they first appear.
Where these figures come from
There's no official "correct" charge-out rate — it's built from your own numbers. But a few inputs in the formula are hard facts, and those come from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO):
- Super guarantee — 12%. The super guarantee rate reached 12% from 1 July 2025; a sole trader isn't obliged to pay it to themselves, but 12% of the wage is what matches an employee's package (source: the ATO).
- GST — 10%, register at $75,000. GST is 10%, and registration is compulsory once annual turnover reaches $75,000; you remit it on your BAS and claim input credits on business purchases (source: the ATO).
- 2025-26 resident tax brackets — used only for the optional take-home gross-up: nil to $18,200, then 16% to $45,000, 30% to $135,000, 37% to $190,000 and 45% above, plus the 2% Medicare levy (source: the ATO).
Everything else is an assumption you control: a solo tradie typically bills about 1,000–1,300 of roughly 1,840 worked hours (a 65–75% billable share), and profit margins of 15–25% are common. For context, published Australian trade charge-out rates broadly span $80–150/hr ex-GST, but they vary widely by trade, location, risk and demand — treat that as a sanity check, not a rate to copy.
Last checked: July 2026. The super, GST and tax figures are current ATO rates for 2025-26. The billable-hours, utilisation, margin and market-rate ranges are indicative and vary by trade and circumstances — this is a planning estimate, not tax or financial advice.
Select the question that matches where you are right now.
The headline number is your charge-out rate ex-GST — the hourly rate that covers your wage, super and overheads across the hours you can bill, with your profit margin on top. The breakdown shows the wage-÷-hours trap, your owner's package, overheads, the break-even rate, the margin you added and the inc-GST invoice rate.
Use it as your floor. Quote at or above it, and if a job forces you below, you now know exactly what you're giving up — your wage, your super, your overheads or your profit.
It's not a market survey or a going rate. It's what your business needs to charge to pay you properly. The market sets the ceiling; this sets the floor.
The break-even rate covers costs but pays no profit. The charge-out rate adds your margin on top — the gap between the two is the reward for the risk of working for yourself.
Four things move the rate the most: what you want to earn, your overheads, how many hours you can bill, and your margin.
The wage you want plus 12% super is the package you're paying yourself. Aim for what an employer would pay for the same skill — then remember the super is on you.
The biggest lever. Fewer billable hours — a shorter week, more travel, more quoting — means the same costs are spread thinner, so each hour must earn more.
Overheads are recovered before you earn a cent; itemise yours honestly rather than guessing. Margin is your profit — 15% is a floor, and higher-risk or specialised trades justify 20–25%.
A few habits keep the number honest and your pricing sustainable.
Track a few real weeks. If quoting and travel are eating more than a third of your time, lower the billable share — an optimistic number quietly underprices every job.
It's the easiest thing to leave out and the one that hurts most. Include the 12% so you're not working for less than the employee you used to be.
Keep your ex-GST rate as the number you reason about, and show homeowners the inc-GST figure so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Your charge-out rate is one piece of running a trade business. Model the rest of it too.
See the profit and markup on a specific quote, not just your hourly floor.
Profit margin calculator →Find the revenue you need before you start making a profit.
Break-even calculator →