Tradies Success Academy gives you the frameworks, systems, and coaching to build a business that works without you.
Most trade business owners set their prices once — usually when they started — and have not revisited the structure since. They added a margin to materials, guessed at labour rates, and hoped the numbers worked. For a sole trader, that might survive. For a business with staff, vehicles, insurance, and overheads, guessing at pricing is the fastest way to go broke while staying busy.
Pricing is not a single number. It is a structure. And that structure has specific elements that must be calculated, not estimated. When Greg Allan built Response Electricians, pricing was one of the first systems locked in — because every other decision in the business depends on it. Hiring decisions, job selection, growth targets — all of them require accurate pricing as a foundation.
The Australian trade industry has a margin problem. According to the ABS, the average net profit margin for trade businesses sits between 8-12%. That means for every $100 of revenue, owners are keeping $8-12 before they pay themselves. If your pricing structure is off by even 5%, you are working for free on half your jobs.
Element 1: True Labour Cost. This is not your hourly rate. It is the fully loaded cost of having a person on a job — wages, super, leave, workers comp, vehicle, fuel, phone, uniform, training. Most trade business owners undercount labour cost by 30-40%. If you are paying someone $35/hour, they are costing you $55-65/hour when you include everything.
Element 2: Overhead Recovery. Your rent, insurance, admin staff, software, marketing — these costs exist whether you do one job or a hundred. They must be recovered through your pricing. Divide total monthly overheads by total billable hours to get your overhead recovery rate. If you do not know this number, you are flying blind.
Element 3: Materials Margin. Materials are not a pass-through. You are sourcing, ordering, transporting, storing, and managing materials. That takes time and carries risk. A materials margin of 15-25% is standard, not greedy. If you are quoting materials at cost, you are subsidising your customers.
Element 4: Profit Margin. This is the money the business keeps after all costs. Not your wage — the business profit. Target 15-20% net. If your pricing does not include a deliberate profit margin, you do not have a business. You have a job with higher overheads.
Element 5: Risk and Complexity Loading. Not all jobs are equal. Difficult access, tight timelines, complex compliance, new clients — these all carry risk. Your price should reflect that risk. A flat rate across all jobs means you are overcharging easy work and undercharging hard work.
If you cannot tell me your overhead recovery rate right now, your pricing is a guess. And guessing is not a business strategy.
A pricing system is not a spreadsheet you fill in once. It is a repeatable process that every person in your business who quotes work can follow. The system should produce consistent, profitable prices regardless of who is doing the quoting.
Start with your numbers. Calculate your true labour cost per hour. Calculate your overhead recovery rate. Set your target profit margin. These three numbers form the foundation of every quote your business produces. If you do not know them, stop quoting until you do.
Then build the quoting template. Every quote should include labour (at true cost plus margin), materials (at cost plus margin), overheads (recovered per hour), and profit. When you can see these elements broken out, you can make informed decisions about which jobs to take, which to walk away from, and where your real money is being made.
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This episode applies differently depending on your business stage. Here is the specific action for each phase.
Get weekly financial visibility in place before anything else. 30 minutes every Friday: what came in, what went out, what is your margin. Build the habit first, then layer systems on top. Start in the Learning Hub .
Your first hire for freedom is a qualified tradesperson, not an apprentice. Cost every job before you quote. Track hours against every job. Follow the scaling loop — proactive hiring, never reactive.
Delegate the weekly numbers review to your operations manager. Your job is now strategy and work generation. Systemise the Financial Visibility Loop so it runs without you.
Dashboards, not spreadsheets. Margins tracked per job, per team, per division. Hire decisions backed by data. You are optimising a machine, not building one. If you are still firefighting, the system is broken.
This episode applies differently depending on your business stage. Here is the specific action for each phase.
Get weekly financial visibility in place before anything else. 30 minutes every Friday: what came in, what went out, what is your margin. Build the habit first, then layer systems on top. Start in the Learning Hub.
Your first hire for freedom is a qualified tradesperson, not an apprentice. Cost every job before you quote. Track hours against every job. Follow the scaling loop — proactive hiring, never reactive.
Delegate the weekly numbers review to your operations manager. Your job is now strategy and work generation. Systemise the Financial Visibility Loop so it runs without you.
Dashboards, not spreadsheets. Margins tracked per job, per team, per division. Hire decisions backed by data. You are optimising a machine, not building one. If you are still firefighting, the system is broken.
The frameworks in this episode are the same ones members use inside Tradies Success Academy.