TradesBuildersPricing and profit
Builder Business PricingTurnover has never been higher. So why is there nothing left at the end of the job?
Pricing for builders: margin versus markup, what your overheads actually cost, how to price a fixed price contract that survives twelve months of escalation, and when a cost-plus contract is the right call. The maths that decides whether your building company survives.
The week this is about
Sound Like Your Building Business?
You are adding a margin you inherited
Someone told you builders run twenty percent, so that is what you put on. You have never worked out what your overheads, your ute, your supervisor and your office actually cost per job, or whether that number covers them.
Margin and markup are not the same number
A twenty percent margin needs a twenty five percent markup on cost. If you have been adding twenty percent to your costs and calling it your margin, you have been short on every job you have ever priced.
The fixed price does not move but your costs do
You signed in autumn and you are pouring in spring. Frame, windows and labour have all moved. Prime cost and provisional sums were set on last year's numbers, and the client is not interested in absorbing any of it.
Under-pricing does not show up on the job you are building now, it shows up eighteen months later when the overdraft will not stretch to the next slab.
Pricing and profit
Here Is What We Do About It.
The Profitable Pricing Masterclass fixes the maths: margin versus markup, overhead recovery, what to load onto direct costs. The Profit & Freedom Masterclass takes it further into what the business has to earn to pay you properly. Pricing training in the Learning Hub and Greg hold the new numbers in place when a client pushes back.
Free tool, no sign-up
Charge-out rate calculator
Put in what labour costs you, how many hours you can actually invoice and what the business spends, and it builds the rate that covers all of it and leaves a margin. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Work out your rateHow it works
Three Steps, Starting Tonight.
Work out what an hour really costs you
Not the wage. The wage plus the ute, the insurance, the phone, the unbilled hours and the time you spend quoting. Most owners have never put that number on paper.
Price off the number, not off the last bloke
The Profitable Pricing Masterclass takes you through building a rate that carries your overheads and a margin, so you stop pricing against whoever is cheapest this month.
Hold the price and watch what happens
The Profit and Freedom Masterclass covers the part nobody warns you about: what to do when someone pushes back, and why losing the wrong job is a win.
Why Greg
You speak to the owner who has already done it.
Greg built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with 1,950+ five-star reviews. A general manager runs it.
He has trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.
He grew a coaching company to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches, then cut it back so every owner deals with him directly.
Most coaching companies hand you to a salesperson, then to a coach who has never run a trade business. Here you get the owner.
What changes for you
The old way. The new way.
More customers meant more people doing the computer work, and more wages nobody invoices.
You stay with your customers and your team. The office stops landing on you.
The old way
More jobs. More paperwork. Less of the owner left.
Most trade businesses grow the same way.
More jobs means more quoting, invoicing, chasing and scheduling.
None of it gets paid for.
So the owner does it at night, after a full day on site.
Or hires an office person to do it.
The office grows. The wages grow. The margin does not.
And the owner is still the one everything waits on.
Where we take you
More work. More profit. More of you left.
The phone rings with the jobs you want, at the price you set.
You grow when you're ready, never faster than the business can carry.
Every job is priced to make money, so the busy months show up in the bank.
The best tradies in your area want to work for you, and they stay.
The chasing, the paperwork and the 9pm admin stop landing on you.
The business runs the day. You pick which parts of it you're in.
Bigger, without the headaches. Getting bigger stops meaning getting busier.
What changes
What Building Business Pricing Actually Changes.
Three things building business owners walk away able to do.
Work out the markup your overheads and profit actually require, job by job
Price a fixed price contract with escalation, prime cost and provisional sums covered
Know before you sign whether a build will make money or quietly cost you
Questions
Builder Business Pricing, Answered.
What margin should an Australian builder be running?
Is builders margin the same as markup?
Why do builders with plenty of work still go broke?
Builders
The Other Ways We Help Builders.
Builder Business Training
Structured training that turns what builders know on the tools into a business that runs properly.
CoachingBuilder Business Coach
Greg Allan in your corner, holding builders to the plan. By application.
SystemsBuilder Business Systems
Systems builders build on their own data, so the work runs properly without them standing there.
SoftwareBuilder Business Software
Software builders build on their own data, instead of renting tools built for every trade at once.
Business appsBuilder Business Apps
The simple screens builders build for their crew and customers, on their own data.
AIAI for Building Businesses
AI agents that do the office work for builders, their way, so people stay on customers and the crew.
Marketing and leadsBuilder Business Marketing
How builders get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.
Hiring and teamBuilder Business Hiring
How builders build a crew that does it right without being watched.
Join the Waitlist to Work With Greg.
The Crew, daily Q&A and starter courses. Free for trade business owners. No card, no trial clock.
The Academy is at full capacity. Join the waitlist and when a place opens, Greg interviews the owners who look like the right fit.