TradesCarpenters

Build a Carpentry Business That Pays You ProperlyYou can frame, fix out and hang a door dead level. Nobody taught you the business side.

This is for carpentry business owners who are still on the tools. Whether you subby to builders or go direct to homeowners, everything here is about running the business properly: pricing, systems, crew and getting paid on time.

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A painted scene of three carpenters on a slab standing timber wall frames upright, tool belts on, a nail gun and offcuts at their feet

The week this is about

Running A Carpentry Business Looks Like This.

The quote you did at 9pm after a full day

You framed all day, drove home, ate dinner, then sat down to price a deck and pergola job off a rough sketch. You guessed the labour, guessed the hardware, and sent it before you fell asleep. That guess is your margin for the next six weeks.

Chasing a builder for a claim you lodged weeks ago

The frame is up, the builder signed off, and your progress claim is still sitting unpaid. You ring, he says the bank has not released the draw. Meanwhile your apprentice needs paying Thursday and the timber account is due.

Every job needs you standing on it

You cannot put the second fix on anyone else because nobody sets out skirting and architraves the way you want it. So you run the frame, then the fixout, then the site clean, and the quoting waits until the weekend again.

Another year of this and you still own a job, not a business: same day rate, same weekend quoting, same builder deciding when you get paid.

A trade business owner working alone at the kitchen table late at night, laptop open and paperwork spread across the table, work boots and tool bag by the door

How we help

Nine Ways We Help Carpenters.

Every one of these is a way carpentry business owners get out from under the business and start running it properly. Start wherever it hurts most.

Training

Carpenter Business Training

Structured training that turns what carpenters know on the tools into a business that runs properly.

Coaching

Carpenter Business Coach

Greg Allan in your corner, holding carpenters to the plan. By application.

Systems

Carpenter Business Systems

Systems carpenters build on their own data, so the work runs properly without them standing there.

Software

Carpenter Business Software

Software carpenters build on their own data, instead of renting tools built for every trade at once.

Business apps

Carpenter Business Apps

The simple screens carpenters build for their crew and customers, on their own data.

AI for Carpentry Businesses

AI agents that do the office work for carpenters, their way, so people stay on customers and the crew.

Marketing and leads

Carpenter Business Marketing

How carpenters get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.

Pricing and profit

Carpenter Business Pricing

The number carpenters should actually be charging, worked out properly rather than guessed.

Hiring and team

Carpenter Business Hiring

How carpenters build a crew that does it right without being watched.

A trade business owner watching his child play sport on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand and phone face down — Nights and weekends back

A trade business owner and his partner in the kitchen looking at a tablet showing the numbers going up — Work that actually pays

A trade business owner shaking hands with a new apprentice in the work yard — A good hire who stays

A trade business owner standing calmly in the yard while his crew load two utes behind him — Out of the middle of everything

Worth knowing

Two Things Every Carpenter Running A Business Should Know.

Licence thresholds are not national: carpentry work needs a licence over $3,300 in Queensland, $5,000 in NSW, $10,000 in Victoria, $20,000 in WA, and at any value in South Australia.

Source: QBCC, NSW Fair Trading, VBA, wa.gov.au and Consumer and Business Services SA

A carpenter on site attracts an industry allowance of $64.10 a week and a tool allowance of $38.60 a week on top of the base rate for their classification.

Source: Fair Work Commission, Building and Construction General On-site Award MA000020

Greg Allan mid-explanation with his hands open, talking to a trade business owner across a desk

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.

Read how Greg built a trade business that runs without him

What changes for you

The old way. The new way.

Illustration: a trade business owner standing over three office staff buried in paperwork at night. — The old way
More customers meant more people doing the computer work, and more wages nobody invoices.

Illustration: a tradesman shaking hands with a homeowner in her driveway, his phone showing jobs quoted and invoiced. — The new way
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.

9,000+tradies trained4.9★Google rating4.9★App Store rating

Questions

Carpenters Ask Us These.

Do I need a licence to run a carpentry business in my state?

It depends on where you contract. Queensland triggers at $3,300 of contracted work, New South Wales at $5,000, Victoria at $10,000 and Western Australia at $20,000. South Australia licenses any contracted building work. New Zealand has no dollar threshold: carpentry sits under the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme for Restricted Building Work. Check your regulator, then use the Learning Hub to build the business behind the licence.

Should I subby to builders or go direct to homeowners?

Both work, and most carpentry businesses run a mix. Subbying to builders gives steady volume and less selling, but the builder sets the rate, the schedule and the payment terms. Direct work carries better margin, and you carry the marketing and the quoting.

Do I have to pay super to a carpenter who invoices me on an ABN?

Often yes. The ATO treats a contract that is wholly or principally for a person's labour as one where super is payable, and having an ABN does not change that. Get it wrong across a crew of subbies and the shortfall compounds quietly. Check each arrangement against the ATO guidance, then build the real cost into your rates. Working with Greg walks owners through that maths.

When does a carpentry business need a written contract?

Sooner than most owners think. In New South Wales a small jobs contract applies from $5,000 and a large jobs contract from $20,000. In Queensland the QBCC sets level 1 domestic building contracts from $3,300 and level 2 from $20,000. Below those numbers a written scope still protects you. The Learning Hub covers the contract and variation process.

Straight answers

Answers for Carpenters.

A new question from carpentry business owners, answered every day.

What should I look for in a carpenter business coach?

Every answer for carpenters

Other trades

See all twelve trades

A painted scene of a trade business owner home before dark, sitting on the tray of his ute while his son runs to meet him

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