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 in Australia and New Zealand 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.

Have a chat with Greg

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

Seven 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 Coaching

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

Systems

Carpenter Business Systems

The documented process that lets the work happen properly when carpenters are not standing there.

The free app

Carpenter Business App

Lessons, tools and a room full of other owners, free for carpenters with an active ABN.

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

Why you get me

I built the coaching company everyone else runs. Then I took it apart.

Most coaching companies work the same way. You enquire, you get a salesperson. You sign up, you get a coach who has never run a trade business.

I know, because I built one. I grew the Academy to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches. It ran without me.

And I hated it. The bigger it got, the further I was from the owners I started it for.

What gets me up in the morning is getting under the hood of a trade business and helping the owner hit their goals in the least time possible.

So I restructured the whole thing.

When you enquire, you speak to me. If you are accepted into the Academy, you work with me. Directly.

And with agentic AI, the results come sooner than most owners can imagine.

Places are limited. I only take on owners who are committed and ready to do the work.

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

Who you will be talking to

I built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with more than 1,950+ five-star reviews.

A general manager runs it day to day. I live in Byron Bay.

I have trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.

What AI actually changes

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 your computer work, and you paying for all of it.

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. Agents run the office your way.

The old way

Grow, then hire people to do the computer work.

Every new customer brought more quoting, invoicing, chasing, scheduling and reporting.

So you hired people to do it. Office staff, bookkeepers, admin.

None of it is billable, and every hire costs wages, sick leave and another person to manage.

Profit and time only grew as fast as you could add people.

The new way

Keep the human work. Give everything else to agents.

Your people do what only people can do: looking after customers and leading the team.

Everything else goes to agents that do it your way, instantly, any time it is needed.

No sick leave. No capacity problems. They scale as far as the business does.

So the only people you add are the ones facing your customers and your team.

A human-centred business that runs on systems you build in minutes. Nobody still running the old way can compete with it.

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.

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

Have a Chat With Greg About Your Business.