TradesPlumbersPricing and profit
Plumber Business PricingBusy all year and still short at BAS time means the price is wrong, not the workload.
Pricing for plumbing business owners who set their hourly rate years ago and have been nudging it since. Build a charge-out rate from your real labour cost, on-costs, overheads and margin, and price callouts, after-hours and contract work so they all make money.
The week this is about
Sound Like Your Plumbing Business?
Your rate came from the bloke down the road
You set your hourly rate by asking around and shading it a bit under. It has never been built from your actual labour cost, superannuation, vehicle, insurance and overhead, so you genuinely do not know which of your jobs make money and which ones you subsidise.
The award went up and your prices did not
Minimum rates under the Plumbing and Fire Sprinklers Award lift every 1 July, and so do super, insurance and the merchant's prices. If your charge-out rate is the same as last winter, you have quietly given away the difference on every hour you sell.
After hours costs you more than it pays
The 10pm burst pipe gets billed at your normal rate plus a bit, while the plumber attending is on penalty rates and you are paying for a night's sleep nobody got. Emergency work should be your best margin, and for most plumbing businesses it is the worst.
Underpricing does not show up as a loss, it shows up as a busy year with nothing in the bank, and it repeats until you change the number.
Pricing and profit
Here Is What We Do About It.
The Profitable Pricing Masterclass shows you how to build a charge-out rate from the ground up, and the Profit & Freedom Masterclass connects that price to the money you actually take home. The Learning Hub adds the ongoing pricing training, and Greg holds you to the new number when a customer 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 Plumbing Business Pricing Actually Changes.
Three things plumbing business owners walk away able to do.
Build a charge-out rate from award cost, on-costs, overhead and margin
Set a callout fee and an after-hours rate that cover penalty rates
Quote a bathroom or a fit-off knowing the margin before you send it
Questions
Plumber Business Pricing, Answered.
What should a plumber charge per hour in Australia?
Why is my charge-out rate so much higher than what I pay my plumbers?
How do I raise prices without losing my regular customers?
Plumbers
The Other Ways We Help Plumbers.
Plumber Business Training
Structured training that turns what plumbers know on the tools into a business that runs properly.
CoachingPlumber Business Coach
Greg Allan in your corner, holding plumbers to the plan. By application.
SystemsPlumber Business Systems
Systems plumbers build on their own data, so the work runs properly without them standing there.
SoftwarePlumber Business Software
Software plumbers build on their own data, instead of renting tools built for every trade at once.
Business appsPlumber Business Apps
The simple screens plumbers build for their crew and customers, on their own data.
AIAI for Plumbing Businesses
AI agents that do the office work for plumbers, their way, so people stay on customers and the crew.
Marketing and leadsPlumber Business Marketing
How plumbers get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.
Hiring and teamPlumber Business Hiring
How plumbers 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.