How we price

One engine, every job

Every job is the same sum: quantities × rates for materials, plant and disposal; hours × an hourly rate for labour; then overheads, profit and GST. A small job is one assembly. A renovation is many assemblies added together. The engine is deterministic: the same inputs always give the same answer, and every number traces to a row in our rate book with a source and a date.

Where the rates come from

Labour starts from the award: the legal minimum hourly rate, plus super, leave, WorkCover, allowances, the unproductive time every tradie carries (travel, quoting, weather), business overheads and a margin. We show each step. Once we have five or more observed market rates for a trade we use those instead and publish the gap.

Materials, hire and disposal come from published prices and our own price checks. Sources we use:

Confidence grades

A
Published price or statute.
B
Supplier quote, or a survey of five or more.
C
A single observation.
D
Our estimate, not yet observed. Always labelled on the page.

The range

Every rate has an observed low and high. The low end of the range is what you'd pay if every line came in cheap; the high end if every line came in at the top. A quote below the range usually means something has been left out or will be done quickly. A quote above it should buy something you can name: better materials, harder access, a longer warranty.

What we promise

  1. The numbers are never for sale. No sponsor, advertiser or partner can influence rates, ranges or labels.
  2. Every rate shows its source and date, and its confidence.
  3. We publish our accuracy against real quotes, including the misses, and a changelog of corrections.
  4. One plain page on who pays us and what they can't influence.
  5. Fair to tradies: a fair price includes a fair profit.
  6. Accuracy before breadth. We add jobs slowly.

Status

This is an early version. Most rates are still grade D while we replace them with observed prices, and no job model has yet been calibrated against real quotes. The site says so on every estimate until that changes.