How to run a trade business in Australia

A trade business is not a pile of unrelated admin chores. It is one ordered lifecycle, and the order matters. You set up legally before you can invoice. You learn to price before you can win work profitably. You get the books in order before hiring multiplies the paperwork. Get the order right and each phase feeds the next.

Here is the whole shape, in the order it matters: first you set up legally (ABN, structure, the right licence), then you win work (referrals, a Google profile, lead channels), then you price and quote so you stop underquoting, then you run the books (tax, GST, insurance), then you hire a team, then you pick your tools, and last you choose where your leads come from. Seven phases, one business.

The reason this is worth ten minutes is simple. Most tradies are strong on the tools and lose money on exactly one phase they have never looked at. Maybe you have never worked out your real charge-out rate. Perhaps you are near the GST line and have not registered. Or you are paying per lead for jobs you can never win. The leak is concentrated in your weakest phase. Find that phase, fix the one thing inside it, and the money stops walking out the door.

There is a timely reason to do this now. Oneflare retires on 30 June 2026, so a large group of Australian tradies is re-choosing where their leads come from this month. When you are forced to rethink one phase, it is the moment to check the other six. Below, each phase gives you the headline fact and a pointer to where you can go deeper.

First, work out which phase is costing you the most

Before you read all seven phases, find yours. Run this quick scan and jump to whichever line sounds like you. Most tradies have one phase that clearly fits, and that is where the money is leaking.

Have you never checked your real hourly rate? That is Phase 3, pricing and quoting. Are you near $75,000 in turnover and still not registered for GST? That is Phase 4, running the books. Are you paying per lead for jobs you keep losing? That is Phase 7, choosing your lead channels. Going out on your own and unsure what you legally need first? Start at Phase 1.

None of these phases stand alone, so a fix in one often shows up in another: tighten your pricing and a thin lead channel suddenly pays its way, pick a better lead channel and your quoting time stops being wasted on jobs you were never going to win, and sort your books and the stress of every other phase drops a notch. Read your weak phase first. Then skim the rest so you know what is coming.

Getting set up legally is the gate to everything else

You cannot invoice, win a contract, or work on most sites until the legal basics are in place, so this is Phase 1 for a reason. The good news is the core step costs nothing. An Australian Business Number (ABN) is free to register direct through the Australian Business Register, and you need one to run a business1business.gov.auView source . Anyone charging you to "get your ABN" is charging for something the government gives away.

Two more pieces decide where and how you can legally work. To set foot on a construction site you need a White Card, the general construction induction you earn by completing unit CPCCWHS1001, and it is recognised right across Australia2business.gov.auView source . Your trade licence is a different story. Licences are set state by state, so the carpentry, plumbing or electrical ticket you need depends on where you work. Sort the national White Card once, then check your own state's licence rules for your trade.

Then there is structure. Most tradies start as a sole trader because it is the simplest path: no ASIC registration to set up3business.gov.auView source . The trade-off is that a sole trader carries unlimited liability, so your personal assets are exposed if something goes wrong. A company is a separate legal entity that limits your liability, but it costs more to set up and carries ongoing ASIC fees. Which one suits you depends on your risk and your turnover, and the full structure decision is worth a proper walk-through.

There is more to it. The per-state licence steps and a closer look at sole trader versus company sit in the start-a-trade-business guide, which will walk through them step by step once it goes live.

Your pipeline decides your margin, so do not depend on one channel

Your pipeline sets your price. Where your work comes from decides how much you can charge, which is why Phase 2 is about building a pipeline you control. The most resilient setup mixes a few channels rather than leaning on one. A base of direct referrals and a well-kept Google Business Profile brings in work you do not pay a per-job fee for. One paid lead channel on top fills the gaps when that base runs quiet.

The risk of a single channel is that whoever owns it owns your pipeline. If all your work comes from one marketplace and that marketplace changes its prices, or closes, your income changes with it. A mix keeps you in charge and gives you somewhere to push when you want more work.

How much each channel actually costs you per job is the real decision, and that is what Phase 7 below digs into. The how-to-get-more-leads guide will cover building each channel in detail when it goes live.

Underquoting is the quiet killer, and markup is not margin

You can stay flat out and still go backwards. The way it happens is underquoting, so Phase 3 is about pricing work that actually leaves you a profit. The single most useful thing to get straight here: markup and margin are not the same number. Add 50% markup to your costs and your margin is only 33%, not 50%. Tradies who confuse the two quietly lose a slice of profit on every single job.

The other half of pricing is your real charge-out rate, and most tradies pitch it too low. Your rate is not just what you would like to earn an hour. It is your overheads plus your target profit, divided by the hours you can actually bill, and those billable hours are always fewer than the hours you work because quoting time, travel, paperwork and the drive between jobs are all unpaid. A rate that ignores them leaves you short on every invoice.

The full markup and margin maths, worked examples, and the calculators that do the sums for you live in the how-to-price-a-job guide. It will walk through both when it lands. For now, the headline is enough: know the difference between markup and margin, and build your rate from your real chargeable hours.

The books are where tradies get blindsided, starting with the $75k GST line

The books blindside more tradies than anything on the tools. So Phase 4 is about running them before they run you. The load-bearing number to know is the GST threshold. According to the ATO, once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 you must register for GST within 21 days; below that figure, registering is optional4Australian Taxation OfficeView source 6business.gov.auView source . Cross the line and miss the window and you can owe GST on sales you never charged it on. That is exactly the kind of nasty surprise good record-keeping avoids.

Tax and GST are one half of the run phase. Insurance is the other, and it works differently from how most people assume. Public liability insurance is usually a contract requirement rather than a blanket law. Most construction contracts and principal contractors require it, often up to around $20 million in cover, even though there is no single federal rule forcing every tradie to carry it5business.gov.auView source . In practice that means you will need it to win most decent work, so treat it as a cost of doing business, not an optional extra.

The full BAS mechanics, what you can claim, premium ranges and how to invoice the ATO way are a lot of detail. They belong in the GST-for-tradies guide, which will cover them properly when it goes live. Two things to carry away now: watch the $75,000 line, and budget for public liability cover because your contracts will ask for it.

Hiring multiplies your admin, and apprentice pay is legally set

Your first hire roughly doubles your admin. So Phase 5 is about hiring without tripping over the rules. The headline you cannot guess at: apprentice wages in building and construction are set by the relevant modern award, such as the Building and Construction General On-site Award (MA000020). The Fair Work Commission adjusts those minimums every year on 1 July7Fair Work OmbudsmanView source . Last year's rate is not this year's. Pay from memory and you can underpay without meaning to.

The same care applies to whether you take someone on as an employee or a subcontractor, because getting that wrong has its own penalties. Both decisions reward checking the current rules rather than copying what the last business you worked for did.

The wage tables, the incentives on offer, and the employee-versus-subbie line are detailed and change often. They live in the hiring-an-apprentice guide, which will keep them current when it goes live. The fact to hold onto: apprentice pay is award-set and changes each 1 July, so always check the live rate before you hire.

The right software cuts admin time; the wrong one is a subscription you do not use

Job-management and quoting software can give you back hours every week. It can also become another monthly charge you forget about, so Phase 6 is about choosing well. The real decision is not "what is the best app" in the abstract. It is which tool fits your workflow: your job sizes, how you quote, and whether you have a team to schedule.

A small operator quoting a handful of jobs a week wants something different from a five-van outfit running scheduling and invoicing across a crew. An honest side-by-side of two or three real options against your own workflow beats any "best app" list, because the list does not know how you work.

Picking between the named brands, with current features and pricing, belongs in the best-software guide, which will keep the comparison up to date when it goes live. The reframe to take with you: choose the tool that is best for your workflow, not the one that tops a generic ranking.

Where your leads come from is a priced decision, and the models differ

Every lead channel costs you something. They just do not all cost you the same way, so Phase 7 is about choosing the model that fits how you work. Some marketplaces charge a monthly subscription plus a fee per lead. Some take a commission once a job is completed. The shape of the deal decides how much of each job's value you keep. Compare the models, not just the names.

SureQuote is one of those channels, and its model is per-lead rather than subscription. There is no monthly fee. You pay a percentage of the estimated job value per lead (1.5% on the Base tier, 1.25% on Trusted, 1.0% on Pro), and that per-lead cost is capped at $300. A lead goes to a maximum of three tradies, your credits never expire, and there is no lock-in, so you can stop any time. It runs across 59 trades and has done for months, so it covers far more than one trade.

Picking your channel is the one phase with a guide ready today, because the timing matters. With Oneflare closing on 30 June 2026, plenty of tradies are choosing right now. For the full side-by-side of the marketplaces and what each model really costs you per job, read where tradies should get leads after Oneflare, which compares the options in one place.