Contractor Salary Calculator: What Should You Actually Be Charging?

By Jared Woodbine, Managing Director — Alltech Coatings | Updated March 2026

If you’ve ever Googled “contractor salary calculator” you already know the problem — most of the results are built for office workers or American freelancers. None of them account for super, casual loading, ABN costs, or the reality of working on tools in Australia. As someone who’s run rope access and coating crews across QLD, I can tell you the gap between what online calculators say and what actually hits your bank account is massive.

So let’s fix that. Here’s how to actually calculate what you should be charging as a contractor, what your salary equivalent is, and where the money really goes.

Why Most Contractor Calculators Get It Wrong

The typical online calculator asks for your hourly rate and spits out an annual figure. Simple multiplication. But that’s not how contracting works in Australia.

When you’re on an ABN, you’re covering:

• Superannuation — 11% that an employer would normally pay on top of your wage
• Annual leave — 4 weeks you won’t be billing but still need to eat
• Sick leave — no work, no pay. Budget for it anyway
• Public liability insurance — anywhere from $800 to $5,000+ per year depending on your trade
• Workers comp / income protection — another cost employers normally absorb
• Vehicle, tools, and equipment — utes don’t run on enthusiasm
• Admin time — quoting, invoicing, chasing payments, BAS returns. None of it is billable
• Downtime — rain days, slow periods, gaps between jobs

A $65/hr ABN rate might sound great until you realise your actual take-home is closer to $38/hr once you account for all of this. That’s often less than the salary you left behind.

The Quick Comparison: ABN vs Casual vs Salary

The fastest way to compare is to use the Boss Tradie Subby to Salary Calculator. Pick your current pay structure, enter your rate, and it instantly converts across all four structures: ABN hourly, casual hourly, salary hourly, and annual salary.

Here’s the rough rule of thumb the calculator is built on:

• Salary hourly → Casual: multiply by 1.25 (casual loading covers leave entitlements)
• Casual → ABN: multiply by another 1.25 (covers super, insurance, and business costs)
• So salary → ABN: multiply by ~1.56

That means a $40/hr salary is roughly equivalent to a $50/hr casual rate or a $62/hr ABN rate. If you’re charging less than that on your ABN, you’re actually going backwards.

What’s a Good Contractor Rate in Australia?

It depends on your trade, your location, and your experience. But here are some ballpark ranges for 2025-26:

• General trades (carpentry, plumbing, electrical): $65–$95/hr ABN
• Specialised trades (rope access, industrial, high-risk): $85–$150/hr ABN (in rope access specifically, B2B contractors subbing to larger companies sit around $90/hr, while operators going direct to clients charge $145–$180/hr — the business model dictates the rate more than the trade itself)
• Landscaping, painting, general maintenance: $55–$75/hr ABN

These are contractor rates — what you charge the client or builder. Your actual take-home after costs will be 35-45% less. If those numbers surprise you, that’s exactly why running the calculations matters before you set your rate.

Subcontractor vs Direct to Client: The Rate Gap

Here’s something most tradies don’t think about until it’s too late. When you’re subcontracting for a builder, they’re typically marking your work up 30-50% to the end client. That margin is money you could be earning if you had your own clients.

A subbie charging $70/hr to a builder might charge $95-$110/hr going direct to homeowners — and the homeowner is still paying less than they would through the builder.

The catch? Direct clients mean marketing, quoting, project management, and warranty obligations. There’s a reason builders exist. But if you’re stuck working exclusively for one builder at a flat subcontractor rate, you’re leaving serious money on the table. The Boss Tradie Advanced Calculator breaks this down for your specific situation — including your “trap score” that shows how dependent you are on a single source of work.

How to Calculate Your Real Cost of Doing Business

Before setting your contractor rate, work out your actual annual cost of doing business. Here’s a basic framework:

1. Target take-home salary: What you want to net after everything. Let’s say $100,000.
2. Add super (11%): $100,000 × 1.11 = $111,000
3. Add leave provisions (~15%): $111,000 × 1.15 = $127,650 (covers 4 weeks annual leave, 2 weeks sick/personal)
4. Add business overheads: Insurance, vehicle, tools, phone, accounting = roughly $15,000-$25,000/year for most tradies
5. Total revenue needed: ~$147,650-$152,650
6. Divide by billable hours: Realistically 1,600-1,800 hours/year (not 2,080 — you lose weeks to rain, admin, slow patches)
7. Your minimum hourly rate: $147,650 ÷ 1,700 = ~$87/hr

That’s the minimum to hit $100k take-home. If you’re charging $65/hr because that’s “what everyone charges,” you’re netting closer to $65,000-$70,000 — and working just as hard.

When to Review Your Rate

Set it and forget it is a guaranteed way to go backwards. Costs go up every year — super increases, insurance renewals, fuel, rego, materials. Your rate needs to keep pace.

Review annually at minimum. Better yet, review every time:

• Your insurance renews
• Super rates increase (they’ve been climbing)
• You invest in new tools or equipment
• You take on more complex or specialised work

Most clients expect prices to go up. A 5% annual increase is standard in nearly every industry. If you’re not doing it, you’re giving yourself a pay cut.

Know Your Number

The single most important thing you can do for your trade business is know your number — the minimum hourly rate that covers your real costs and hits your income target.

Start with the Subby to Salary Calculator for a quick 30-second comparison across pay structures. Then use the Advanced Calculator for the full picture — charge-out rate, readiness score, 3-year revenue projection, and a personalised 90-day plan.

Stop guessing. Know your number. Everything else follows from that.