Track profit per hour on every job you complete. See which work is worth doing and which jobs are losing you money, before you quote the next one. Built for Australian tradies with built-in FY and GST views.
Without tracking profit per hour, you'll never know which jobs are worth repeating and which ones are losing you money. Most Australian tradies focus on total revenue or profit margin percentage, but profit per hour tells the real story of which work actually pays.
Without tracking profit per hour, both jobs feel the same. With tracking, you know exactly which work to prioritize.
Australian tradies often track margin percentage or their hourly charge-out rate, but neither tells you what you're actually earning. Here's why profit per hour is the metric that matters.
Example scenarios only. Figures are illustrative and not from a specific Trackexa export. All figures are ex-GST to show true profit calculation, the way you should be tracking internally.
Key insight: The highest invoice (Example 3: $8,500) had the second-lowest hourly profit. The smallest job (Example 2: $2,200) had the second-highest profit per hour. Invoice size means nothing, profit per hour is everything.
One of the biggest mistakes Australian tradies make: mixing up GST-inclusive and GST-exclusive figures when calculating profit. Here's how to do it correctly.
Step 1: Convert the paint and materials receipts to ex-GST (divide inc-GST by 1.1).
Step 2: Subtract those ex-GST costs from the ex-GST job price to get profit.
Step 3: Divide that profit by the total hours on the job.
Result: Joel's 4-bedroom interior repaint worked out to about $65/hr after paint and materials, compared with about $100/hr on his other work.
Why this matters: If you calculate profit using inc-GST figures, your numbers will be 10% too high. You'll think you're profitable when you're barely breaking even. Enter job value and costs ex GST so your profit is not overstated. Trackexa shows your income including and excluding GST automatically. It does not split GST out of costs.
One good month doesn't mean your business is profitable. One bad month doesn't mean it's failing. The Australian financial year average tells the real story, and it's the number that matters come tax time.
Most Australian tradies have seasonal variation. December is quiet (everyone's on holidays). January is slow to restart. March is busy (tax time approaching). Tracking your FY average smooths out the peaks and troughs.
You have a great March, three high-paying jobs, $140/hr average. You think you're killing it. You buy a new ute on finance.
Then you look back at the full FY in June. Turns out March was an outlier. Your FY average was $64/hr. After tax, super, and overheads, you barely broke even.
Without FY tracking, you make business decisions based on your best month instead of your real average. That's how tradies end up overcommitted and underpaid.
Trackexa tracks your FY average automatically, total profit, total hours, average $/hr across Jul 1–Jun 30. No spreadsheets, no manual adds. Just your real number for the full Australian financial year.
Trackexa's profit tracker is built for speed. Add a job, log your hours and materials, and see your profit per hour instantly.
Every job shows profit, profit per hour, and margin at a glance. Plus summary metrics for your full financial year.
Example screen (details changed)
The most common questions we get from Australian tradies about tracking profit per hour, materials, billable time, and which jobs to repeat.
Short answer: Yes, if you're tracking profit per hour honestly. Your time is your time, whether you're on the tools or in the ute.
If a job takes 6 hours on site but 2 hours round-trip travel, your real time input is 8 hours. Dividing profit by 6 hours gives you a false number. Some tradies bill travel separately (call-out fee), others bake it into the quote. Either way, count it when calculating your true hourly profit.
Yes. If you spent 45 minutes driving to Bunnings and loading paint, that's 0.75 hours for that job. Add it to your total hours.
Materials cost is the dollar amount (ex-GST). Materials pickup time is labour. It's part of your hours worked. The formula is: Profit ÷ (Site Hours + Travel + Materials Run + Admin). If you don't count pickup time, your hourly rate is inflated.
Track both, but only compare quoted fixed-price jobs to other quoted jobs. Time-and-materials work (where you bill hourly) will always show higher $/hr because there's no risk. You're paid for every hour.
Fixed-price quoted jobs are where profit per hour really matters. That's where you win or lose based on how well you estimated hours and materials. If your quoted work averages $65/hr and your T&M work averages $95/hr, you're underquoting. Lift your fixed-price rates.
Track 10–20 jobs, then look for patterns. You'll notice some job types consistently pay well (e.g. straightforward exterior repaints) and others consistently drag (e.g. small interior touch-ups, commercial fitouts with other trades on site).
Set a threshold, say $85/hr profit. Any job type that averages below that across 3+ examples is a candidate to either reprice or stop quoting.
Example: You track 5 small bathroom repaints. They average $58/hr profit. You track 4 exterior repaints. They average $107/hr. Decision is easy: chase more exterior work, price bathroom repaints 40% higher or decline them.
Rough guide only (not survey data): $70–$120/hr profit (ex-GST, after materials, before tax).
Under $70/hr → You're underpricing or working inefficiently. After tax, super, and vehicle/tool costs, you're earning less than you would as an employee.
$70–$95/hr → Decent. You're making a living. Not getting rich, but sustainable if your overheads are low.
$95–$120/hr → Good. This is where experienced sole traders should be. Enough margin to handle quiet months, take holidays, and invest in the business.
$120+/hr → Excellent. You're in the top tier, either working a high-margin niche (e.g. heritage restoration, specialty finishes) or you've nailed your quoting and efficiency. Keep doing what you're doing.
No. Profit per hour is calculated before your personal tax and super. It's a business metric, not a personal take-home metric.
Here's the order:
1. Job Revenue (ex-GST), what the customer paid minus GST
2. Minus Materials, direct job costs
3. = Profit, this is what you divide by hours to get profit/hr
4. Minus Business Overheads (vehicle, insurance, tools, software), what's left is business profit
5. Minus Tax & Super, what's left is your personal take-home
Profit per hour sits at step 3. If you're averaging $100/hr profit across the FY, expect roughly $60–$70/hr personal take-home after tax, super, and business costs. Still decent, but it shows why $100/hr profit is the minimum target, not the dream number.
Yes, but the formula changes slightly. If you're paying labour (employee or subcontractor), treat their cost the same as materials. It's a direct job cost.
Formula for jobs with labour:
Profit per hour = (Job Revenue − Materials − Labour Cost) ÷ Your Hours Worked
Example: $5,000 job, $800 materials, $1,200 subbie labour, you worked 20 hours → Profit = $5,000 − $800 − $1,200 = $3,000. Profit per hour = $3,000 ÷ 20 = $150/hr. This shows your profit per hour of your time when you're coordinating labour, a different (and often better) model than doing all the work yourself.
Compare job management software options built for Australian tradies, or dive deeper into profit tracking with our detailed guides.
Try Trackexa's profit tracker free for 14 days. No credit card required. See which jobs are making you money, and which ones are quietly bleeding you dry. Built for Australian tradies with FY and GST handled automatically.
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