What trade work costs in Australia
Read this first
You will not find a “typical $X to $Y” on these pages, and that is deliberate. Australia has no authoritative public price index for most trade work, so any range you see quoted online is somebody estimating and presenting it as research. A wrong number is worse than no number when you are budgeting a real job against it.
Instead, each page carries two things that are true and checkable: the figures a named authority actually publishes (3 of these 8 pages have them), and the specific factors that move the number on a quote, so you can read the one in front of you.
- Hot water system replacementThere is no reliable published price range for hot water replacement in Australia, but Victoria publishes a rebate of up to $1,000, or $1,400 for locally made products, which is a real, checkable number that changes what you pay.4 published figures7 cost drivers
- Solar panel systemSolar is the one area with genuinely published financial support: a federal certificate discount applied at the quote, plus in Victoria a rebate of up to $1,400 and an interest-free loan of up to $1,400.4 published figures7 cost drivers
- Home batteryThe federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program targets around a 30% discount on batteries from 5 kWh to 100 kWh, with the certificate factor tapering above 14 kWh since 1 May 2026.5 published figures6 cost drivers
- Ducted heating and coolingNo public price index exists for ducted systems in Australia. The cost is driven by capacity, zoning, and the condition of the existing ductwork, which is the item most often left out of a comparison.7 cost drivers
- Bathroom renovationNo reliable public price range exists. Bathroom cost is driven by whether plumbing moves, what is found behind the walls, and the standard of fixtures. Three variables that swamp everything else.7 cost drivers
- Rewiring and switchboard upgradesNo public price index exists for rewiring in Australia. Cost is driven by house construction, access to wall and roof cavities, and how much of the existing wiring is genuinely being replaced.7 cost drivers
- Roof restorationNo public price index exists. The variable that actually separates roof restoration quotes is whether ridge capping is being re-bedded or only re-pointed. A difference invisible on completion.7 cost drivers
- Tree removalNo public price index exists, and the first cost is often not the tree at all. It is establishing whether council consent is required, because removing a protected tree without it can attract a substantial penalty.7 cost drivers
What comes next
The Cost Data Project
The honest reason there are no ranges here is that nobody publishes authoritative ones and we hold no pricing data of our own. The fix is not to estimate better, it is to collect real observed prices, and we are building towards that: real quotes and invoices, contributed voluntarily, each recorded with the scope it actually covered.
Scope is the hard part rather than collection. A bathroom renovation is eight thousand dollars of new tiles over a sound substrate or forty-five thousand of moved walls and new services, and averaging those two produces a figure describing no job anybody will ever be quoted. So an observation cannot be recorded here without its scope tier, its state, whether it is metro or regional, and what was included and excluded.
The thresholds, published now rather than once there are numbers to defend:
- Thirty comparable observations in one trade, service and scope tier before any figure is published, and fifteen within a state before any state figure is.
- Nothing older than eighteen months contributes.
- No single source type may account for more than a fifth of a sample, because one busy contributor's pricing is not a market rate.
- Every published figure carries its sample size, collection period, geography, job definition, inclusions, exclusions and limitations. A statistic without those is a number pretending to be evidence.
- Below the threshold we say we do not have enough data yet, and say how much we do have.
Observations carry no name, no address and no contact details, and deliberately no suburb: a postcode plus a job type plus a date identifies a household in a small town. State and metro-or-regional is the finest geography this will ever hold.
Nothing has been collected yet, so there is nothing to show. If you have a recent quote or invoice you would be willing to contribute once this opens, tell us.