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2,400+ Tradie Accounts, Off the Record.

What they say about why the business side hurts — and what the ones who win do differently — in their own words, when nobody's selling to them.

No gate. No email. No pitch. Just real tradies telling the truth about their own work, across 40 trades. Read every word here, or take the PDF with you. It's the evidence behind everything we build.

2,407
operator accounts
40
trades
9 + 4
pains & wins
Ungated
no email wall
Download the PDF Jump to the 9 problems
Contents
3D cover of The Tradie Issues, Edition 6.1 — a 27-page voice-of-customer research paper

The Problem

Too busy. Too tired. Not earning what the work is worth.

We saw tradies stuck in a loop. Flat out, but not ahead. The work was there. The money wasn't adding up. And "too busy" meant something specific: they didn't know where to spend their time for the best return.

So we set out to solve two things: own the calendar, and own the numbers.

Own the calendar

Time is the constraint. For most trades, your Google Business Profile is where it pays off — 80% of the result from one well-optimised listing. The website matters. But the GBP moves the dial. Put the hours there first.

Own the numbers

If you don't know what you're aiming for, you can't set the right price. If you can't see the link between your costs and your charge-out, you're at a loss every time you quote.

The numbers might surprise you.

Use the charge-out calculator

Straight up

Where this comes from.

I'm not a tradie. I've spent my life on the side of the people who build things — thirty years in project management, twenty-seven in marketing, the last sixteen helping trade businesses, some of the biggest in the country, Amalgamated Pest Control among them, get found and get chosen. I always did that for the big operators. Sell My Service is me making it available to every tradie prepared to put in the work.

So before any of it, I listened. This edition is built from more than 2,400 distinct operator accounts, across 40 trades — every one a real Australian tradie talking in public, where nobody was selling to them. It is not a clean survey with a tidy sample. It's what the trade says when it thinks no one's taking notes. Read it that way.

Every quote in quote marks is a real tradie talking. Homeowners, regulators, directories and marketing copy got collected for background, but we don't put their words in tradies' mouths.

The numbers count how many operators raised a thing, not how common it is across the whole trade. Read the problems, not the trade totals. This isn't advice. It's lived experience, in their own words.

Next: What we heard

What we heard

I set out to listen.

I didn't set out to write a report. I set out to listen — across forty trades, from sparkies and plumbers to builders, painters, landscapers, glaziers, locksmiths and air-con techs.

And across the whole lot, the same things lead. Pricing is the fight everyone's in. Right behind it sit two problems the early, electrical-heavy research badly under-counted and the bigger sample dragged into the light: the jobs you can't fully see until you open the wall up, and proving you're the real deal before you've earned trust. Then admin and quoting, staff and culture, burnout, coaching, leads and apps.

What got me wasn't the anger. It was how specific it was. These aren't people who don't know what's wrong. They know exactly what's wrong. They've just stopped believing anything will fix it.

"I used to enjoy solving people's problems. I just feel like I hate people now."
Electrical business owner · 10 years in trade
Next: The evidence

How we counted

We checked every quote before we counted it.

This isn't a bigger pile of quotes. It's a sorted one — more than 2,400 distinct operator accounts, gathered across 40 trades, de-duplicated so the same gripe said twice isn't counted twice, and every single one tied to a source. For each, one question: is this an actual operator, or a homeowner, a regulator, a directory, or marketing? Only the real-operator ones get quoted.

  1. 2,407 Distinct operator accounts
  2. 40 Trades covered
  3. 100% Carry a source
  4. Ungated No email wall

A word on honesty: the first edition ran on a few hundred quotes from a handful of trades, sifted by hand. This one is an order of magnitude bigger and spans the whole trade list — so some rankings shifted as the sample widened. Where they moved, we say so. The pain side is nine problems; the win side, five patterns — what the operators who aren't struggling actually do.

Next: The nine problems

The full picture

Nine problems, biggest first.

More than 2,400 operator accounts, ranked by how many raised each problem. Pricing still leads by a mile. But widen the trades beyond the early electrical-heavy sample and two clusters jump: difficult jobs (the jobs you can't price till you open them up) and trust & licensing (proving you're legit).

282 quotes

Pricing & the Race to the Bottom

The biggest pile, and the one fight every trade is in.

Every trade. Every state. Every experience level. The same fight: can I charge what the work is worth? And the answer keeps coming back: not if someone down the road will do it for half.

"In the race to the bottom there are no winners."
Electrical business owner

  • "I feel like I am being watched and judged on Cost Plus."

    Builder

  • "The amount of ppl that just undercut your price here in Melbourne is crrraaaazzzzyyyy! Its so cut throat."

    Electrical owner

  • "Most times I am more expensive than the other builders, but I include everything as per the plans."

    Builder

  • "I have insurance and if I was to quote my jobs out to make $950 a day I would never get a job."

    Painter, WA

The read: This isn't a discounting problem. It's a can't-show-the-work problem. The tradie who can put the real cost in front of a customer doesn't have to win the race to the bottom. He gets to not enter it.

Read the full guide See the fix · Show your price
220 quotes

Difficult Jobs & the Unknown

Second-biggest once the whole trade list is in. The first edition never saw it.

This one's about not knowing, more than money. The worst jobs to quote are the ones where the real work's hidden till you open them up, and the tradie wears the risk if he guesses wrong.

"I have no idea of damage under tiles. Is timber rotted, do I have to remove half the house to move the plumbing around."
Builder

  • "Nothing about what you're asking is small scale. That's actually quite extensive and can blow out quickly. Especially the bathrooms."

    Builder / carpenter

  • "After the handyman or owner has done his best to ruin it, the painter has a nightmare on his hands fixing it."

    Painter

  • "Demo allowance. Hours to demo without destroying the place. Dump costs. Contingency. Break costs, I always allow for something breaking."

    Builder

The read: The honest answer is depends, but customers want a fixed number, and that gap is where the margin and the goodwill disappear. The good ones handle it with spelt-out allowances, not fake certainty.

See the fix · Quote that sells
216 quotes

Admin & Quoting

The flip side of the pricing fight.

The same wound seen from the other side. The reason a tradie can't back his number is often that doing the quote properly takes hours he's not paid for, and the customer just sees a figure, not the graft behind it.

"Most tradies don't have a motivation or work ethic problem. They have a business model problem."
Trade business coach

  • "What about when I am at home of an evening working materials out, chasing contractors, researching products, taking calls and all the things that need to happen."

    Builder

  • "As a painter I include washing the surface in my quote. Too risky to go off someone else's word. I'm liable."

    Painter

  • "Cash flow feels unpredictable, even when work is steady."

    Owner

  • "If you want design consultations, that's billed. Showroom visits, billed. Change orders, billed. Anything unusual, billed."

    Builder / carpenter

The read: The ones who cracked it did one thing: they turned the paperwork into the sell. Every line on the quote became a reason to trust the price. But turning the paperwork into the sell takes time — and time runs out fast when you're doing everything yourself. Which is the next one.

See the fix · Quote that sells
195 quotes

Staff, Apprentices & Culture

The long game, and the one the trade-only batches badly missed.

You can't grow without people, but the wrong hire costs you time, money and your head.

"I went through a few drop kicks and ended up with one of the best apprentices I could ever ask for."
Owner

  • "Apprentices are fantastic. We've all been one, but there's a risk you get the wrong one."

    Owner

  • "Costs went up about 30%, but incoming's quadrupled. Best thing I ever did."

    Owner

  • "I'm a casual worker so I don't get holiday pay and sick pay ect."

    Painter, WA

  • "Every dude I've worked with has multiple DUIs and are sorta asshole alcoholics. Is this what I signed up for?"

    Apprentice

The read: Staff is the long game. The ones who win treat hiring and training like a system, not a punt. Nobody taught them how. That's not a character flaw. That's a gap in the trade.

184 quotes

Trust & Licensing

The credibility tax. The one that punishes the honest.

This isn't getting burned by a platform. It's about credibility. Honest tradies are up against blokes who win the job by leaving stuff off the quote then clawing it back in variations, or by skipping the prep no one can see.

"It's crazy the amount of tenders I've seen with builders leaving main items out or minimal allowances and hitting owners up with variation after variation."
Builder

  • "Many builders aren't trying to rip you off. We do have a lot of expenses to stay in business, and it's honest work."

    Builder / carpenter

  • "Customers paid a cash painter for the job. No washing, sanding or primer."

    Painter, SA

  • "Always refused to sign up with the building mafia."

    Painter, QLD

The read: What's missing is a way to prove you're the real deal before the job starts, so trust isn't something the customer has to take on faith. That's the credibility tax. Pay it once, deploy it forever, and it stops being a tax.

See the fix · Proof Pack
172 quotes

Work-Life Strain & Burnout

The lowest belief, and the deepest hurt in the data.

This is where it stops being data and starts being a bloke at the end of his rope. These quotes aren't about apps or pricing. They're about whether you picked the wrong life.

"Everything needs to be done now, no one cares about your life outside of work either. I was easily doing 60+ hr weeks."
Trade employee

  • "I feel like I'm mourning a ghost life: the version of me that picked up a tool bag at 18 and would be sitting on a paid-off house and a healthy super by now."

    Tradie

  • "The amount of time, stress and demands of people expecting me to be waiting by the phone just for them to call is just grinding me down."

    Owner

  • "I'm a painter and am overwhelmed by work. If I ever win the lottery I'm throwing my phone in the river."

    Painter

The read: What they'll trade is money for time. They'll pay more for a real night off. They've just stopped believing anything will give it to them. The belief is gone. Anyone who wants to help this trade has to earn that belief back before they sell a single thing.

154 quotes

Growth Pressure & Coaching Burnout

The deepest "yeah, righto" in the lot.

Tradies getting sold dear coaching by people promising the world and handing over buzzwords. The eye-roll is automatic now, and they have done the maths.

"I was with [a well-known tradie coaching program] for a while. What a load of shite. Some good elements but mostly the coaches just pumping you up with buzz words and numbers."
Owner

  • "Lowest subscription was $750 per month lol. Absolutely dreaming."

    Owner

  • "If they're so good at making money by being a tradie, why aren't they doing it?"

    Owner

  • "Know a guy whose paid 6k for 3 months of coaching. Unbelievable."

    Owner

  • "When I mentioned I would like to read the contract and get back to them over the weekend, the persona of 'coach' more or less completely disappeared."

    Owner

The read: It's not proof that help doesn't work. It's proof that help priced like a luxury car, delivered as motivation, has burned the trust of a whole trade. The reason Sell My Service isn't coaching is sitting right here in the data.

Read the full guide
128 quotes

Junk Leads & Pay-Per-Lead

Still the angriest language in the lot.

When a tradie's been charged $200 for a phone number that rings out, he doesn't write a measured review. He writes a warning to the next bloke.

"[A major lead-gen platform] charges up to $200 per lead, and many of these leads turn out to be fake, already completed, or from people who never respond."
Owner, public review

  • "Platform locks tradies into long contracts while many leads are fake, dead or already completed."

    Owner

  • "On several occasions I'd accept a lead, quote the job, get ignored on follow ups and then a week later see a lead pop up with very similar details. Actual scam."

    Owner

  • "I realised I was better off putting that time and money into local papers, sponsoring sports clubs or handing out flyers and talking to people."

    Owner

The read: You don't need a funnel. You need a foundation. The whole pay-per-lead model is renting attention by the click. The tradies in this section already worked out what that costs.

Read the full guide See the fix · Get Found
119 quotes

Software Fatigue

Where juggling apps is a daily tax.

Tradies aren't anti-tech. They're already running five or six apps a day. The problem is the cost, the apps not talking to each other, and tools built by people who've never invoiced from a roof.

"We currently use [a major job-management app] with its digital forms. Its costing us $25k a year."
Owner

  • "Major system failure after update. Support tickets stalled for 5 months with no resolution."

    Owner

  • "Waited 6 months for a critical feature. No phone support available, chat only."

    Owner

  • "Reports in the system do not match day-to-day needs and the software slows down on larger jobs."

    Owner

The read: What they actually reward is fast and no learning curve. Anything you have to study dies in the van. That is the bar. Not features: fits in the day. The fix to software fatigue isn't no software. It's software you don't pay a separate subscription for.

Read the full guide
Next: Which trade feels what

Which trade feels what

Where each problem lands.

The eight busiest trades in the research, plus an "All 40" column for the full count across every trade — much bigger than the eight shown. The bigger the number, the more they talk about it. Don't read a tall column as an important trade; it just means more operators in that trade spoke up.

Problem BuildersElectricalPaintingLandscapingHVACGlazingPlumbingLocksmithAll 40
Pricing 201419866386282
Admin & quoting 22141562323216
Staff & culture 51857425195
Growth & coaching 211448454154
Software fatigue 39·444·2119
Junk leads 44·64314128
Work-life strain 46856554172
Difficult jobs 1131768715220
Trust & licensing 104869554184

Counts = distinct operator accounts per problem. The eight-trade cells are a subset; "All 40" is the full count per cluster. Pricing lights up everywhere — plumbing loudest of all. Difficult jobs is builder- and painter-shaped; trust runs hot in air-con.

Next: What they want

What they want

They know exactly what they want.

One pattern holds across all nine problems and every trade: they know exactly what they want, and they've stopped believing they'll get it. That lost belief is the single biggest wall in front of anything new. Not price. Not awareness. Belief.

But flip each problem over and the goal is sitting right there. They can name it in a sentence.

  • Charge what the work is worth, and have the words for why.
  • A quote that sells the job, not just prices it.
  • A team that carries the load instead of draining you.
  • A path forward that doesn't cost $10K in buzzwords.
  • Tools that fit in the day.
  • Customers who come to you because they already know what you stand for.
  • Your nights back.
  • The confidence to scope a job you can't fully see: allowances, not a guess.
  • Proof you're the real deal before the job starts.

"Charge what the work is worth" needs a number you can defend. Work out your charge-out rate

Every one is measurable. A trade business can build toward it. So why doesn't it? The belief problem sits on top — and everything on offer either costs $10K and delivers buzzwords, or $200 a lead and delivers a fake phone number.

So here's the honest part. We were going to sell software. Another login, another subscription, another app a tradie has to study. Then we did this research, and the data made the decision for us. You can't fix a belief problem with another thing to learn — software fatigue and coaching burnout are the same wound. So we stopped selling it as another subscription. The platform is still there; we just bundle it in as the glue, free with the plan, instead of one more bill. The fix to software fatigue isn't no software. It's software you don't pay a separate subscription for.

Read the nine problems again and the gap is obvious: nobody's helping tradies show their worth before the job starts. That's the whole game — and the back half of this paper is the evidence for it, because the operators who already win are doing exactly that.

Next: What actually wins work

The other half

What actually wins work.

Everything to here is the pain. But forty trades in one database surfaced a second, quieter signal: what the operators who aren't drowning actually do. It isn't a secret, and it isn't a funnel.

The short version: the operators who win are found where buyers look, carry proof a customer can see, turn the quote into the sell, and have stopped pouring money down the paid-lead drain. None of that is mindset. All of it is infrastructure — built once, and kept.

Being found

117 accounts

Ask an operator who isn't struggling where the work comes from and it's the same answers: Google, the business profile, the local group, and word of mouth that shows up because the first two are working. They earn the position; they don't buy it.

"I'm an electrician and get 90% of my work through Facebook groups. If someone asks for an electrician, at least 1/4 of comments will be my previous clients recommending my business."
Electrician

"Everyone is googling and looking at reviews and calling the same handful of people who are at the top of the list or page 1 of google."

Builder

See the fix · Get Found

Proof you can show

220 accounts

This is the credibility tax paid the smart way. The operators who win carry proof a customer can see before they ever meet: reviews they don't control, and photos of the actual work. A review you can't edit is trust you can't fake.

"You need regular 5 star reviews to keep coming through, and post regular photos of work you've completed."
Electrician

"If they didn't have photos of works they had completed or references when asked, that's where the red flag would be."

Builder

See the fix · Proof Pack

Winning the quote

284 accounts

The pain side said quoting eats the nights. The win side says the quote, done right, is the sale — and the operators who get this don't think of themselves as salespeople. They build the sell into the paperwork.

"I have good SEO but when I go to these jobs I'm being told I'm too expensive. Domestic is a race to the bottom unless you can find a niche."
Electrician

"I take before & after photos of every single job and often pass them to the client to ensure my work stays accountable."

Paver

See the fix · Win the job

Money down the drain

121 accounts

The flip side of earning your position is what happens when you try to rent it. The burned operators are blunt — and they've moved their money. Not 'stop marketing', but own the asset instead of renting the click. Rent decays. Infrastructure compounds.

"Spray and pray Google/Facebook Ads for a saturated industry like electrical contracting is just setting money on fire."
Electrician

"online advertising is a black hole for money."

Electrician

See the fix · Get Found

Read the pain and the fix together and the gap is obvious: nobody's helping tradies show their worth before the job starts. That's the whole game — and it's something you build once and keep, not rent by the click.

Next: What needs to change

What needs to change

An analysis, turned into a short list.

This isn't a sales pitch. Across the lot it sharpens to one thing: the industry leaves tradies alone with the very thing customers judge them on, the price, and short-handed on the people who help carry the load. Here's what I'd do.

  1. 01

    Give tradies the words for their price.

    The #1 problem. Most can't spell out what's inside their number: insurance, the ute, the unpaid quoting, the half of jobs they don't win. Real-time costing, plain breakdowns, quotes that show the work. Stop the race to the bottom by making the bottom visible.

  2. 02

    Make quoting worth the hours it eats.

    It's unpaid, after-hours, invisible, and it's where the price is won or lost. The tradie who can scope, cost and lay out a job fast, with allowances for the unknown, holds his margin and wins trust. Treat the quote as the product, not an afterthought.

  3. 03

    Fix the people pipeline.

    Staff is the #3 problem and the long-game trap. The trades need real help with hiring, training and managing apprentices, and an honest look at site culture and the drinking.

  4. 04

    Build for the van, not the office, and kill pay-per-lead.

    Six apps that don't talk, costing a fortune. Talk-to-it, no-typing, instant-sync is the floor. And charging $200 for a fake phone number has taken trust to zero. Anything new starts there: prove it first, get paid after.

  5. 05

    Make legit easy to see.

    Honest tradies lose work to cowboys who under-quote then claw it back, and to a licensing setup so messy that painting needs no licence at all in some states. Give the straight-up tradie a way to prove it before the job, so trust isn't a leap of faith.

  6. 06

    Treat business skills and head-space as trade issues.

    The system turns out brilliant tradesmen who were never taught to price a job, chase an invoice or read a P&L, then the burnout that follows gets treated as them being soft. Both are built in, not personal. Teach business at TAFE. Treat the 60-hour weeks as the health problem they are.

"Price your work to reflect the quality you offer. And quality clients will see that."
Registered builder

If this is your fight

Here's where the work is.

Five of the nine pains map straight to something Sell My Service builds. The other four don't — we don't fix apprentices, burnout, or what coaching costs, and saying so is on-brand.

The pain What we built for it
Pricing & the race to the bottom Show your price
Admin & quoting Quote that sells
Staff, apprentices & culture —
Growth pressure & coaching burnout —
Software fatigue —
Junk leads & pay-per-lead Get Found
Work-life strain & burnout —
Difficult jobs & the unknown Quote that sells
Trust & licensing Proof Pack

Right, so where do I start?

One next step. You've just read what forty trades said about the same fight — now see where your own trade actually sits. The benchmark shows how the best sites in your trade score, figure by figure, from the same research base. Then, when you're ready, the check reads your own business the same way.

See your trade's benchmark Or run the check on your own business
3D cover of The Tradie Issues, Edition 6.1
Take the full paper (PDF) Or talk it through, 20 minutes
Back to top

The things we'll never do

Refusals, before promises.

The research said it plainly: tradies have been burned by everyone who promised more. So here's what we will not do, on the record.

  • We won't sell coaching priced like a luxury car.

  • We won't sell pay-per-lead or buy you fake phone numbers.

  • We won't lock you into long contracts.

  • We won't build software you have to study in the van.

  • We won't write quotes you can't defend at the kitchen table.

  • We won't claim trust. We'll show you the proof.

The full list, and how we do sell, is on our operating rules.

Straight answers

Questions, answered

Where do these tradie quotes actually come from, and are they real?

They come from more than 2,400 distinct operator accounts (2,407) across 40 trades: real Australian tradies talking in public, where nobody was selling to them. Every quote in quote marks is a real operator talking, and every single one is tied to a source. It is not a survey we ran, it is what the trade says when it thinks no one is taking notes.

Why is it free and ungated? What's the catch?

No gate, no email, no pitch. You can read every word on the page or take the PDF, and you never hand over an address to do it. The catch, if you want to call it one, is that this is the evidence behind everything we build, so we would rather you read it than trade your email for it.

How were the quotes chosen and de-duplicated? How do I know it's not cherry-picked?

The accounts are de-duplicated so the same gripe said twice is not counted twice. For each one we asked a single question: is this an actual operator, or a homeowner, a regulator, a directory, or marketing? Only the real-operator ones get quoted. Homeowners, regulators and marketing copy were collected for background, but we do not put their words in a tradie's mouth.

How is this different from a survey, and can I trust the numbers?

A survey hands people a form and a tidy sample. This is unprompted: it is what tradies said in public before anyone asked them a question. The numbers count how many operators raised a thing, not how common it is across the whole trade, so read the problems, not the trade totals. The first edition ran on a few hundred quotes from a handful of trades; where the wider sample shifted a ranking, the page says so.