Pricing creative work sustainably means building your rate from the bottom up instead of guessing it from the top down. The method starts with the income you want to live on, adds business costs like insurance, gear and software, adds any super you choose to contribute, then divides by the hours you can actually bill. Tax, the Medicare levy and GST then sit on top.
Most creatives do it the other way round. They pick a number that feels brave, or copy what someone on a forum charges, and then wonder why a busy year still leaves them short when the tax bill lands. The rest of this piece walks through the build-up using current Australian rules and one clearly hypothetical set of numbers, so you can see exactly where the money goes.
An employee's hourly rate hides a lot of things their employer quietly pays for. Annual leave, sick leave and public holidays are paid. Super guarantee contributions go into their fund on top of wages. The laptop, the software licences, the insurance and the person who chases unpaid invoices all come out of someone else's budget.
A freelance photographer, session musician or illustrator carries every one of those costs personally. There's no pay on days off. There's no employer making super contributions. And a big slice of each week goes on work no client ever sees: quoting, pitching, editing portfolios, answering emails, doing the books, learning new software, driving to the gig.
That's why dividing a salary by 38 hours a week produces a number that looks healthy and quietly starves the business. The rate has to fund the whole operation, not just the hours at the easel or on stage.
Before any tax, the rate has to cover the running costs of being a creative business. The usual suspects are:
Many of these are deductible for tax purposes when they relate to earning business income, but a deduction only reduces tax. It doesn't reimburse the cost. The rate still has to pay for them first.
A sole trader has no employer putting super away for them, so any super is something they fund from their own rates. Whether to contribute, and how much, is a personal decision that depends on individual circumstances. What matters for pricing is that a contribution has to come out of revenue like any other cost.
The tax mechanics are worth understanding. Personal contributions claimed as a tax deduction count as concessional contributions, the general concessional cap is $32,500 from 1 July 2026 across all your funds combined, and concessional contributions above the cap are added to taxable income and taxed at your marginal rate (ATO, 2026). For creatives with lumpy income, carry-forward rules can matter: for the 2026-27 financial year, someone with a total super balance under $500,000 on 30 June 2026 may be able to use unused cap amounts from earlier years, and those unused amounts expire after 5 years (ATO, 2026). A registered tax agent can confirm how these rules apply in a particular situation.
Billable utilisation (the share of working hours you can actually charge a client for) moves the rate more than any other input. Admin, pitching, invoicing, chasing payments, maintaining gear and professional development are all real work, and none of it is billable.
In the illustration below, a 60% billable share produces a floor rate of about $104 an hour. Drop that to 50% and the rate needed climbs to about $125. Lift it to 70% and it falls to about $89. Same profit, same costs, a swing of more than $35 an hour, purely from how much of the week ends up on the invoice.
The table below is a simplified illustration using round hypothetical numbers. It uses the 2026-27 resident tax rates plus the Medicare levy and ignores tax offsets, Medicare levy reductions, HELP debts and personal services income rules. Real outcomes depend on individual circumstances.
| Step | Hypothetical figure |
|---|---|
| Taxable profit target (the "salary") | $90,000 |
| Optional deductible super contribution | $9,000 |
| Business costs: insurance $1,500, gear depreciation $3,000, software $2,000, other $3,500 | $10,000 |
| Revenue needed, excluding GST | $109,000 |
| Working hours: 46 weeks x 38 hours (after leave, sick days and public holidays) | 1,748 hours |
| Billable hours at 60% | about 1,049 hours |
| Floor rate needed, excluding GST | about $104 per hour |
| Income tax on the profit target (2026-27) | $17,520 |
| Medicare levy | $1,800 |
| Take-home before offsets | $70,680 |
Now compare that with the shortcut. Spread the same profit target across every working hour in the table and you get about $51 an hour. That's roughly half the rate this hypothetical creative actually needs, because the shortcut ignores costs, super and every hour of unbillable work.
A rate that only pays for the hours you bill is a rate that charges nothing for running the business.
For the 2026-27 income year, resident tax is 15c for each $1 over $18,200 up to $45,000, then $4,020 plus 30c for each $1 over $45,000 up to $135,000, and those rates do not include the 2% Medicare levy (ATO, 2026). The levy is added separately, which is a step many online rate calculators skip.
The lowest rate fell from 16c to 15c on 1 July 2026, which brought tax at the start of the 30% bracket down from $4,288 in 2025-26 (ATO, 2026). On the illustration's taxable income, that change works out to $268 less tax than under the previous year's rates. Any calculator still using 2025-26 numbers is slightly out.
The timing of tax matters as much as the amount. Employees have tax withheld every pay. A sole trader's tax arrives as a lump after the return is lodged, and once business income grows the ATO may also start issuing PAYG instalments (regular prepayments of the following year's tax, usually quarterly). Holding a share of every payment in a separate account, untouched, is the habit that tends to stop a good year from turning into a stressful one.
GST (goods and services tax) is where well-priced creatives most often get caught out. For the 2026-27 income year, registration is compulsory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and GST turnover means gross income from all your businesses minus GST, not profit; it can be triggered by current turnover (this month plus the previous 11) or projected turnover (this month plus the next 11), and registration is due within 21 days of exceeding the threshold (ATO, 2026).
Look back at the table. The profit target looks modest, but once costs and super are layered on, the revenue figure sails past the threshold. Gig fees, commissions, licensing, ad revenue from platforms and sponsorship deals all count towards gross business income. A rate that is finally sustainable is very often the rate that makes GST registration compulsory.
The risk of ignoring it is real. Under the rules for the 2026-27 income year, if you were required to register and didn't, the ATO can backdate registration (backdating is limited to 4 years) and you may have to pay GST on sales made since the date you should have registered, even if you never included GST in those prices; below the threshold registration is optional, but anyone who chooses to register generally has to stay registered for at least 12 months (ATO, 2026). Paying GST you never collected comes straight out of profit.
The practical pricing response is to treat your floor rate as an ex-GST figure. A registered business generally adds GST on top and shows it on a tax invoice. Business clients registered for GST can usually claim it back as a credit, so it rarely changes their real cost. Private clients, such as wedding couples or individuals commissioning portraits, do feel the increase, which is a good reason to plan for registration before a growth year rather than discover it halfway through one.
Each pricing model suits a different kind of job. Hourly rates fit open-ended work with an unclear scope: editing, consulting, session work billed by the hour. Day rates fit shoots, sessions and on-set work where a client books you and you can't take other work that day. Project fees fit jobs with a defined deliverable, like a logo suite, an album mix or a catalogue shoot.
Whichever model you use, the hourly floor rate from the build-up sits underneath it. Industry standards back this up. NAVA's Code of Practice sets the half-day rate at two-thirds of the day rate rather than half, applies a minimum two-hour call-out to some hourly work, and says freelancers are entitled to claim reasonable out-of-pocket expenses on top of its minimum rates (NAVA). Broken-up time costs more to supply, and expenses are a separate line, not something to absorb.
A project quote can follow the same logic. Here's a simplified illustration with hypothetical numbers: a job estimated at 20 hours, priced at the floor rate rounded to $104, comes to $2,080. A 15% contingency for revisions and the inevitable surprise adds $312, giving a fee of $2,392. Travel of $150, billed separately as an expense, brings the total invoice to $2,542 before any GST. Real outcomes depend on individual circumstances. The contingency is the part most often cut to win the job, and it's the part that protects the floor rate when the client asks for "just one more round".
That time-based fee pays for making the work. How the client then uses it is usually priced separately as a licence fee, based on the scope of media, territory, duration and exclusivity. Wider or exclusive use generally costs more, because it limits what else you can do with the work. As a simplified illustration using round hypothetical numbers, the quote above might show the $2,392 creation fee plus a separate licence line of $1,200 for 12 months of national advertising use. Real outcomes depend on individual circumstances.
Scope creep is a contract problem as much as a pricing one. Clear written terms covering revisions, usage rights and payment dates matter, and a lawyer or the Arts Law Centre of Australia can advise on the agreement itself.
Your build-up gives you a floor. Industry benchmarks show where the market sits above it. NAVA reproduces minimum hourly, half-day and day rates for writing and photography, hourly rates for editing and proofreading, and illustration fees that scale from spot illustrations up to colour covers; it also tells writers to weigh the time a commission takes and the cost of other work that may have to be postponed or turned down (NAVA). That last point is opportunity cost, and it's the professional version of the non-billable time argument.
If your floor rate sits well below those benchmarks, the build-up is telling you there's room to charge more. If it sits above them, the business has a cost or utilisation problem worth looking at before blaming the market.
Raising rates is easier with a routine than with courage. Tax rates, super caps and benchmarks reset each 1 July, so reviewing pricing at the start of each income year keeps it in step with the rules. New clients can start on the new rate immediately. Existing clients generally respond better to written notice well before the change, and a short explanation that costs have risen. Some will leave. The ones who stay are often the clients worth keeping.
Growth changes the maths again. Hiring staff brings super guarantee obligations and, depending on where you operate, payroll tax and workers compensation, which are set by each state and territory rather than nationally. At that point the build-up needs a fresh look, and so might the business structure.
This article is general information only, reflects the rules at the time of writing and does not take your personal circumstances into account.
If your rates feel out of tune with your costs, we'd love to help you find the right key. Give the Amplify 11 team a call on (02) 4715 1000 or drop a line to [email protected], and let's crank your numbers up to 11.
Many creatives charge overseas clients in a foreign currency or add a margin for exchange rate movements, international transfer fees and platform charges. The underlying floor rate does not change, because your costs and tax are still Australian. The GST treatment of work supplied to overseas clients can differ from local work, so a registered tax agent can confirm how GST applies to specific overseas jobs.
Grant-funded projects usually have a budget set before you are engaged, so the conversation often starts with the client's figure rather than yours. Comparing that budget against your floor rate and estimated hours shows whether the job is sustainable. Grant guidelines sometimes reference industry fee standards. Depending on your circumstances, grant income may be assessable and may count towards GST turnover, which a tax agent can confirm.
Discounting is a business decision, and it works best when it is deliberate rather than reactive. Some creatives set an annual budget of discounted or pro bono hours and show the full rate on the invoice with the discount listed separately, so the client sees the real value. Exposure rarely covers insurance, software or tax, so it helps to treat it as unpaid work and count it as non-billable time.
Tracking time for a few months, including admin, pitching and travel, gives a far better estimate than guessing. Time-tracking apps or a simple spreadsheet both work. Many creatives start with a conservative billable share, then revisit the rate once they have real data. If income is seasonal, looking at a full year of past invoices can show which months tend to be quiet.
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