Rate card, 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027
Rate card
A studio publishes what each role costs by hour, by day and by booked week, then explains the arithmetic between them. A day is seven billable hours inside a seven and a half hour day, and a booked week is ten per cent off five of those.
The document, page by page
Every page as it renders and as it prints, with nothing summarised. Read the wording before you reuse it.
Section by section
What each section is for, so you can keep the ones you need and drop the rest.
- Letterhead and footer
- The studio, its ABN and the standing note that every figure excludes GST, on every page.
- The four things that define the card
- Billing day length, the booked week discount, the smallest billing unit and how long the rates hold.
- Rates by role
- Eight roles from principal consultant to production, each with an hourly, day and weekly rate.
- Reading a line
- One role worked through from hourly to week, showing what the discount is worth in dollars.
- Loadings
- Four timing loadings with the percentage and the resulting rate for one named role.
- No stacking
- The rule that only the higher loading applies, and that a loading needs a written request.
- Retainers
- Three bands by monthly hours and minimum term, with the discount each earns on the role rate.
- What a retainer buys
- Reserved hours, a named lead and priority against what it does not buy, including rollover.
- How time is counted
- Five numbered rules on increments, meetings, travel, estimates, rework and timesheet visibility.
- Expenses
- Five expense types with how each is charged and the approval threshold that applies.
- Terms
- Validity, the capped annual review, invoicing, cancellation of a booked week and the GST position.
- How a quote is put together
- Three notes on the brief, the contingency and what a fixed price actually fixes.
Clauses in this document
What makes this document work
The three prices reconcile
Hourly times seven is the day rate, five days less ten per cent is the week. A senior designer at $215 an hour is $1,505 a day and $6,772.50 a week, and a client can check each step without asking what the discount was.
Loadings are capped rather than stacked
After hours, weekend, public holiday and same day work each carry a percentage, and where two apply only the higher one is charged. The example column shows the actual dollar rate an engineer becomes in each case.
The time rules are the part clients argue about
Fifteen minute increments, a thirty minute minimum per task, travel over thirty minutes at half rate, and rework caused by the studio not billed at all. Writing them down is what makes the timesheet uncontroversial.
Questions people ask
What is a rate card?
A published list of what a supplier charges for each role or service, with the units it is sold in and the rules that change the number. It is what lets a buyer compare suppliers without asking each one for a bespoke quote.
Should a rate card show day rates as well as hourly?
If the work is bought in days, yes. The useful part is the relationship between them. Here a day is seven billable hours inside a seven and a half hour day, so the half hour of handover and note writing is free and the client can see that it is.
How long should rates be held?
This card holds to 30 June 2027 for any work performed in that window, whenever the engagement started, and the annual review is capped at the change in the consumer price index plus one percentage point. A cap is what makes a multi year engagement possible.
Do loadings stack?
Not on this card. Where two apply the higher one is charged and the other is dropped, and a loading is only charged when the client asked for the timing in writing. Both rules exist to stop an invoice arriving with a surprise on it.
How does the card say time is counted?
It gives that its own section rather than leaving it to the invoice. This card sets the minimum increment and how partial hours round, which is the detail that decides whether a five minute call becomes a billed unit. Agreeing it on the rate card removes the most common line item dispute an agency has.
Why does the card explain how a quote is built?
Because a rate card is inputs and a quote is an outcome. This one closes by showing how roles, hours and loadings combine into a quoted figure. A client who can follow that arithmetic questions the estimate rather than the honesty of it, which is a far more productive conversation.
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