Accurate travel costing is essential for any business that moves between client locations or job sites. Whether you are a tradie quoting onsite work, a travelling personal trainer, a cleaner, an allied health professional or a mobile service provider, travel directly affects your profitability. Fuel, time on the road, vehicle running costs, insurance and overheads all contribute to your real cost, and under-charging often means absorbing these expenses yourself.
Sole’s Travel Cost Calculator gives you a clear breakdown of your true travel costs so you can set fair, consistent and profitable pricing. It is designed to help Australian sole traders understand both direct and indirect travel expenses and quote with confidence.
Why Understanding Travel Costs Matters
Many small businesses unintentionally erode margins because they estimate travel costs too loosely. Once you know your real cost per kilometre and per minute on the road, you can set minimum call-out fees, include accurate travel charges in your quotes and confidently explain your pricing to clients. Even small under-charges can add up to significant losses over a year.
How to Use the Travel Cost Calculator
Enter your estimated kilometres, travel time, vehicle running costs, hourly labour rate and overheads. The calculator then provides an itemised cost per trip along with a recommended minimum charge that protects your margin. You can use this when quoting new jobs, reviewing your pricing structure or comparing vehicle operating costs.
The Verdict: Why your “gut feel” on travel is costing you money
Best for: Mobile sole traders—tradies, cleaners, and therapists—who want to stop guessing their call-out fees and start protecting their profit margins.
Most small businesses calculate travel based on fuel alone, completely ignoring the “hidden killers”: depreciation, insurance, and tyre wear. This calculator reveals your actual cost per kilometre, allowing you to quote with confidence rather than hope.
The Bottom Line: If you aren’t charging at least the “Required Charge Rate” shown by this tool, you aren’t just giving away your time—you’re paying out of your own pocket to work for your clients. Use this data to update your Sole quote templates today.
Integrate Travel Costs with Sole
Sole will soon introduce a built-in kilometre tracker that automatically feeds your travel costs into your expenses, quotes, invoices and reporting. This will allow you to cost travel accurately without manual spreadsheets or guesswork. Until this feature is released, the calculator gives you a practical way to understand and recover your travel expenses.
Who This Helps
The calculator is ideal for:
- Tradies and construction service providers
- Travelling personal trainers and coaches
- Mobile cleaning, beauty and home-service businesses
- Allied health and disability support workers
- Any sole trader who travels for work
Make Travel Part of Your Pricing Strategy
Understanding your travel costs ensures you quote accurately, avoid under-charging, maintain consistent margins and make informed decisions about job planning and service areas. Use the Travel Cost Calculator to uncover your real travel cost and apply it directly to your pricing model.
Small Business Travel Costs: Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my “Cost Per Km” higher than the price of fuel?
Fuel is often less than 40% of your actual travel expense. Your real cost includes vehicle depreciation (the loss in value as you add KMs), pro-rata servicing, registration, insurance, and even the cost of “extras” like roof racks or sign-writing. Our calculator factors these in to give you a sustainable business figure, not just a fuel tally.
Should I charge clients exactly what the calculator says?
The “Required Charge Rate Per Km” is your break-even point plus your desired profit. You should use this as a baseline. For many Australian sole traders, it’s often easier to turn this into a standard “Call-out Fee” or “Zone Rate” in your Sole Invoice templates to keep billing simple for your customers.
How does the 5-year vehicle value estimate help me?
By looking at the total cost over 5 years, you can see if your current vehicle is actually “affordable” for your business. It helps you plan for your next vehicle purchase and ensures you are setting aside enough profit to replace your van or car when the time comes.
Can I claim these travel costs on my tax?
Yes. In Australia, you can generally claim vehicle expenses if the travel is for business purposes. While this calculator helps you price your services, Sole’s accounting features help you track those expenses and bank feeds so you can claim every cent back at tax time.
Does Sole track my kilometres automatically?
Sole is currently rolling out an integrated Kilometre Tracker. This will allow you to log trips directly within the app and sync them with your invoices and tax reports. Until then, using this calculator to set your fixed travel rates in Sole is the best way to ensure you stay profitable.
What is a “Gross Profit Percentage” and what should I enter?
This is the “buffer” you want to make on top of your costs. For most service businesses, a margin of 20% to 35% is standard to cover your time and business growth. If you leave this at 0%, you are only covering your expenses without making any profit on the travel itself.
Start Managing Your Travel Costs Automatically
Sole gives you simple, accurate tools to manage invoicing, expenses, travel, reporting and cashflow in one place. Join thousands of Australian sole traders who use Sole to run a more profitable business.
No credit card required.
Accurately calculate your labour and non-labour travel claims in seconds.
Labour Component (Time): $XX.XX
Non-Labour Component (Vehicle): $XX.XX
Total Invoice Amount: $XX.XX
The Verdict: Is your travel billing a compliance risk?
Best for: Support workers and therapists who provide mobile services and need to ensure their travel claims aren’t being automatically flagged by Plan Managers or the NDIA.
The Reality: NDIS travel rules changed significantly in July 2025. While support workers can still claim their full rate, therapists are now capped at 50% of their hourly rate for travel time. If you are still billing at 100%, your claims will be rejected as “non-compliant.” Furthermore, the adoption of MMM 2023 classifications means your usual “Regional” status might have changed to “Metro,” cutting your claimable time in half.
The Bottom Line: Don’t risk a “Recoupment” debt by guessing your travel. This calculator gives you the baseline, but Sole’s GPS-integrated tracker is the only way to prove your travel time to an auditor. It automatically applies the correct 50% therapy cap and MMM zone limits so you get paid every cent you’re entitled to—and not a cent more.
Understanding NDIS Travel Rules
Billing for travel is one of the most common areas for compliance errors. The NDIS breaks travel costs into two parts:
- Labour Costs: Payment for the time you spend driving.
- Non-Labour Costs: Reimbursement for vehicle wear and tear (per km) and road tolls.
The “Zone” Limits (MMM)
The NDIS uses the Modified Monash Model (MMM) to cap how much time you can charge.
- Metro (MMM 1-3): You can generally claim up to 30 minutes of travel time.
- Regional (MMM 4-5): The cap increases to 60 minutes.
- Remote: Caps are removed, but costs must be “reasonable and necessary.”
New Rules for Therapists
Warning for Allied Health Professionals: As of July 1, 2025, therapists can only claim 50% of their hourly rate for travel time.
- Example: If your therapy rate is $193.99/hr, your travel time is billed at $97.00/hr.
- Note: This rule does not apply to Support Workers (Core Supports), who can still charge their full hourly rate for travel time.
Stop Calculating Manually
This calculator is great for estimates, but doing this for every invoice is a nightmare.
Sole automates this entire process.
- GPS Tracking: We track your drive and automatically apply the correct Km rate.
- Auto-Invoicing: We separate Labour and Non-Labour costs on the invoice automatically so you don’t have to do the math.
NDIS Hourly Rate Calculator – Determine your base pricing.
Guide to MMM Zones – Find out which zone you work in.
NDIS Invoice Template – See how to display travel lines on an invoice.
We’ll email the download link straight away.
NDIS Travel & Vehicle Claims: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the current NDIS kilometre rate for 2026?
For the 2025-26 financial year, the NDIS non-labour travel rate is $0.97 per kilometre. This is designed to cover fuel, insurance, and vehicle wear-and-tear. You can claim this in addition to your hourly labour rate (travel time), provided it is outlined in your Service Agreement.
Why can therapists only claim 50% of their hourly rate for travel?
As of July 1, 2025, the NDIA introduced a 50% cap on the “labour component” of travel for therapy supports (e.g., OT, Physio, Psychology). This aims to ensure that travel claims remain proportionate to the clinical service delivered. Support Workers (Core Supports) are not affected by this change and can still claim 100% of their standard hourly rate for travel time.
How do I know if I’m in a 30-minute or 60-minute zone?
The NDIS uses the Modified Monash Model (MMM).
- Metro (MMM 1-3): Maximum 30 minutes of travel time per trip.
- Regional (MMM 4-5): Maximum 60 minutes per trip.
- Remote (MMM 6-7): No strict time cap, but costs must be “reasonable” and agreed upon in writing.Note: The NDIS transitioned to the updated MMM 2023 data in late 2025—ensure you’ve re-checked your client’s postcode against the new map.
Can I charge for “Return Travel” (the trip home)?
Generally, the NDIS only pays for travel to a participant. However, you can claim return travel if the participant is your last appointment of the day and you are travelling back to your usual place of work. This must be clearly agreed upon in your Service Agreement, or the Plan Manager may reject the claim.
What happens if I’m stuck in traffic and exceed the 30-minute cap?
In Metro areas, even if the drive takes 45 minutes, you can only claim 30 minutes of labour time. The NDIS considers the remaining 15 minutes a “cost of doing business.” This is why accurate route planning is essential for mobile providers to maintain their margins.
How should travel appear on my Sole invoice?
Travel must be split into two distinct lines:
- Labour: Using the same code as the support (e.g., $15\_056\_0128\_1\_3$ for Therapy), but flagged as “Provider Travel.”
- Non-Labour: Using the specific travel code ($04\_590\_0128\_1\_3$) for the kilometres and tolls.Sole does this automatically, ensuring Plan Managers can see exactly what they are paying for.