You do the work.
You keep about a third.
Add it up.
For every dollar you bill, roughly two-thirds goes to people who never picked up the phone. And it doesn't change. Bill twice as much, hand over the same two-thirds. Your skills grow. Your slice doesn't.
You've done this maths in your head.
You've never let yourself finish it.
You know the split is ugly. You've just never sat down and added it up across a full career, because the number, once you see it, is hard to un-see.
Most recruiters only ever picture two doors. Stay employed and stay capped at a fraction of what you bill. Or go fully solo, and overnight become the IT department, the compliance officer, the finance team and the marketer, all at once, with nothing coming in while you rebuild.
And then there's tax.
The third you keep isn't really a third. Here's the part almost no biller works out.
At Australia's top marginal rate of 47%, close to half of the portion you do keep is gone before it ever reaches you. So the slice that actually lands in your hands is thinner than "a third" makes it sound.
On a payslip, you can't change that. Owners play a different game. They've got levers on timing and structure a payslip simply never gives you. Same billings. Very different outcome.
The Two-Thirds Calculator
Put in your numbers. See what you keep, what tax takes, and what it quietly adds up to across a career.
See it on your numbers, not ours.
Most top billers underestimate the lifetime figure, by a lot, because they forget the second cut. Then you'll see the third option most recruiters are never shown.
- What you actually keep, in proportions, not a guess
- What tax quietly takes from the part you thought you kept
- The lifetime number most billers never let themselves calculate
- The third door between "stay capped" and "go solo and drown"
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- You're a proven biller who already carries a desk
- You want to own the upside of your own work
- You've thought about going out on your own, more than once
- You'd back yourself if the downside were covered
- You're an internal recruiter, not an agency biller
- You're after a side hustle, not ownership
- You need to be taught how to bill
- You're still waiting for "someday"