Offering Finance to Tradie Clients: The Honest Guide (2026)

You're here for one of two reasons

You're here because you're either losing jobs you could have won (customer loved the quote but couldn't afford $8,000 upfront and went with a competitor who offered finance) or you're tired of carrying receivables for 30–60 days on jobs you've already done. Probably both. Offering point-of-sale finance to clients solves both problems at the same time. The customer gets the work done on a payment plan they can manage. You get paid 100% upfront by the finance provider, minus a merchant fee. The job that would have walked is now on the books. The cashflow that would have been delayed is already in your account. Let's talk about how it actually works in Australia in 2026.

What I've seen watching tradies handle the "I can't afford it" conversation

I've been running trade businesses for nearly 9 years and I'll tell you the single biggest leave-on-the-table I see across the whole industry. The customer loves the quote. They want the work done. They can't write a $12,000 cheque for a roof restoration or a $6,000 cheque for a new hot water system on the spot. They ask if there's a payment plan. The tradie says "I don't do finance, just straight invoice," and the customer says "let me think about it," and they ring another roofer or plumber that same afternoon. That job is gone. Not because the quote was wrong or the work was bad — because nobody offered the customer a way to say yes. Offering finance isn't about being a lender. It's about being the business that makes it easy for the customer to move forward. The tradies I know who added a finance option to their quoting process saw close rates jump 15–30% on jobs over $5,000, and they got paid upfront instead of carrying receivables. That's a double win that most of the trade still hasn't worked out.

— Benjy, Tradie Scaler founder

How point-of-sale finance actually works in a tradie business

The mechanics are simpler than most tradies expect. Here's the sequence:

1. You sign up as a referrer with a finance provider like Brighte, Humm, Handypay, or Plenti. The application is free and takes about 20 minutes. The provider does the compliance checks on your business and adds you to their tradie/merchant network.
2. You present finance as an option at quote stage. When you hand over the quote for a $6,000 hot water install or a $10,000 roof restoration, you include a line that says "finance from $X per week" or "0% interest for 24 months" or similar — whatever the provider's current offer is.
3. The customer applies directly with the provider. They do this online, usually in 5–10 minutes. You're not involved in the credit check, the documentation, or the lending decision. The provider assesses the customer and approves or declines based on their own credit policy.
4. Once the customer is approved and the job is done, the provider pays you directly. 100% of the agreed job value, minus the merchant fee, usually within a few business days of completion confirmation. The customer then pays the provider back over the agreed term — anywhere from interest-free for 6–60 months through to longer interest-bearing terms up to 10 years on bigger jobs.
5. You never hold the credit. The lending relationship sits entirely between the customer and the provider. You're just the tradie who did the work and introduced the two parties. This is what keeps you on the right side of Australian credit licensing law — more on that below.

That's the whole model. It really is that straightforward once you're set up. The admin of offering finance is almost entirely front-loaded into the signup phase; day-to-day running cost is minimal.

When offering finance makes sense (and when it doesn't)

Let me put honest numbers on this because the merchant fee scares tradies off before they've actually done the math.

The cost: Merchant fees typically range from 3% to 7% of the job value depending on the provider, the term length, and whether the plan is interest-free or interest-bearing for the customer. Longer interest-free plans cost the merchant more because the provider is absorbing the interest. Paid plans cost the merchant less because the customer is paying the interest. Most tradies see average merchant fees in the 4–6% range across the mix of jobs they finance.

The alternative costs that don't show up on invoices:

• The jobs you lose entirely because the customer couldn't afford upfront and went elsewhere. On a $8,000 hot water install at 25% margin, losing one job a month is $2,000 of lost profit a month. A 5% merchant fee on the same job is $400. The math isn't close.
• Carrying 30-day receivables. Invoicing a customer and waiting for payment means your cash is funding their cashflow for 30–60 days. On a $15,000 roof restoration, that's real working capital locked up while you wait. Offering finance flips this — you're paid in days, not months.
• Chasing unpaid invoices. The time cost of following up late payments is significant. Factor in owner time at $100+ per hour of effective billing rate, and a single 30-day chase on a $5,000 invoice easily costs $300–$500 in lost billable time.
• Bad debt write-offs. Not every invoice gets paid. Offering finance means the write-off risk sits with the provider, not you.

The rule of thumb: for any ticket over about $3,000 on residential work, offering finance is usually a net win. Below that, the merchant fee starts eating into margins that can't absorb it. Above $8,000, offering finance is almost always a clear win because the customer conversion lift is the dominant factor.

Worked example: a roof restoration business doing 10 jobs a month at $8,000 average. Currently running a 30% close rate on quotes. Adding finance lifts the close rate to 40% because customers who couldn't say yes at full upfront can now say yes at $X/week. That's an extra 3 jobs a month × $8,000 = $24,000 of additional monthly revenue. Merchant fees at 5% on those 3 jobs = $1,200. Net gain: $22,800 per month in captured revenue that would have walked. Annual impact: $273,600. Against zero ongoing VA or admin cost.

The trades where offering finance is a clear win

Not every trade benefits equally. Here's my honest breakdown:

The Australian finance providers worth considering in 2026

I'll be straight about this: the Australian BNPL and home improvement finance market has been through a cleanout over the past three years. Some providers (like Openpay) collapsed entirely. Others have restructured or pivoted. Here's the honest landscape as of April 2026, focused on the providers that are actually operating and actually tradie-relevant.

The legal framing — referrer, not lender

This is the part most tradies worry about unnecessarily. Offering finance to your clients through a formal provider relationship does not require you to hold an Australian Credit Licence yourself. You operate as a referrer under the provider's ACL.

Here's how the relationship is structured in practice:

• You introduce the client to the provider. That's the extent of your credit-related involvement. You hand them the application link, show them the payment plan options, and let the provider handle the rest.
• The provider does the credit assessment, lending decision, and documentation. They're the licensed party. They carry the ACL and the regulatory obligations.
• The credit contract is between the customer and the provider. Not between the customer and you. You never hold the debt.
• You're paid for the work you do, not for the finance you arranged. The merchant fee you pay the provider is a cost of accepting their payment method, not a commission for arranging credit.

Brighte, Humm, Handypay, and Plenti all run formal referrer programs designed exactly for this structure. When you sign up as a partner, they'll give you specific guidelines on how to present the finance option to customers — things like what you can say, what language is compliant, and how to disclose that the finance is provided by them under their licence, not by you.

Important: this page is general information, not legal advice. Credit licensing is a specific area of Australian financial services law and the relationship structure should be confirmed directly with each provider when you sign up as a partner. The providers themselves are motivated to keep the relationship compliant because any compliance failure comes back on their ACL, not yours — but that's still worth verifying rather than assuming.

How to present finance to customers at quote stage

The biggest mistake I see tradies make when they first add a finance option is burying it in the fine print of the quote. That's backwards. The whole point of offering finance is to reframe the decision for the customer from "can I afford $10,000 today" to "can I afford $X/week for the next two years." The second framing has a dramatically higher yes rate.

Do this:

• Put the finance option on the first page of the quote alongside the total price. Show both: "Total: $10,000. Or from $X/week on a 3-year interest-free plan through Brighte."
• Mention it verbally at the quote conversation. "If the upfront is a stretch, we can also offer weekly payment plans through Brighte, interest-free for three years — a lot of our customers use that option."
• Include a quick comparison. "On a $8,000 install, that's about $50 a week. Less than your weekly grocery bill."
• Let the customer apply in front of you if they're interested. The application takes 5–10 minutes online. If they're approved on the spot, you can book the job before they've left the site.

Don't do this:

• Don't hide the finance option until the customer says they can't afford it. That signals you think it's a second-class choice.
• Don't recommend specific plans as if you're advising on credit. You're introducing them to the provider — the provider assesses and advises.
• Don't try to make a spread on the merchant fee by quoting the customer a higher price than the cash customer. That's not how the relationship works and it usually breaks the provider's partner agreement.