What does your casual workforce really cost?
Real award rates, real on-costs, and the costs nobody itemises: recruiting, admin time, no-shows, and the agency margin hidden in your hourly rate. Adjust anything. Every assumption is on the table, because that’s how our pricing works too.
Assumptions (all editable)
Award casual rates as at 1 July 2026 (Fair Work pay guides, Level 1 incl. 25% casual loading). NSW payroll tax (5.45%) is included in all three columns: MyGig is a labour hire provider, so every honest comparison prices it. Estimates only, not a quote.
All-in with MyGig: $46.89/hr, every line item shown before you book. And unlike doing it yourself, recruiting, vetting, payroll, and compliance are done for you.
- Gross wages (casual award rate)$194,976
- Superannuation (12%)$23,397
- Workers comp (3%)$5,849
- Payroll tax (5.45%)$10,626
- Recruiting & advertising$6,000
- Hiring, managing & paying casuals (admin time)$19,800
- Rostering, T&A & payroll software$1,500
- Absence & backfill cost$14,623
- Wages + on-costs$234,849
- Agency margin (~25%, hidden in the hourly rate)$58,712
- Wages + on-costs (itemised upfront)$234,849
- MyGig flat service fee (15%)$35,227
- Recruiting, software, payroll & compliance admin: included$0
The number no spreadsheet shows: who carries the legal risk.
Do it yourself and every misgraded classification, missed penalty, super shortfall, and workers comp gap is your liability. With MyGig, the workers are employed by MyGig Workforce Pty Ltd as Employer of Record under labour hire authorisation: the Fair Work obligations, insurances, and audit trail sit with us, and every pay calculation cites the award clause. That de-risking is included in the flat 15%, along with the software, recruiting, and payroll a DIY operation pays for separately. See compliance & EOR.
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Every number, sourced.
Most cost calculators hide their assumptions. Ours are the product: transparent pricing is the whole point of MyGig.
Entry-level adult casual rates (incl. 25% casual loading) as at 1 July 2026, from MyGig's award engine (the same data that prices every shift), built from Fair Work Commission pay guides: Storage Services & Wholesale Award MA000084, General Retail Industry Award MA000004, Hospitality Industry (General) Award MA000009, Amusement, Events and Recreation Award MA000080. Penalties and higher classifications are quoted per shift in the app.
Super guarantee rate from 1 July 2025 (ATO). This is the final legislated increase.
NSW icare premiums are set per industry classification; warehousing and logistics classifications typically fall around 2-4.5% of wages. Default 3%, editable.
5.45% (Revenue NSW, 2025-26), included in all three columns. MyGig is a labour hire provider, so payroll tax is part of the true cost in every scenario; comparisons that quietly drop it flatter the DIY number.
Rostering, time & attendance, and payroll subscriptions typically run around $25 per worker per month combined for casual workforces (editable). With MyGig this tooling is included in the service at no extra cost.
Compliant warehouse and logistics labour hire agencies typically run margins of 15-30% on the loaded cost, with specialist roles higher; the margin is usually buried in the hourly rate. Default 25%, editable.
Recruiting and advertising (default $1,200 per worker per year, editable), and the FTE time spent hiring, managing, and paying casuals: job ads, screening, rostering, timesheets, payroll runs, super, and compliance (default 1.5 hours per worker per week at $55/hr, editable). Plus absence and backfill cost (default 7.5% of wages; Australian absence-management research puts unplanned absence at 7-8% of payroll).
The DIY number assumes nothing ever goes wrong: no misgraded classification, no missed penalty, no super shortfall, no workers comp gap. With MyGig as Employer of Record those liabilities transfer to us, with the award clause cited on every pay calculation. We include that de-risking in the flat 15% rather than pricing it as a line, so the comparison stays conservative.
Estimates only, for comparison purposes; not a quote or financial advice. Your actual costs depend on award classifications, penalties, and your workers comp rating. With MyGig, the exact all-in cost of every shift is shown before you book it. See pricing, compare us, price a single shift in the shift cost calculator, or grab the free 2026 Casual Rates Card.
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