Free Australian driving-instructor earnings calculator. Model your income from lessons per week, hourly rate and working weeks, then subtract running costs (fuel, the dual-control car, insurance, accreditation) and any lead-marketplace commission to see your gross and net take-home. Shows exactly what a ~25% marketplace commission (such as EzLicence) costs you over a year versus owning your own bookings, useful for instructors deciding whether to go independent or start their own driving school.
Fuel, vehicle/lease, insurance, accreditation, averaged per week.
Marketplaces like EzLicence take ~25% of every lesson; your own bookings take none.
Net income / year
$86,940
$1,890 / week
Effective take-home rate
$68/hr
28 lesson-hours / week
For driving instructors
Online bookings, prepaid lesson credits and student tracking, flat monthly, no marketplace commission.
Driving instruction is one of the few trades where you set your own rate and your own hours, so earnings vary widely. The maths is simple: your gross is lesson-hours a week times your hourly rate, and your take-home is what's left after commission and running costs. A full-time instructor charging $80/hour and teaching 28 lesson-hours a week for 46 weeks grosses about $103,000, but the net depends heavily on two things most new instructors underestimate.
Lead platforms such as EzLicence bring you students, but they take roughly 25% of every lesson, for the life of that customer, plus payment fees. On a busy diary that's often $20,000-$30,000 a year handed over. It's worth paying while you have empty slots to fill; it's pure lost margin once you have steady referrals. Toggle the commission field above to see exactly what it costs you annually.
Once you can fill your own diary, the fastest way to lift take-home isn't raising your rate, it's keeping the commission. An instructor running their own online bookings and prepaid lesson packages through OneBookPlus pays a flat monthly subscription instead of a per-lesson cut, takes deposits to cut no-shows, and owns the student relationship for repeat and referral work. For a busy instructor that's the difference between giving away 25% forever and paying a fixed ~$49 a month. See how the platforms compare in the best driving school software guide, or the steps in how to start a driving school.
A full-time driving instructor charging around $75-$85 an hour and teaching 25-30 lesson-hours a week grosses roughly $95,000-$130,000 a year before costs. After running costs (fuel, the dual-control car, insurance, accreditation) a typical net is around $60,000-$90,000. The two biggest levers are how many hours you fill and whether a marketplace takes a commission on each lesson.
Lead-generation marketplaces such as EzLicence typically take around 25% of every lesson, for the life of the customer, plus payment-processing fees. On a $80 lesson that's about $20 gone before costs. It buys you demand, but you don't own the customer relationship, and the commission never stops. Instructors who build their own booking channel keep that 25%, this calculator shows what it's worth over a year.
The big ones are the vehicle (a dual-control car, bought or leased, plus certified dual-control pedals), fuel, comprehensive and public-liability/professional-indemnity insurance, annual or multi-year accreditation renewal, and marketing or marketplace commission. Fuel and vehicle depreciation scale with how much you drive; insurance and accreditation are largely fixed.
It depends on whether you can fill your own diary. A marketplace is worth its 25% while you're building demand and have empty slots. Once you have steady word-of-mouth and repeat referrals, that same 25% is pure margin you're giving away, often $20,000-$30,000 a year for a busy instructor. Most established instructors run a hybrid: keep some marketplace leads, but push repeat and referral bookings through their own system where they pay no commission.
Allowing for travel between pickups, no-shows and admin, a sustainable full-time load is around 25-35 lesson-hours a week. Packing in more is possible short-term but travel time between students and fatigue cap most instructors well below a '40-hour' equivalent. Efficient scheduling and geographic clustering of students is what lets the best instructors hit the higher end.
Sources & methodology
This calculator estimates a driving instructor's earnings from lesson volume and rate, then subtracts any marketplace commission and your weekly running costs (fuel, vehicle, insurance, accreditation). Gross = lesson-hours per week × hourly rate; net = gross − commission − running costs. Annual figures multiply by your working weeks. It's a planning estimate, not tax or financial advice.
Authoritative sources
Reviewed by Bishal Shrestha — Founder of OneBookPlus, 10+ years building tools with Australian tax-agent and BAS-agent practices. Last reviewed and updated: June 2026.
Disclaimer: This calculator produces estimates only and is not tax advice. Tax outcomes depend on your individual circumstances. For decisions that affect your tax position, consult a registered tax agent or the ATO directly.
Teach people to drive?
OneBookPlus takes online lesson bookings, sells and tracks prepaid lesson packages, and keeps every student's progress and balance in one place, a flat monthly fee, no per-lesson marketplace commission.