Is It Normal to Pay a Tradie Before the Job Starts?
A tradie's just quoted you for the job, and before they've lifted a tool, they want money — a deposit, upfront payment, call it what you like. Is that normal? Most homeowners have no reference point for this — you don't book tradies often enough to build one — so you're stuck guessing whether you're being reasonable or being taken for a ride.
The short answer
A deposit of 10–20% of the total job value, requested to cover materials or to secure your slot in the schedule, is standard practice and not a red flag on its own. What matters far more than the percentage is what the deposit is for, whether it's in writing, and how the tradie reacts when you ask questions about it. A deposit request that ticks those boxes is normal business. One that doesn't is where people lose money.
Why deposits exist at all
Deposits aren't a scam mechanism by default — they solve a real problem for legitimate tradies too. Materials for a bathroom reno or a fence rebuild can run into thousands of dollars, and a tradie fronting that cost themselves before you've paid a cent is a real financial risk to their business, especially for a sole trader without much cash buffer. A deposit also works both ways: it signals you're serious about going ahead, which is why some tradies won't lock in a start date without one — reasonable, given how often people get three quotes and vanish.
So the existence of a deposit request isn't the issue. The structure of it is.
What a normal deposit looks like
- Tied to a specific cost. "50% of materials upfront, balance on completion" is specific and checkable — you know exactly what that money is buying.
- A reasonable percentage of the total. For most residential jobs, 10–20% is the common range. Trade bodies and consumer-protection guidance in Australia generally treat deposits above this — and especially anything approaching half the job or more — as worth a harder look, particularly for larger jobs where the dollar figure gets serious.
- In writing, on a quote or invoice. Not a text message, not a verbal "just send me a few hundred to get started." A proper deposit request has a document behind it with the business's details on it.
- Paid into a business account, not a personal one. A payment request to a personal name that doesn't match the business name on the quote is one of the more common early signs something's off.
- Matched by a written timeline. A legitimate tradie taking a deposit can usually tell you roughly when the job will start and how long it'll take. Vagueness on timing, paired with confidence on payment, is a mismatch worth noticing.
What tends to precede a bad outcome
None of these on their own prove anything — plenty of honest, busy tradies are disorganised — but stacked together, they're the pattern behind most of the deposit horror stories people share.
A deposit that's unusually large relative to the job. Half up front, or more, on a job that hasn't started, shifts a lot of risk onto you with very little to show for it. The bigger the ask relative to the total, the more it's worth pausing on.
Pressure to pay quickly. "I need it today or I'll give the slot to someone else" is a classic urgency tactic — it's designed to stop you thinking it through, checking anything, or asking a second opinion. A legitimate tradie who's actually busy can usually still give you a day or two.
Cash only, or a personal bank transfer. Not automatically dishonest — some smaller operators genuinely prefer cash — but it removes your paper trail. If something goes wrong, a bank transfer to a business account with an invoice behind it is far easier to dispute or trace than cash in an envelope.
No fixed address or ABN on the invoice. If you can't find the business anywhere else — no ABN, no online presence, nothing beyond a phone number — you also have no real way to chase the deposit back if the job never starts. Looking up their ABN before you pay anything is a two-minute check that closes off a lot of this risk.
Evasiveness when you ask questions. This is the single most useful signal. Ask a straightforward question — "what's this deposit covering, specifically?" or "can I get that as an invoice rather than a text?" — and watch how they respond. A legitimate operator answers plainly. Deflection, guilt-tripping ("don't you trust me?"), or a sudden change of subject is the tell, far more than the deposit itself.
What to actually do before you pay
- Ask what it's for. Materials, scheduling, or both — get a straight answer.
- Get it in writing. Even a simple invoice with the amount, what it covers, and the business's ABN is enough.
- Check the payment details match the business. The account name on the bank transfer should match the business name on the quote — not a different name, and not a first name only.
- Pay by bank transfer, not cash, where you can. It creates a record that exists independently of what either of you remembers later.
- Know your ceiling. If a deposit request comes in meaningfully above 20% of the job total, it's reasonable to ask why, or to counter with a lower figure tied to actual material costs.
If something already feels off
If you've paid a deposit and the tradie has gone quiet, missed a start date without explanation, or is dodging specifics about the invoice, don't assume the worst instantly — jobs get delayed for boring reasons all the time. But do put your questions in writing (text or email, not just a call) so there's a record, and if the silence continues, NSW Fair Trading and Consumer Affairs bodies in other states handle exactly this kind of dispute and are worth contacting for guidance on next steps.
The bigger picture
A deposit is a small moment in a job, but it's often the first real test of whether the person you're paying is who they say they are. Most of what makes a deposit safe — a real business, a written quote, a traceable payment — is the same groundwork that makes the whole job safer.
That's the gap BLDESY exists to close. Every tradie on the platform has already been checked — ABN, licence, insurance, and more — before you ever see their profile, so the deposit conversation starts from a position of already knowing who you're dealing with, not guessing.