GST on a web design quote

There is no measurable search volume in Australia for “gst on web design services” or for “gst website quote australia”. Nobody looks this up. Everybody pays it.

This page describes how GST shows up in a website quote so that you know what to ask about. It is not tax advice. It does not tell you whether you should register for GST, what you can claim, or how to treat a particular invoice. Those are questions for your accountant or the Australian Taxation Office, and this page will say so more than once, because the difference between the general shape of GST and your actual position is where the money is.

The general shape of GST within Australia’s tax system

GST is imposed under A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth) at a rate of ten per cent on most taxable supplies made in Australia. Web design services supplied in Australia by a GST-registered supplier are ordinarily a taxable supply.

A business must register for GST once its turnover reaches a threshold set out in the law. It may register voluntarily below that threshold. This page does not state the threshold, because a stale figure is worse than none and the consequences of getting it wrong are yours. The current figure is on the ATO’s website, and whether you should register is a conversation with your accountant.

Two things follow from this that matter when you are reading a quote. A supplier who is not registered for GST does not charge it. A supplier who is registered must, and their price is not comparable to the first one until you know which is which.

A quote that does not state its GST treatment is not yet a price

This is the practical point of the whole page.

The same number, presented without its GST treatment, describes two different amounts of money that differ by ten per cent. If you are comparing three quotes and only one of them says which it is, you are not comparing anything.

Ask for it in writing, in the quote itself rather than in a covering email. Is this figure inclusive or exclusive of GST, and is the supplier registered for GST? It is a one-line answer and there is no good reason to withhold it.

The single total price rule when you are being quoted as a consumer

The Australian Consumer Law, Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), contains a single price requirement at section 48. In broad terms, where a price representation is made to a consumer, the single total price, including tax and other unavoidable components, must be stated at least as prominently as any component of it.

There is a threshold question that comes before any of that, and it is the one most often skipped. Section 48 applies to a price representation connected with a supply of goods or services of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption. A business website is arguably not a service of that kind at all — which would mean the section does not reach a standard commercial web design quote regardless of who the buyer is. That gate sits logically ahead of everything below.

The section then has carve-outs on top of it, including for representations made exclusively to a body corporate, so whether it applies to a particular quote depends on who is being quoted and how. A sole trader and an incorporated company are not necessarily in the same position. Those are two separate reasons the section may not bind a given quote, and they are commonly collapsed into one. Neither is a distinction this page will resolve for you: if it matters to how you advertise or how you were quoted, get advice.

What is not in doubt is the direction of good practice. Stating the total including GST costs the supplier nothing except the appearance of a smaller headline number.

Why the same quote is a different real cost, with a different GST amount, for two different business buyers

If your business is registered for GST, the GST on a business purchase is generally recoverable as an input tax credit. This is subject to the acquisition being creditable and to you holding a valid tax invoice. In that case the GST component of a website build is, broadly, cash flow rather than cost.

If your business is not registered for GST, there is no credit to claim. The GST is simply part of what the website costs you.

Two businesses handed the identical quote therefore bear genuinely different real costs. The gap is not trivial on a project of any size. This is one of the reasons a published price range is a weak basis for a decision without the GST treatment attached to it. How the treatment applies to your business is, again, a question for your accountant.

The questions that belong with an accountant or tax expert rather than here

Some parts of this get complicated quickly, and the honest answer is that they need someone looking at your circumstances:

• GST on ongoing services — hosting, maintenance retainers, support agreements — and how they are invoiced across periods
• Overseas platform subscriptions, where GST on imported services and digital products has applied since July 2017, and where the treatment can differ depending on whether the recipient is a GST-registered business
• What happens where part of a supply is made to or from outside Australia
• Whether a particular acquisition is creditable for your business at all
• How any of this interacts with the way you account for GST

Put those to your accountant with your actual invoices in front of them. They are not questions to settle from a web page, including this one.

What every Australian cost page checked leaves out: costs and the GST component

Across the nine Australian website cost pages checked on 31 July 2026 and recorded in research/pricing-bands.json, not one states its GST treatment at all. Every figure on every one of those pages is a number that could be either of two amounts.

That is the reason this site’s pricing rules require GST treatment to be stated at equal prominence to the figure it qualifies, rather than as a footnote. The rule and the rest of the method are on how the bands were assembled.

What to ask for in writing, including GST and the total payable

• Whether the supplier is registered for GST, and their business registration
• Whether every figure in the quote is inclusive or exclusive of GST, stated on the quote
• The total payable including GST, as a single figure
• The GST treatment of each ongoing charge, listed separately from the build
• A valid tax invoice on payment, showing the GST component

Give that list to your accountant along with the quote before you accept it, not after the first invoice arrives.

What to do next

If you are holding a quote right now that does not state its GST treatment, ask the supplier to reissue it with the treatment stated. Nobody reasonable will object, and it is the cheapest test of how the rest of the project will be documented. The wider version of that conversation is on what moves the figure in a quote.

None of the above is tax advice. It is a list of things to take to someone who can give you tax advice.