EDITOR SUMMARY (120 words)

Every one of the 54 suburbs on Sydney's Northern Beaches pays the same council rate, $1,766. Total annual running cost across those suburbs still ranges from $8,019 to $12,404, a $4,385 gap on an identical rates bill. New SuburbCost analysis joins council rates, water, insurance and modelled commute cost across all 760 Greater Sydney suburbs for the first time, and finds rates average just 15.3 per cent of the total, the smallest of the four costs, while commute averages 44.1 per cent. Hunters Hill has the highest council rate of any Sydney council, $2,446, yet its total running cost sits 21 per cent below the Sydney median. Full suburb-level data, an embeddable chart and a CSV for verification are available on request.