NDIS Software for Small Providers: Per-User Costs and What You Get

NDIS software for a small provider costs from about $8 per user a month on ShiftCare's Basic plan (AUD, excluding GST, billed annually, five-staff minimum), rising to $13 and $20 on higher tiers. Brevity charges per participant instead, from $4.49 per client a month. AI progress notes are included from the lowest ShiftCare tier.

The number that decides your bill is not the headline price but what each product counts. ShiftCare counts every login, support workers included. Brevity counts clients. A provider with 20 casual workers and 8 participants and one with 6 full-time staff and 30 participants get opposite answers from the same two price lists, so the sums below use both shapes.

Follow me on Instagram@sagnikteaches

ShiftCare's three tiers, in dollars and in features

ShiftCare publishes prices in AUD, excluding GST, with a seven-day trial and a minimum of five staff. The first number is billed annually (paid up front); the second is monthly and cancellable at any time. I read the page on 4 November 2026.

Connect on LinkedInSagnik Bhattacharya

Enterprise is for providers from 250 staff and is outside the range of this tutorial. Add-ons are priced separately: ShiftCare HR at $2 per user a month, ShiftCare Certifications (more than 100 training courses) at $3 per user a month, a Support at Home add-on at $5 per client a month on Premium and above, and text-message shift reminders at $0.10 per text.

Subscribe on YouTube@sagnikteaches

The vendor says the support worker app, GPS clock in and out, NDIS price limits, accounting links to Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online, payroll links, two-factor sign-in and unlimited clients are in every plan. Those are the dull features that stop small providers losing money, so it is good that none sits behind the top tier.

What the AI items actually are

ShiftCare lists 14 items in its AI and operational intelligence group. Basic and Professional each include 10 of them, and Premium includes all 14. Named items include AI note rephrasing, voice-to-text note transcription, a Completeness Coach that prompts a carer while a note is still open, an AI client health dashboard, an AI cancelled-shifts report, AI reminder message generation, a one-click client summary, a client handover summary, AI-generated forms and documentation, and a connection to your own Claude or ChatGPT account. The page does not show which four items are Premium only, so ask in the demo.

The four "Signals" watch progress notes, the roster, invoices and the inbox. On Basic they detect ("a missing note, a gap in the roster, an invoice that doesn't match the shift"). On Professional they also recommend and draft the fix. On Premium they act on your behalf and log what they did. Treat that top level with care: a tool that sends or corrects things unsupervised needs rules you have agreed, a person reviewing the log, and a way to switch it off.

Brevity prices by participant instead

Brevity's pricing page lists prices excluding GST. Lite is shown as $44.90 a month, or $4.49 per client per month, with a free trial and no setup fee. Business is $64.90 a month, or $6.49 per client per month, with a setup fee whose amount is not stated. Enterprise is price on application, with a setup fee. Lite already lists rostering with a mobile app, shift notes, incident management, NDIS bulk claims, the price guide and Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks links; Business adds group rostering, SIL and plan management modules and a form and report builder. The page does not list any AI features, so confirm in a demo whether any exist.

The page does not explain how the monthly figures relate to the per-client rates, but each monthly figure is exactly ten times its per-client rate. That looks like a ten-client minimum, which the page does not actually say. Ask before you budget, because it changes the sum for a provider with fewer than ten participants: on that reading, six clients cost $44.90 on Lite, not $26.94.

Lumary shows no prices on its site, and its pages lead to a demo request, so I leave it out of the sums. If a vendor will only quote after a call, treat the quote as the real list price and ask for it in writing with what is excluded.

A worked monthly bill for a 12-person provider

Illustrative figures. Say a provider has 10 support workers, 2 office staff (12 logins) and 25 participants. Here is each option, in AUD excluding GST.

• ShiftCare Basic, annual billing: 12 users at $8 is $96 a month.
• ShiftCare Basic, monthly billing: 12 at $9 is $108.
• ShiftCare Professional, annual: 12 at $13 is $156. Monthly: 12 at $15 is $180.
• ShiftCare Premium, annual: 12 at $20 is $240. Monthly: 12 at $25 is $300.
• Premium with ShiftCare HR: 12 at $22 is $264 a month on annual billing.
• Brevity Lite: 25 clients at $4.49 is $112.25. Business at $6.49 is $162.25.

The numbers are close enough that cost alone will not settle it. What settles it is the shape of the provider. If 30 casual workers join to cover peaks, ShiftCare Basic moves to 32 users at $8, or $256 a month, while Brevity does not move at all until a participant joins. Equally, if you have 80 participants and 8 staff, the per-client plan climbs to $359 on Lite while ShiftCare stays under $100.

Quick check for the five-user minimum

A sole trader with two part-time workers still pays for five users on ShiftCare: $40 a month at annual Basic pricing. That is not much, but it is also the point at which a spreadsheet and a free calendar are a fair alternative for a few months. Switching earns its fee once you are spending more than an hour a week fixing rosters or chasing notes.

What it costs once you add the tier you actually need

Small providers tend to start on the lowest tier and then discover that one feature they rely on is in the next. Walk through your month and name the tier that holds each job before you sign.

If you submit claims by uploading a file, Professional probably covers you and saves $84 a month against Premium for this team. If you want to claim directly, or see margin per shift to price new packages, Premium is where it sits. Note the rule: pay the premium for a feature you will use within the first month, not for what you might want later.

What an audit needs from the software

Price is the easy part. A provider undergoing a quality audit has to show records: who delivered each support, what was written, how incidents were handled, and which staff held which qualifications. When you trial a product, test these questions with a dummy participant.

1. Can you pull every note for one participant for a date range as a single document, with author and time stamps?
2. Is there an activity log showing who edited or deleted a note, and when? (ShiftCare lists activity log and audit trails and ticks it on Premium; the comparison table does not make clear whether Basic or Professional include it, so confirm in the trial.)
3. Do incidents have their own form with status, follow-up and a record of who was told?
4. Can you store staff documents such as screening and training certificates with expiry dates and reminders?
5. Can you export everything if you leave?

A mistake that shows up in practice: a provider relies on AI note rephrasing and later cannot tell which wording the support worker wrote and which the tool changed. Ask whether the original text is kept alongside the enhanced version. If it is not, decide a rule such as "workers approve the rephrase before saving, and the original stays in a draft field". The tutorial on writing progress notes with AI against an audit checklist covers this in detail, and building the audit evidence folder shows what to gather.

Testing claims accuracy before you pay for a year

The annual price saves 11 to 20 per cent, but it is paid up front. For the first month, pay monthly, or use the seven-day trial for something more demanding than a demo. A one-week test that costs nothing:

1. Enter three real participants with their plan dates and support categories (with details changed if you prefer).
2. Roster one full week for three support workers, including a shift that crosses midnight and a short-notice cancellation.
3. Have a worker clock in on a phone and write a note by voice.
4. Generate the invoice for those shifts and compare it by hand with what you would have claimed.

Here is how a one-line comparison might look (illustrative). A two-hour shift at a weekday rate and a two-hour shift on a Sunday should produce two different line items, and a shift that ran 20 minutes over should produce the amount your service agreement allows, not a rounded figure. If the invoice differs from your hand calculation, find out whether the cause is your price list setup or the product. ShiftCare says NDIS price limits are built in on every plan, so the product should flag a claim above the limit; test that by entering a rate that is too high on purpose.

For checking invoices against shift notes after the software has produced them, the tutorial on checking claims against shift notes with AI gives a routine that works with any product here.

Linking the software to Xero, payroll and an AI assistant

Cost is not only the subscription. Count three more items:

• Accounting link: ShiftCare and Brevity both mention Xero. The link needs your own accounting subscription. See AI accounting for providers: categorising income and claims for what to do with the data when it lands.
• Payroll: ShiftCare lists PayCat and Employment Hero payroll links. SCHADS award interpretation appears on the rostering list and is ticked on Premium; the table does not make clear whether the lower tiers include it, so ask, and check that it covers the award your staff are on.
• AI assistant connection: ShiftCare lists a connection to Claude or ChatGPT on every plan, using your own account. It sends participant information to that second provider. Decide who may switch it on, and read the privacy position first with what is safe under the privacy principles.

Your time is the biggest cost. As a rough planning figure, allow 10 to 15 hours to load participants, price lists and staff, and another two or three weeks before workers stop writing notes on paper as a backup. If that sounds like too much, ask the vendor what onboarding is included: ShiftCare says onboarding, training and live chat support are in every plan.

Three small providers, three different answers

The same price list gives different winners depending on how the business is built. These are illustrative businesses, not real ones, with prices at the annual rates listed above.

A supported-living team with long, fixed shifts

Eight support workers and one coordinator (9 users) look after 6 participants in shared housing. Shifts are long and fixed, so rostering is simple, but the paperwork is heavy: daily notes per participant, medication prompts and incident forms. On ShiftCare Premium they would pay 9 at $20, which is $180 a month, and get care plans and medication tracking. On Brevity Lite, 6 clients at $4.49 is $26.94, or $44.90 if the monthly figure turns out to be a ten-client minimum. Either way the per-client plan looks far cheaper. Lite lists rostering, shift notes and incident management, but its feature list does not name medication tracking or care plans, which is the work this team does every day. So the honest question is whether Brevity covers medication prompts in a way an auditor would accept. Compare the features, not the totals.

A community-access provider with many casual workers

Thirty casual workers and two office staff (32 users) serve 20 participants with short, varied shifts, so the roster changes daily. ShiftCare Professional would cost 32 at $13, or $416 a month, and its vacant-shift feature, which offers an open shift to qualified staff on their phones, is exactly what this provider needs. Brevity Lite at 20 clients would be $89.80. The gap is $326 a month. If filling open shifts takes the coordinator six hours a week, that is about 26 hours a month, and the software is worth buying only if it cuts a large part of that. Measure the six hours first.

A sole trader moving to a small team

One owner with two workers needs the five-user minimum on ShiftCare: 5 at $8, or $40 a month on Basic with annual billing, and $45 on monthly billing. The AI notes and voice transcription are already in, which matters most when the owner is writing notes at 9pm after a long day. The plan can scale to Professional when the first bulk claim run becomes a chore. Nothing here requires Premium, and signing a year at Basic is a small commitment compared with a spreadsheet that fails an audit.

Costs that sit outside the subscription

These do not appear on any pricing page, so list them yourself before comparing.

• Tax: both vendors quote excluding GST. Ask your accountant whether you can claim it back before treating the price as a cost.
• Setting up price lists: entering the rates for each support category, and checking them against the current price guide, takes hours of careful work. Wrong rates cause wrong claims, which cost far more than a month's subscription.
• Parallel running: for a fortnight you will be writing notes in both places. Budget the extra hour or two a week.
• Training the casual workers: 20 minutes each for the app, clock in and note writing, plus a one-page instruction sheet.
• Add-ons you may want later: HR at $2 and Certifications at $3 per user a month turn a $13 plan into an $18 one, which for 12 users is $60 more a month.
• Text reminders: at $0.10 a message, sending reminders for 400 shifts a month is $40.

A quick sum for the 12-person provider: Professional at $156, HR at $24 (12 at $2), Certifications at $36 (12 at $3) and 400 texts at $40 total $256 a month before tax. That is 64 per cent above the headline Professional price, which is why the headline should never be the budget.

Questions to put to the vendor in a demo

1. "Which of the AI features are in the tier I am buying, and which are in a higher one?"
2. "Is the original wording of a note kept if the tool rephrases it?"
3. "Where is participant data stored, and does any of it go to an outside AI provider to produce a note or summary?"
4. "When a Signal acts on its own, where is the record of what it did, and can I turn that level off?"
5. "What happens to my data and my audit trail if I leave? Can I export notes as documents?"
6. "Is there any price change on renewal, and what notice do you give?"

Ask for the answers by email so you can check them later, and compare them to the pages you read. If a vendor will not say which model or provider handles notes, that is an answer in itself.

Which provider should pick which option

• Few staff, many participants (say 6 staff and 40 participants): ShiftCare Basic or Professional. Per-user pricing is cheaper than per-client at this ratio.
• Many casual workers, few participants (30 workers and 8 participants): a per-client plan such as Brevity may cost less, but price it with your real logins.
• You submit claims weekly and want fewer manual uploads: compare ShiftCare Professional and Premium against the cost of an hour a week of someone's time.
• You want AI help only for notes: the lowest ShiftCare tier already lists AI progress notes and voice transcription, so you do not need to pay more for that.

Whatever you choose, record the decision, the tier and the date, and set a calendar reminder two months later to review whether the features you paid for are being used. If you want help mapping that against your own rosters, that is what my AI implementation consultation covers. Next, decide which admin jobs to hand to AI first with the automation assessment checklist for providers.

Questions small providers ask about NDIS software costs

Is there a free NDIS software plan?

ShiftCare says it has no free plan, only a seven-day trial with no card required, then from $8 per user a month with a five-staff minimum. Free tools exist for single tasks such as a spreadsheet roster, but they leave audit trails, claiming and clock-in to you.

Do care workers count as users?

On ShiftCare, yes: anyone with a login counts, including support workers and admins. That matters when you compare a per-user price with a per-client price, because a provider with many casual workers and few participants pays far more on a per-user plan.

Are the prices in this tutorial inclusive of GST?

No. ShiftCare quotes AUD prices excluding GST, and Brevity's prices are also listed excluding GST. Add the tax your business pays when you build a budget, and check the invoice after the trial ends.

Can I connect software to ChatGPT or Claude?

ShiftCare lists a connection to your own Claude or ChatGPT account on every plan. Before switching it on, decide what participant data the assistant may see, and check that account's data terms, because the connection sends your records to a second supplier.

Further reads

• NDIS Incident Report Template: Can AI Draft It? What a Manager Checks — Incident reports, a record your software must hold.
• NDIS Plan Manager Invoices: Checking Claims Against Budgets With AI — If you manage plans, see budget checks with AI.
• NDIS Provider Policies and Procedures: Tailoring Templates With AI — Policies your software records need to match.
• NDIS Service Agreement Template: Plain-English Drafting With AI — Plain-English service agreements for new participants.
• AI Scribe Security: Audio, Retention and BAA Vendor Questions — Security questions for any tool that handles recorded notes.
• Care Home Software UK: An AI Features Checklist Before You Sign — A similar AI features checklist for another care setting.
• AI for Disability Services: Service Agreements and Incident Logs — Draft service agreements from your own template and structure incident logs with AI, while keeping participant details out of the prompt.
• AI for Speech Pathology in Australia: NDIS Reports and Scheduling — NDIS report drafting with clinician review, scheduling and reminders, and consent for children's data under the Australian Privacy Principles.
• How to Get Clients as an NDIS Provider: AI for Enquiries, Referrers — A workflow for new NDIS providers: directory profiles, support-coordinator outreach and AI-drafted enquiry replies that a person always checks.
• NDIS Provider Website: Plain-English and Easy-Read Pages Using AI — Draft plain-English service pages and easy-read versions for your own provider website, then test them with participants.
• Can AI Write NDIS Behaviour Support Plans? What the Commission Says — What the NDIS Commission's February 2026 statement says about AI in behaviour support plans, turned into a workflow a provider can follow.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: ShiftCare pricing page and feature comparison table; Brevity pricing page; Lumary home page (all read 4 November 2026). Prices are list prices in AUD excluding GST; check each vendor's current page.