TL;DR
- 69 per cent of all NDIS claims are now at the maximum published price, up from 66 per cent the year before. The NDIA itself says the published price is the prevailing market rate.
- Registered providers charge the maximum 73 per cent of the time, unregistered providers 61 per cent. Charging the published price is normal, not aggressive.
- The maximum is the going rate, not a ceiling to discount from. Cutting your price leaves revenue on the table and signals lower value, without winning you the work.
- The real competition is being found and chosen, by participants, support coordinators, and referrers, not by undercutting on price.
- Spend your energy on positioning, reputation, referrer relationships, and being discoverable online, because that is where participants actually decide.
Here is one number from the NDIA's latest pricing review that should change how you think about your fees. In the six months to 31 December 2025, 69 per cent of all NDIS claims were made at the maximum published price. That is up from 66 per cent the year before. The NDIA's own conclusion is blunt: the published price now functions as the prevailing market rate.
For a provider, that single fact reframes the whole question of what to charge. The maximum is not a sticker price you are expected to haggle down from. It is what nearly seven in ten claims already sit at. If you have been quietly discounting because you assumed everyone else does too, the data says otherwise.
What the numbers actually say
The headline figure breaks down further, and the split is the interesting part. Registered providers claimed at the published price 73 per cent of the time. Unregistered providers did so 61 per cent of the time. Either way, charging the maximum is the norm, not the exception.
The trend is moving in one direction. Two years ago the all-claims figure was lower. Now it has climbed to 69 per cent and the NDIA has stopped treating the maximum as an aspirational ceiling. In its words, this is the rate the market clears at.
| Claim type | Claims at the maximum price |
|---|---|
| All providers (current) | 69 per cent |
| All providers (prior year) | 66 per cent |
| Registered providers | 73 per cent |
| Unregistered providers | 61 per cent |
These figures come from the NDIA's Annual Pricing Review for 2026-27, the same review that set this year's price changes across therapy, support coordination, plan management, and disability support work. If you want the full picture of what moved and what held, the 2026-27 NDIS price guide overview walks through every change in one place.
Why discounting is the wrong instinct
When work is hard to win, the reflex is to compete on price. Drop your hourly rate, undercut the provider down the road, win the participant. In most markets that logic holds. In the NDIS it largely does not, and here is why.
The published price is a maximum, not a recommended rate, but in practice it has become the going rate. So when you charge below it, you are not matching the market. You are coming in under it. That has three effects, none of them good for your business.
- You leave revenue on the table. A participant's plan is funded to the published price. If you charge less, the difference does not buy you anything. It simply stays unbilled. Over a year of sessions that is real money your practice never sees.
- You signal lower value. Price is a proxy for quality in the eyes of participants, families, and the support coordinators who refer them. A rate well under everyone else's invites the question of why, and "we are cheaper" is rarely the reassurance you want a coordinator passing to a participant.
- You rarely win the work anyway. Participants are not shopping on a cents-per-hour basis the way someone buying a commodity does. They are choosing a person and a practice they trust to deliver. Discounting solves a problem they mostly do not have.
There are sound reasons to charge below the maximum in specific cases, and nothing here is advice to push every claim to the cap or to maximise billing. The point is narrower. Reflexive, across-the-board discounting as a growth strategy works against you. The data shows the market has already settled near the maximum, so undercutting it is a self-inflicted discount, not a competitive edge.
The real competition is being found and chosen
If price is not where you win, where do you win? On being found, and then being chosen. Those are two different problems and most providers under-invest in both.
Being found is a discoverability problem. When a support coordinator needs an occupational therapist with capacity in a particular suburb, or a parent searches for a speech pathologist who works with their child's needs, you either show up or you do not. If your website is thin, your Google presence is weak, or your service pages do not say plainly who you help and where, you are invisible at the exact moment demand appears. No pricing strategy rescues a provider nobody can find.
Being chosen is a trust problem. Once someone lands on you, they are deciding whether to make contact. That decision runs on signals: clear information about your team and approach, genuine reviews, a site that loads and works on a phone, evidence you understand the NDIS and the participant's situation. This is reputation and positioning, and it is what actually moves a referrer or a family from "maybe" to "let's book".
Participants and referrers are not comparing your hourly rate to the provider next door. They are deciding whether they can find you, and whether they trust you once they do.
Where to put your effort instead
If you accept that the maximum is the market rate and the contest is over visibility and trust, your priorities reorder fast. A few areas earn their keep.
Referrer relationships
Support coordinators are the gatekeepers for a large share of allied health referrals. Support coordination reached more than 291,800 participants in the most recent half-year, roughly 38 per cent of active participants. These are the people deciding who gets the next referral. Being known, responsive, and easy to refer to is worth more than any price cut. Keep your capacity and intake process clear, reply quickly, and make a coordinator's job of recommending you effortless.
Positioning and reputation
Decide who you are for and say it plainly. A practice that clearly serves a particular cohort, condition, or region is easier to refer to and easier to choose than a generalist who could be anyone. Reviews, case examples within compliance limits, and a professional, current website do the quiet work of reassurance before anyone picks up the phone.
Being discoverable online
Most NDIS journeys now start or pass through a search. If you are not visible when a participant or coordinator looks, the quality of your service is beside the point. This is the practical, ongoing work of marketing an NDIS provider, and it is where competitive advantage is actually built. Our guide to marketing an NDIS provider business covers the fundamentals worth getting right first.
A note on the professions whose prices moved
For most therapy lines, prices held steady this year, which means the maximum you can charge is unchanged and the "charge the going rate" logic applies directly. Psychology is the exception. Psychologists are the only therapy profession to receive an increase, up $20.00 to $252.99 per hour, a rise of 8.6 per cent. The psychology price increase explainer has the detail and the benchmark figures behind it.
For psychologists, the 69 per cent insight matters even more this year. With a higher published price now in effect, charging below it gives away more in dollar terms than before. If the market clears at the maximum and the maximum just went up, the cost of reflexive discounting went up with it.
A handful of professions saw cuts, and the way travel and reports are claimed has changed across the board. Those are pricing mechanics rather than positioning questions, but they affect your real revenue per hour, so they are worth understanding alongside this one.
The takeaway
The NDIA has told the market what the going rate is. Nearly seven in ten claims already sit there. Treat the published price as the market rate it has become, not a ceiling to discount from, and redirect the energy you might have spent on price into being found and being chosen. That is where participants and referrers actually decide, and it is the part of your business you can genuinely build a lead in.
If you want a clear-eyed view of where your practice is visible, where it is not, and how you stack up against the providers competing for the same referrals, have a chat with the team at MMG. We work with allied health and NDIS providers across Australia, and a short conversation will tell you where the quickest wins are.
Turning that into action: once seven in ten providers sit at the same number, visibility where participants and coordinators actually search is the differentiator the schedule left behind. Being found is mostly an NDIS SEO exercise, and being chosen is the rest of a proper NDIS marketing setup: positioning, proof and a website that makes contacting you the obvious move.
