NDIS Pricing Is Under Review: Have your say

Why Providers, Support Coordinators and Plan Managers Cannot Sit This One Out

The NDIA has opened consultation on the 2025–26 Annual Pricing Review, and this round is different.

For the first time, the Agency has clearly named its focus areas and is signalling that more *differentiated pricing is firmly on the table. (* different prices for the same service)

If you are a provider, support coordinator or plan manager, the decisions coming out of this review will shape your price limits, margins, rostering, workforce planning and service models from 1 July 2026 and beyond. 

What the 2025–26 Annual Pricing Review Is Looking At

The Annual Pricing Review (APR) is the NDIA’s evidence-based process for setting NDIS price limits and related pricing arrangements each year. It is also now part of a broader three-year Pricing Workplan (2025–28), which will guide more extensive pricing reform over several years.

For 2025–26, the NDIA has named five priority areas:

• Disability support worker supports
• Therapy supports
• Support coordination
• Plan management
• Social, community and civic participation

The review will examine whether current price limits and settings in these categories still:

• deliver value for money and good outcomes for participants
• support a sustainable, diverse provider market
• keep up with award changes, wage pressures and inflation
• reflect the different costs of delivering supports in different ways and settings.

The NDIA has flagged that it is actively exploring more differentiated pricing – for example, price limits that vary by delivery context, workforce qualifications, provider registration, or participant needs and outcomes, rather than a single cap for everyone.

Why Providers, Support Coordinators and Plan Managers Need to Respond

From a business and practice perspective, the stakes are high:

• Disability support worker supports – hourly rates, casual loading, penalty rates, travel, supervision and onboarding costs are all under pressure. If these are not reflected properly, services become harder to staff and sustain.
   
• Therapy supports – recent comparisons with broader health markets have influenced what is considered a “reasonable” hourly rate, with no price rise in reent years. Share your experience as a Therapy Provider.
   
• Support coordination – no price rise, insufficinet funding and uncertaintly around the role mean SC's have been doing it tough of late. Make sure you submit your feedback.
   
• Plan management – with no pirce rise for the past few years, Plan Managers are expected to take on more and more responsibility and risk with no reward. Having their setup fee culled hurt badly, they are dying for a rise now. It's time to let the NDIA know how much Plan Managers are in fact sving them!
   
• Social, community and civic participation – group ratios, staffing models, transport and community-access costs may all be revisited under a differentiated pricing approach.

If front-line costs, compliance demands and workforce realities are not clearly explained now, price limits may be set on assumptions that do not match what it actually takes to deliver safe, high-quality supports on the ground.

Key Dates You Need to Know

• Consultation opens: November 2025
  
• Surveys and submissions close: 8 February 2026, 11:59pm AEDT
  
• Three-year Pricing Workplan released: December 2025
  
• Implementation of new price limits: From 1 July 2026
  

Once the submission window closes on 8 February 2026, the NDIA will finalise its recommendations and publish new price limits and arrangements that will apply from the start of the 2026–27 financial year.

How to Have Your Say

The NDIA has said it wants consultation that “genuinely influences” pricing decisions, and has set up multiple ways for you to contribute.

1. Read the consultation papers and Terms of Reference
   Go to NDIS Engage – 2025–26 Annual Pricing Review to download:
   • Provider Consultation Paper
   • Participant Consultation Paper
   • Terms of Reference
      
2. Complete the online provider survey
   Use the provider survey on NDIS Engage to answer structured questions for each of the five focus areas. This is the simplest way to ensure your experience is captured in the NDIA’s data set.
    
3. Upload a detailed written submission
   If you are a larger organisation, peak body or plan management/support coordination business, consider lodging a written submission with:
   • real cost data and workforce information
   • examples of where current price limits fall short
   • evidence of quality and outcomes that depend on adequate pricing
   • your views on differentiated pricing and how it should (or should not) be used.
      
4. Encourage participants you support to respond
   Support coordinators and plan managers can help participants access the separate participant survey and plain-English papers, so their experiences of value for money and service access are also heard.