ShiftCare alternatives for a one-person business: what a five-staff minimum actually costs

ShiftCare publishes a per-staff price — the entry tier is A$9 per staff member per month at the time of writing — but every plan carries a minimum of five staff. So the smallest bill on that tier is A$45 a month plus GST, whether you are five people or one. If you run a one- or two-person care business, that minimum, and not the per-staff figure, is the number that decides whether ShiftCare is the right software for you. This post sets out what it costs, when it is still the right answer, and what to compare it against.

What does ShiftCare actually cost for a one-person business?

Read from ShiftCare's own pricing page on 12 September 2026. Prices are in Australian dollars, per staff member per month, and the page states that prices are subject to GST being added.

Plan	Month to month	Annual	Smallest possible bill, monthly
Essentials	A$9	A$8	A$45
Growth	A$15	A$13	A$75
Intelligence	A$25	A$20	A$125

The last column is the one that matters to a sole trader. It is the per-staff price multiplied by five, because ShiftCare's pricing page states that its plan fees start with a minimum of five staff. Staff means admins and care workers together, so a support worker counts the same as an office administrator.

Two things sit on top of that. GST is added to the figures above. And ShiftCare publishes add-ons that are charged separately, including SMS messages at ten cents each and a Support at Home management charge of A$5 per client per month — worth checking against your own client count if you work under Support at Home, because a per-client charge moves in the opposite direction to a per-staff one as you grow.

None of this is hidden. It is on the vendor's own page. It is simply that the number most people carry away from a pricing page is the large-type one, and for a small operator the large-type one is not the bill.

Why does the five-staff minimum matter more than the per-staff price?

Because it changes what you are buying. Above five staff, a per-seat price is honest and predictable: you add a person, you pay for a person. Below five, you are paying for capacity you do not have.

For a business of one, the entry tier costs A$45 a month and four of those five seats sit empty. For a business of two, the same A$45 buys three empty seats. The per-staff price only starts describing your bill on the day you hire your fifth person, and most small care businesses take years to get there, if they ever do.

This is the same shape as the other charging models a sole trader runs into, and it is worth seeing them side by side. A marketplace takes a percentage of what you bill, so it charges you more as you get busier. A per-participant vendor charges by how many clients you support. A per-staff vendor with a minimum charges you for a team you have not hired. NDIS software for sole traders walks through all four models and what each one costs at a realistic size.

When is ShiftCare still the right answer?

It is a capable product and this is not a case where one answer suits everyone. Three situations where the minimum stops being the deciding factor:

• You already have five or more staff. The minimum is irrelevant and you are comparing feature depth and price per seat like any other buyer.
• You need rostering across a team. Shift bidding, availability matching and gap detection across a group of workers are real problems that real software has to solve. A product built for teams solves them.
• You employ staff under the SCHADS award. Award interpretation is genuinely difficult and it is a reason to buy a larger product. If you engage subcontractors who invoice you, this does not apply to you.

If none of those three describe you, you are paying for a team product at a team price while running a business of one or two.

What does the same one- or two-person team cost on HarvestFlow Care?

HarvestFlow Care Basic is A$15 a month. It includes 1 full login and 1 worker sign-in, so a two-person team — you in the office and on visits, plus one support worker doing their own check-ins and notes — is A$15 a month in total. There is no minimum number of users, and clients are unlimited on every plan.

Two details are worth spelling out, because they are what actually makes the arithmetic different rather than just cheaper:

• A full login already does visits. It checks in and out, writes the note and captures the client signature, as well as running the office. One person who runs the practice and does the visits needs one login, not two.
• A worker does not need a login to be scheduled. You can keep someone on the books and book them against visits without giving them a sign-in at all. What they do take is a worker record, and Basic carries 2 of them: you, plus one other person. Past that, each additional worker needs a paid login, and the cheapest is a worker sign-in at A$5 a month — which raises the allowance by one whether or not that person ever signs in. A sign-in is also what lets them capture their own check-ins, notes and client signatures at the door.

What Basic carries at that price is the working set of a small care business: clients and service agreements, scheduling with check-in and check-out and signatures, progress notes, unlimited invoicing from completed visits to self-managed clients or plan managers, travel time and kilometre lines, NDIS-compliant invoice content, expenses, business reports, the NDIS and Support at Home starter catalogue, and credential expiry reminders. The full list and what Pro adds are on the pricing page. If you would rather see the work than the list, the first half hour, screen by screen walks through it.

HarvestFlow Care does not take a percentage of what you bill, charge per participant, or set a minimum number of users. Why we don't take a percentage explains why that is a deliberate position and not an introductory offer.

To be straight about it: HarvestFlow Care is not the lowest-priced NDIS software in Australia, and this post is not claiming it is. It is a comparison of what a one- or two-person business actually pays, which is a different question from which vendor has the smallest number on its pricing page.

What should you ask any vendor before you switch?

The questions that separate a pricing page from a bill:

1. Is there a minimum number of users, and does it apply to my plan? Ask it in those words. A per-seat price with a floor is a different product from a per-seat price without one.
2. Are support workers charged the same as administrators, and is there a limit on how many people I can keep on the books? If your next three hires are field workers, the first half sizes your bill in two years. The second half catches the quieter constraint: some products, this one included, cap how many active workers a plan holds and raise the cap when you add a login. Ask what the cap is and what lifts it.
3. Is the published price inclusive or exclusive of GST? Most Australian software prices are quoted ex GST. It is a tenth on top and it belongs in your comparison.
4. What is charged separately? SMS, per-client add-ons, onboarding, data migration and support tiers all show up after the headline.
5. What happens to my data if I leave? You should be able to export clients, notes and invoices in a usable format, and the vendor should tell you in writing how long they keep them afterwards.
6. What is the contract term? A monthly plan you can cancel and an annual plan with a discount are both reasonable. Knowing which one you are signing is not optional.

Ask the same six of every vendor, including this one, and the pricing pages stop being comparable in the way the vendors intended and start being comparable in the way you need.

Prices in this post were read from the vendors' own published pages on the dates shown in the sources below. They move. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.