Self-managed Support at Home: how many more hours you get, and how it works
- Self-managed / platform rate
- $65.85 an hour
- Published full-service rate
- $130.20 an hour
- Care management cap
- 10% of the budget
Mable published pricing: $61/hr average agreed weekday personal care rate (Jan-Jun 2026 observation period) + 7.95% client platform fee, all-in average
Australian Unity published Support at Home pricing schedule, weekday personal care, effective 1 July 2026
Applies under the Support at Home program whether you self-manage or not.
Self-managing a Support at Home package means you find and roster your own support workers, usually through a platform. A registered provider still holds the budget and the care management. Platform rates average around $65.85 an hour against $130.20 at a published full-service provider, so the same budget buys close to twice the hours. The trade-off: the finding, scheduling and checking becomes your job.
Every figure on this page checked 26 July 2026.
This page exists because of a question families ask us all the time. The package looked generous on paper, so why is it buying only an hour of care a day? Often the answer is the rate. Nobody sits you down and explains that the same government budget can be spent at around $65.85 an hour, or at $130.20 an hour. The choice is partly yours to make. That gap is not your fault. It is simply never explained.
The steps that matter
- Ask your current provider for the all-in percentage, in writing. Care management plus any service, platform, package or administration fees, as one number.
- Run your level through the calculator below at both rate points. The difference is your decision, measured in hours a week.
- If there is one worker you already trust, ask whether they would move with you. Follow the carer, not the brand.
- Before you sign with any self-managed provider or platform, get their all-in structure in writing too, with the worker's actual hourly rate next to it. Compare published rates across every provider before you decide.
- If you decide to move, the switch has its own steps and its own traps. See how to change providers.
What does a self-managed home care package mean?
Every participant has a registered , and that does not change when you self-manage. What changes is who does the organising. means you choose the support workers, set the roster, and agree the rates. This is usually done through a platform where independent workers list their own prices, or through a provider that specialises in supporting self-management. The is never handed to you as a lump sum to spend freely. Your provider still holds it, claims the government subsidy, and keeps . They also have to agree the arrangement with you and record it in your care plan. There is one exception worth knowing. If you pay a third-party worker's bill yourself, the program manual allows your provider to reimburse you from the budget.
Everything else stays the same. The service list, the budget for your level, the 10% care management cap, and your contribution rates are all identical whether a provider does the organising or you do.
Source: Department of Health, Self-management by Support at Home participants. Reimbursement arrangements: Support at Home Program Manual (v4.2, section 11.5). Verified 2026-07-24.
How many more hours does self-managing buy?
Here is the size of it. A Level 4 budget is $30,469 a year. After the 10% care management allocation, at $130.20 an hour it buys about 4.1 hours a week. At around $65.85 an hour, the same budget buys about 8.0. That is not a discount or a special deal. It is the same money at a different rate. Run your own level below.
Your package
Level 4·$7,617 a quarter
about $30,469 a year
Confused? Let your letter do the talking.
Upload the My Aged Care letter or a photo of it, and Vera reads it and tells you the level and what it means.
Used once to read your level, then discarded straight away. We never store it or log what's in it.
A Level 4 package buys roughly
- 3.5 to 5.5 hours a week of everyday help
- 2.5 to 4 hours a week of nursing and clinical care
- 1.5 to 3 hours a week of allied health
Or any mix, from one budget.
At published full-service weekday rates, after the standard 10% care management fee. Not a quote. Care management cap: Support at Home Program Manual v4.2, section 8.9 (care management account).
Which rate should we use?
Shown against the published range across every provider we track. Pick your provider, or enter a rate you've been quoted, for a figure specific to you.
See how the big providers compareAn example week
Adjust it to match your plan
Available services depend on what is in your approved plan.
Everyday help
Personal care, domestic help, social support, respite, nursing assistants
This week
a weekday morning, plus a bit more
Nursing and clinical care
Enrolled and registered nursing, allied health assistants
≈ one nurse visit a week
Allied health professionals
Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and other allied health professionals
about $480 of $527 a week
Room for roughly half an hour more everyday help a week.
This calculator is here to give you a feel for what a package can buy. It is an estimate built from providers' published prices, not advice or a quote. Rates and rules change, and your own agreement is what counts. Check the numbers with your provider or My Aged Care before you rely on them.
Evenings and weekends cost more
These figures are weekday daytime. Providers load: Evening about +3-25% · Saturday +21-51% · Sunday +44-76% · Public holidays +86-150%.
Allied health is mostly weekday-only.
Not getting the hours these numbers say you should?
Tell Vera what the package is and what it currently buys. You'll come away with a plan for getting more from the same budget, whether that's a conversation with the provider or a change.
Talk it through with VeraFree. Private. No account needed.
A few things worth knowing
- Short visits usually cost more than a pro-rata slice of the minimum visit length.
- Some providers blend Saturday and Sunday into one weekend rate rather than pricing them separately.
- Overnight respite is often priced as a flat block, not an hourly rate.
Rate sources: Department of Health, Funding classifications for Support at Home · Support at Home program classifications and budgets (PDF) . Individual provider and tier rates carry their own verified dates alongside each figure above. Budgets verified against the Department of Health on 2026-07-22; budgets index every 1 July, rates re-verified each January and July.
Self-managed versus published full-service, level by level
| Level | Annual budget | Hours a week, self-managed | Hours a week, published full-service |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $11,010 | ~2.9 | ~1.4-2.0 |
| 2 | $16,451 | ~4.3 | ~2.1-2.9 |
| 3 | $22,537 | ~5.9 | ~2.9-4.0 |
| 4 | $30,469 | ~8.0 | ~3.9-5.4 |
| 5 | $40,730 | ~10.7 | ~5.2-7.3 |
| 6 | $49,365 | ~13.0 | ~6.3-8.8 |
| 7 | $59,660 | ~15.7 | ~7.6-10.6 |
| 8 | $80,137 | ~21.1 | ~10.3-14.3 |
Self-managed is weekday personal care at platform rates. Published full-service is the range across the providers compared on this page. Both are after 10% care management, over 52 weeks. A baseline for comparison, not a quote.
What are my responsibilities if I self-manage?
Fact: care management is capped at 10% of the package budget under Support at Home, whether you self-manage or use a fully-managed provider.
The work you take on: finding workers, interviewing them, agreeing their rates, and building the roster. You also approve timesheets and invoices before they come out of the budget, and find cover when someone cancels. It is real admin. It gets steadier once the roster settles, and heavier while you set it up, and it lands on whoever in the family says yes to it.
What your provider keeps: holding the budget, claiming the subsidy, and care management. They must keep delivering care management even when you self-manage. They also stay responsible for meeting the rules when third-party workers deliver services. That is why the self-management arrangement is agreed between you and recorded in the care plan, not something you just start doing. Where a provider administers third-party workers for you, the overhead they can charge is capped at 10% of the cost of that service.
Source: Department of Health, Self-management by Support at Home participants. Care management cap: Support at Home Program Manual v4.2, section 8.9 (care management account). Verified 2026-07-24.
What you take on when you engage workers directly
Picking your own worker does not remove your provider's obligations. The Act still makes them responsible for that worker meeting every rule for aged care workers, even one you found and chose yourself. Three things have to be settled before the worker starts. A fourth question has no published answer at all, and we will not guess at one.
| What has to happen | Who is responsible | Program Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Worker screening: a police check, or an NDIS check for a worker already in that sector | Your provider, before the worker starts | §3.5, §11.5.1 |
| Recording the arrangement in the care plan | Your provider, with your input | §10.6, §11.5 |
| Keeping proof the service actually happened | Your provider keeps the file. You usually supply the invoice or timesheet | §10.5 |
Source: Support at Home Program Manual (v4.2, §§3.5, 10.5, 10.6, 11.5). Verified 26 July 2026.
What covers the worker if something goes wrong?
Neither the Program Manual nor the government's guidance for providers on service agreements says who insures a worker you have sourced yourself: public liability, professional indemnity, or otherwise. We won't guess. Ask your provider to confirm this in writing before the worker starts.
The compliance question
For your provider, in writing, before a self-sourced worker starts.
"Before this worker starts, can you confirm three things in writing: what screening or police check they have completed, what insurance covers them while they are providing care, and what records you will keep to show the service was delivered?"
Wondering whether to stay with your provider or move?
Tell Vera what you're getting now and what it costs. You'll come away with a plan, whether that's the conversation to have with your current provider or the questions to put to a new one.
Talk it through with VeraFree. Private. No account needed.
Who does self-managing suit?
It suits families who already know which workers they like. It suits families who want the same faces every week, and who have someone with real time each week for the admin. It does not suit a household in the middle of a crisis, or one where nobody has time to be the organiser. There is no shame in either answer. And it is not all or nothing: you can self-manage part of the care and leave the rest with your provider.
Here is a sharper test: do you already have one trusted carer? The strongest reason families switch is to follow the carer, not the brand. A worker you already trust, who moves with you onto a platform, is usually worth more than loyalty to a big provider's name. Whoever you talk to, never compare the headline hourly rate. Compare the all-in percentage: the share that comes out of the budget between the government's dollar and the worker's hand.
Where our help stops
One boundary, so you know where you stand. Vera explains how the system works and shows you numbers you can check. That costs you nothing. We don't give personal financial or legal advice. If the self-management question is tangled up with bigger ones, like the house, an estate, or whether the money will last, that piece belongs with an independent financial adviser. We can connect you with one of our trusted advisers. They work remotely, so location is no barrier.
Providers set up for self-managed care
The fee structures in this corner of the market are genuinely different shapes. That is what makes headline rates misleading. Mable charges a percentage on top of each worker's own rate. HomeMade charges the care management allocation plus its own service fee. Others charge an invoicing fee. The only fair comparison is the all-in cost: every fee added into one number. The table below shows what each provider in our verified set publishes about self-managed arrangements, in their own words, with a link to the schedule it came from.
Two names families also ask about, Trilogy Care and Dulcie, are not shown. Neither has a verified entry in our published-rates set yet, and we only show figures we can link to a source. One honesty note on the maths: the hours figures on this page assume only the 10% care management allocation comes off the top. Where a provider adds its own service or invoicing fee, add that into the all-in percentage before you compare.
| Provider | Self-managed fee structure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Uniting NSW.ACT | $150 an hour from the government pool; self-managed clients also pay a separate 10% Uniting service fee | Provider schedule ↗ Verified 2026-07-24 |
| Mable | Not applicable in the traditional sense. Mable is a self-managed platform where workers set their own rates directly, and the platform charges a 7.95% client fee on top | Provider schedule ↗ Verified 2026-07-24 |
| HomeMade | $150 an hour non-clinical for fully-managed clients. Self-managed clients pay the 10% government care-management allocation plus a 10% HomeMade service fee, around 20% total. | Provider schedule ↗ Verified 2026-07-24 |
| The CareSide | 10% self-managed invoicing fee on top of your support worker's rate. Fully-managed care carries no separate fee layered on top of the published hourly rates, which are quoted all-inclusive. | Provider schedule ↗ Verified 2026-07-24 |
Does self-managing work differently by state?
The rules do not change. Support at Home is one national program. The levels, the service list, the 10% care management cap, and the contribution rules are the same everywhere. What changes by state is the market you are hiring from. Some providers price state by state: Silver Chain, for example, publishes separate Western Australia and East Coast schedules.
Victoria. No provider in our verified set publishes a Victoria-specific self-managed schedule. The platforms and self-management specialists in the table, Mable, HomeMade and The CareSide, each publish a single price structure rather than one schedule per state. So Victorian families are comparing the same fee structures as everyone else. If a local provider quotes you rates, ask for them in writing and check them against the table.
New South Wales. Uniting NSW.ACT is the one traditional provider in our set that publishes a self-managed structure for New South Wales and the ACT. Care management is $150 an hour from the government pool. There is a separate 10% Uniting service fee for self-managed clients. Every visit is booked at a 60-minute minimum. Their schedule is effective 1 March 2026, verified 22 July 2026.
Queensland. The big published Queensland lists in our verified set, Blue Care and Anglicare Southern Queensland, are full-service schedules. Neither publishes a self-managed structure. Queensland families choosing self-management are generally comparing the platforms and specialists in the table above.
Words to have ready
The all-in question
For your current provider.
"Before we go any further, can you confirm in writing the total percentage that comes out of the budget before a worker is paid? I mean everything: care management, service or platform fees, and any other charges. One all-in number, as a percentage."
Follow the carer, not the brand
For a platform or self-managed provider you are considering.
"We want to follow the carer, not the brand. If we moved to your arrangement, could our current support worker keep working with us, and what would their hourly rate become once every one of your fees is added?"
Common questions
Can I manage my home care package myself?
Yes, in part. Under Support at Home you can self-manage parts of your care: choosing your own support workers, scheduling visits and agreeing rates. A registered provider still holds the budget. They keep care management, and must agree the arrangement in your care plan. The budget is never handed to you as a lump sum, though providers can reimburse you if you pay a third-party worker yourself.
What are my responsibilities if I self-manage?
Finding and choosing support workers, scheduling visits, agreeing rates, and checking invoices before they are paid from the budget. Your provider keeps care management. They stay responsible for meeting the rules for any third-party workers you bring in, which is why the arrangement has to be agreed and recorded in your care plan.
What does self-managed home care package mean?
It means you organise the care yourself, usually through a platform where workers set their own rates, while a registered provider holds the funds and the oversight. Platform rates run well below full-service rates, around $65.85 an hour against $130.20, so the same budget buys close to twice the hours.
One human thing
One family we helped held one of the highest funding levels there is, and it was buying about an hour of care a day. Nothing about their entitlement was wrong. The rate structure was eating it. You are allowed to ask the blunt money question; it is what the budget is for.
Where to go next
- Compare published rates across every provider See where every provider's published rate sits before you decide who to call.
- Support at Home hours calculator Run any level through the calculator to see the hours a budget actually buys, at either rate.
- How to change providers The steps and the traps if you decide to move to a self-managed provider or platform.
Wondering whether to stay with your provider or move?
Tell Vera what you're getting now and what it costs. You'll come away with a plan, whether that's the conversation to have with your current provider or the questions to put to a new one.
Talk it through with VeraFree. Private. No account needed.