Independent valuation of an NDIS plan management business

What a plan manager actually sells

A plan manager is an intermediary. The NDIA states that plan managers must be registered providers, that funding for a plan manager is included in the participant's plan separately from other supports, and that the plan manager checks and submits claims, pays providers, keeps records and gives the participant a monthly financial statement. On price, the NDIA states that the Minister's pricing determination, made under the 2026 amending Act, sets maximum prices for 2026-27. The NDIS pricing schedule effective 24 September 2026 lists one support item for the service, Plan Management - Monthly Fee, at a national maximum of $104.45 per participant per month, which the schedule states already includes any GST. Revenue is therefore participants on the book, multiplied by a fee the business cannot raise, for as many months as each stays.

There is no pricing power and almost no equipment. The NDIS sector page explains how that differs from a support business paid by the hour.

The participant book: size, stability and churn

The NDIA states that a participant can change their plan manager at any time. HPNA analyses the book by month for at least 24 months: participants joining and leaving, net movement, average tenure and revenue by referral source. The NDIA reported that of 280,258 active providers in the June 2026 quarter, 210,956 supported plan-managed participants, against 133,703 supporting self-managed and 10,842 supporting NDIA-managed participants.

Maintainable earnings, the profit the business can be expected to repeat, are struck on the book as it stands at the valuation date, adjusted for the churn already visible in the data. A book that grows through many referral sources and loses few participants each month supports a higher multiple than one that turns over quickly. See participant and referral concentration and maintainable earnings.

Margin: claims volume and automation

The cost side is labour and software. Under the NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits 2025-26 (updated claiming guidance is still to come), plan managers had to ensure that provider prices did not exceed the price limits, quote the provider's ABN and hold a valid tax invoice for every payment request, and could be liable to repay any amount not spent in accordance with the participant's plan. Each check is a person's time unless the system does it, so margin per participant is the monthly fee less the cost of processing that participant's invoices.

Normalisation, restating the accounts to ordinary trading conditions, charges a market salary for the owner's own processing and compliance work, restates related-party costs and removes one-off system builds. Cash needs care: money on the balance sheet may be provider payments in transit rather than surplus. Equity value, what the shares are worth, is enterprise value (the value of the operations however they are funded) less debt plus surplus cash, counted only once that float is set aside.

Reform risk: the panel from 1 October 2027

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing states that from 1 October 2027 the NDIA will set up a panel of plan management providers, that only providers on the panel will be allowed to deliver plan management, and that there will be an initial 6-month transition period. The NDIA's published timeline adds a request for tender from April 2027 and, from April 2028, plan managers not on the panel no longer able to deliver the service.

At the time of writing the appointment criteria are not published, so a valuation cannot assume the outcome. What a buyer would pay for a book that may not survive the panel is the fees it can expect until the transition ends, plus a weighted view of the fees after it. A capitalisation of maintainable earnings assumes the earnings continue; where that cannot be assumed, HPNA uses a discounted cash flow, which forecasts the fees under explicit assumptions about appointment, transition and any change to the fee itself, and discounts them at a rate reflecting that risk. See government funding exposure.

Referral relationships and the owner

Participants may come to a plan manager on the suggestion of a support coordinator, who the NDIA describes as helping the participant connect with supports, or after dealing with a local area coordinator, an NDIS partner organisation that is not part of the NDIA. Where those relationships are personal to the founder, a source of the goodwill is personal rather than transferable. Goodwill is one asset, the value of the business above its identifiable net assets; the valuation identifies which of its sources (systems, staff, reputation with referrers or the owner) is carrying the earnings. Referral sources that deal with the organisation rather than the person are more likely to transfer.

The Department states that from 1 July 2028 support coordination will be delivered by providers the NDIA appoints through a merit-based process rather than funded in individual plans, so today's referral channel may look different after that date. See the support coordination page.

Registration, claiming windows and what transfers

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission states that a registration is linked to a single ABN and is not transferable to a different ABN. Sell the assets and the buyer needs its own registration; sell the shares and the registration stays, but for changes of ownership from 1 July 2026 the Commission must be notified as soon as possible, key personnel updated and, where a certification registration group is held and the sale significantly changes governance, a condition audit started within 3 months. Participants must not be moved to the new owner automatically. Auditors also ask a plan management provider for its worker list, qualifications and worker screening clearances.

Claiming discipline matters more from 1 December 2026, when the Department states that participants or their plan managers must make claims within 90 days of service delivery. The Department also states that providers will need to keep payment and receipt records for 7 years. See selling an NDIS business.