The short answer: ShiftCare is purpose-built for NDIS, aged care and home care, so it carries client records, NDIS funds, invoicing and claiming inside the same system that rosters your staff. Deputy is a general workforce platform that does rostering, timesheets and award interpretation very well but stops at the billing line: it does not generate NDIS claims. If billing and rostering sitting in one place matters to you, ShiftCare is usually the better fit. If you already have a billing system you like and just want strong, low-cost rostering, Deputy earns its place.
Deputy is general workforce management used across hospitality, retail, healthcare and dozens of other industries. ShiftCare is vertical software written for disability and care providers. That single distinction explains almost every difference below. Deputy rosters people. ShiftCare rosters people against a participant, their plan, their funded supports and the correct NDIS line item, then turns the completed shift into an invoice and a claim. Deputy can absolutely run your roster, but it does not validate NDIS line items or submit claims to the NDIA, so the billing step has to happen somewhere else.
The trap we see providers fall into is comparing the two on rostering alone, where Deputy looks excellent and cheaper, and only discovering the billing gap after they have onboarded. So read the comparison with your whole back office in mind, not just the roster.
| ShiftCare | Deputy | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | NDIS, aged care, home care, allied health | Any industry that runs shift work |
| Rostering and timesheets | Yes | Yes, very strong |
| Award interpretation (SCHADS) | Yes | Yes, configurable across many awards |
| Client records and care plans | Yes, central to the product | No, it is workforce-only |
| NDIS line items and price guide | Yes | No |
| Invoicing and NDIS claiming | Yes | No |
| Entry price (per user, per month) | From around $8 billed annually | From $6.75 (Lite) |
Treat the prices in that table as a starting point, not a quote. Both vendors change pricing, and the figure that actually lands on your invoice depends on tier, billing cycle and minimum spend. The next section breaks that down.
Per-user pricing only tells you half the story, so here is what each vendor publishes.
Deputy’s Australian plans run Lite at $6.75, Core at $8.75 and Pro at $13 per user per month, with payroll, HR and messaging available as paid add-ons (Deputy pricing). The detail that catches small providers out: Deputy applies a $30 minimum monthly spend on monthly plans as of 1 September 2025. If you roster four casuals on Lite, you are not paying four times $6.75, you are paying the $30 floor. That floor matters most for very small services.
ShiftCare lists Basic, Professional and Premium tiers. Billed annually they work out to roughly $8, $13 and $20 per user per month, and the features that matter to NDIS billing sit on the higher tiers: invoicing appears on Professional, and client funds tracking on Premium (GetApp: ShiftCare pricing). So the realistic comparison is not ShiftCare Basic against Deputy Lite. If you want ShiftCare for its NDIS billing, budget for Professional or Premium.
Most disability support workers are paid under the SCHADS Award, and SCHADS is one of the more complex awards to interpret. Both products handle ordinary penalties and overtime, but the edge cases are where errors creep in and where an audit or a back-pay claim can start.
Sleepovers are the classic example. Under the award a sleepover is a continuous overnight period where the worker stays at the client’s location, the employer must provide free board and lodging, and if the worker is woken to perform a task they are paid a minimum block at overtime rates on top of the sleepover allowance (Fair Work Ombudsman). The Fair Work Commission changed several SCHADS sleepover rules with effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 June 2026, so any rostering setup needs to reflect the current rules, not last year’s.
Deputy’s award interpretation is genuinely strong and is built to be configured for SCHADS, but you (or your bookkeeper) own that configuration and the responsibility for keeping it current. ShiftCare ships with care-sector pay rules in mind. In our experience, neither tool removes the need for someone who actually understands SCHADS to check the setup. Software automates the calculation; it does not absorb the legal obligation to get it right.
This is the line that separates the two. ShiftCare maps a delivered shift to an NDIS support item, applies the price guide, produces the invoice and prepares the bulk claim file for the NDIA. Deputy stops once the timesheet is approved and exported to payroll. Nothing in Deputy understands a participant’s plan, a service booking or a line item.
That gap is bridgeable. Plenty of providers run Deputy for rostering and a separate finance or plan-management system for claiming, and for some that split is deliberate. But it means two systems, two logins and a reconciliation step every fortnight where a missed shift or a wrong rate quietly costs you revenue. The case for ShiftCare is that it closes that loop. The case for Deputy is that if your claiming already lives elsewhere and works, you are paying ShiftCare for billing you do not need.
Pick ShiftCare if you are an NDIS, SIL or home care provider who wants rostering, client records and NDIS invoicing in one platform, and you would rather pay more per seat than run a second billing system. Pick Deputy if rostering and award interpretation are your priority, you are very cost-sensitive at small scale, and you already have NDIS claiming handled. A common middle path is Deputy plus a dedicated claiming tool, which can beat both on flexibility if you have the admin capacity to manage the join.
Whatever you choose, run a real fortnight through it before you commit. Roster a sleepover, a public holiday and a cancellation, then follow each one all the way to the claim. The tool that survives your messiest week is the one to keep.
We help NDIS providers get found by participants so the roster you built has people in it.
Software like ShiftCare or Deputy makes you efficient at delivering and billing the work. It does nothing to bring you the work. The providers we run campaigns for tend to fix the back office and then hit a different wall: empty capacity. A roster tool that turns shifts into clean claims is only valuable if those shifts are booked by participants who chose you. That is the side we handle, through NDIS SEO, Google Ads and lead generation built for care providers. Get both halves right and the operations tool pays for itself.
Deputy is a strong rostering and timesheet tool with configurable SCHADS award interpretation, so for the workforce side it is genuinely good. The limit is that it is not NDIS-specific: it does not hold participant plans, does not validate NDIS line items and cannot submit claims to the NDIA. Providers who use it typically pair it with a separate billing or plan-management system.
Choose ShiftCare when you want one system that runs the roster and produces the NDIS invoice and claim. It connects scheduling to client records, the NDIS price guide and claiming, which removes the second system and the fortnightly reconciliation that Deputy leaves you with on the billing side.
On headline per-user price Deputy is lower, starting at $6.75 per user per month for Lite versus around $8 for ShiftCare Basic billed annually. But the fair comparison uses the tier that actually does NDIS billing, which is ShiftCare Professional or Premium. Factor in Deputy’s $30 minimum monthly spend and the cost of a separate billing tool before deciding which is cheaper for you.
Both can calculate SCHADS penalties and overtime, and Deputy’s award engine can be configured for sleepovers, but the responsibility for a correct setup stays with you. A sleepover is a continuous overnight period with free board and lodging, and a minimum overtime block applies if the worker is woken to work. Fair Work changed several sleepover rules from the first pay period on or after 1 June 2026, so confirm your configuration reflects the current award.
Yes, and many providers do. Deputy handles the roster, timesheets and payroll export, and a dedicated NDIS billing or plan-management system handles claims. It works well if you have the admin capacity to reconcile the two each fortnight. The risk is missed shifts or wrong rates slipping between the systems, which is exactly the gap an all-in-one like ShiftCare is designed to close.
Sources & vendor links: Information here is drawn from each provider’s official website, reviewed June 2026. Pricing and features change — verify current details directly: ShiftCare · Deputy.
Disclaimer: This article is general information only, current as at the date shown above, and is not financial, legal, clinical or professional advice, nor a recommendation or endorsement of any product, service or provider. Features, pricing and availability change frequently — verify current details directly with each provider before making a decision. All product and company names, logos and trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and their mention does not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement by, NDIS Growth. To the extent permitted by law, NDIS Growth accepts no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this information.A specialist reviews your visibility against the providers competing in your catchment, and sends a written growth plan within two business days. You keep it either way.