NDIS Marketing Compliance Checker

How to use the checker

Paste one field at a time. A Google headline behaves differently to a Facebook primary text block, and website copy has no character ceiling at all, so telling the tool what it is looking at removes a whole category of noise from your results. Then set your registration status honestly. That single toggle is what separates a legitimate claim from a misleading one in NDIS marketing, and it is the reason two providers can run word-for-word identical copy where one is compliant and the other is not.

Work down the results in order. Clear breaches first, because they are the items that will get an ad disapproved or attract a complaint. Risky items next, because they are the claims you would struggle to defend if someone asked you to prove them. The “check this” list is last and is not a telling-off: it is wording that is perfectly fine when it happens to be true of your business, and the tool cannot know whether it is. Finally, read the suggested rewrite. It is a starting point written to be safe rather than to be brilliant, so edit it into your own voice before you use it.

What the checker looks for

NDIS marketing has to satisfy three rulebooks at once: the advertising platform you are using, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and its Code of Conduct, and the Australian Consumer Law administered by the ACCC. Almost every rejection and almost every complaint traces back to one of the seven patterns below.

1. Copy that asserts or implies the reader’s disability

This is the most common reason NDIS ads get disapproved, and it is the one providers find most surprising. Meta’s privacy violations and personal attributes policy states that ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes, including a person’s physical or mental health and medical conditions. Google separately restricts personalised advertising for sensitive interest categories, and health is on that list.

The line is about who the sentence is pointed at, not whether a condition is mentioned. Meta’s own published examples treat “Do you have diabetes?” as prohibited and “Depression counselling” as permitted. In other words, you can name what you do and who you serve; you cannot address the reader as though you already know their diagnosis. So “Do you have a disability?”, “Struggling with autism?” and “Is your child on the spectrum?” are clear breaches, while “Occupational therapy for children and their families” is fine. The checker grades second-person framing as a breach and third-person framing such as “for people living with a disability” as risky rather than prohibited, because that construction sits closer to the permitted side of Meta’s examples and depends heavily on the rest of the ad.

2. Implying NDIS or government endorsement

The NDIA does not endorse or approve any product or service. It has publicly warned that businesses promoting themselves as “NDIS approved”, “NDIS permitted” or “100% NDIS funded” are likely breaching the Australian Consumer Law, and it runs a dedicated team that refers misleading advertising to the ACCC and likely Code of Conduct breaches to the NDIS Commission. “Government approved” and “government funded” carry the same problem for the same reason.

This is also where a lot of otherwise careful providers get caught by their own branding. The NDIA’s logo guidelines make clear that the NDIS logo and the NDIS acronym are registered trade marks, that no provider may use the NDIS logo without written consent from the NDIA, and that using the acronym in business names, trading names and domain names is an example of implying a misleading affiliation. Product names such as “NDIS packages” are named in the same guidance. The NDIA issues cease-and-desist letters and refers Australian Consumer Law breaches to the ACCC.

3. Registration claims that do not match reality

“Registered NDIS provider” is a completely legitimate thing to say when you are registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, and a serious misrepresentation when you are not. The NDIA’s guidance is explicit that you must not advertise as a registered provider unless you are registered. This is why the checker asks first instead of blanket-flagging the phrase, which is the single biggest source of false positives in tools like this.

The same guidance governs the “I/we heart NDIS” and “I/we support NDIS” logos: they may be used by registered providers, with the “Registered Provider” tagline, and not by anyone else. If you are unregistered, saying so plainly and explaining that you work with self-managed and plan-managed participants is both accurate and a perfectly good selling point.

Registration is also a moving target. Mandatory registration for supported independent living and platform providers applies from 1 July 2026, so if your copy mentions SIL, shared living or an online platform matching participants with workers, the checker prompts you to confirm your status is still described accurately.

4. Guarantees, funding promises and plan outcomes

Nobody can guarantee a participant’s results, and nobody outside the NDIA decides what goes into a plan. Copy such as “guaranteed results”, “we’ll get your plan approved”, “maximise your NDIS funding” or “unlock your budget” promises an outcome you do not control, which is exactly the territory the ACCC treats as misleading. Inducements are a related trap: offers of free devices, vouchers or gifts attached to NDIS-funded supports are the kind of promotion the NDIA has been targeting, because they encourage funding to be used for something other than a participant’s goals.

5. Unsubstantiated superiority, price and rating claims

Under the Australian Consumer Law you must be able to substantiate what you claim. “Best NDIS provider”, “number one in Sydney”, “cheapest”, “unbeatable” and “5 star” are not banned words, but each one is a claim you may be asked to prove. The checker grades them as risky and suggests a specific, evidenced replacement instead. “Rated 4.9 from 130 Google reviews” is stronger marketing than “the best” anyway, and it is defensible.

6. Pressure, scarcity and undue influence

The NDIS Code of Conduct requires providers to act with integrity, honesty and transparency and to respect the right of participants to make their own decisions. Countdown timers, “only 3 spots left”, “act now” and “sign today” cut directly against that. Vacancy information is genuinely useful to participants and families; manufactured urgency is not. Say “we currently have vacancies in Blacktown” and let people enquire in their own time.

7. Language that strips people of dignity

This one rarely gets an ad rejected and it does more damage than anything else on the list. “Wheelchair bound”, “suffers from”, “special needs”, “the disabled” and “high functioning” all read as dated to the audience you are trying to reach, and respect for individual rights sits at the heart of the Code of Conduct. The checker flags them with a person-first replacement, because the fix is usually a two-word edit.

And the things that are missing

Bad phrases are only half the job. The checker also tells you what your copy does not say: whether you have named an actual service rather than just “NDIS supports”, whether you have said where you operate, whether there is a call to action, whether you have qualified any mention of funding with the fact that it depends on the participant’s plan, and whether you have said where your reviews or statistics come from. Those omissions are usually why compliant copy still fails to bring in enquiries.

Compliant swaps you can use today

These are the replacements the tool suggests most often. Copy the right-hand column, then make it specific to your service.

What this tool cannot do

It reads words, not facts. It cannot tell whether your claim is true, whether your registration is current, whether the review you quoted is real, or whether the service you describe is the service you deliver. It does not check images, video, landing pages behind the ad, or the targeting settings in your ad account, and targeting is where a large share of NDIS ad problems actually live. It has no view of your contracts, your service agreements or your obligations as a provider, and it is not a substitute for advice from a lawyer or from the NDIS Commission. Treat a clean result as “nothing obvious found”, never as “approved”.

Frequently asked