Somewhere past 50 staff, running an NDIS provider stops being one roster and becomes many. There are several sites, each with its own participants, team and rules. There are rosters to build and check every period. There is audit evidence that has to stay current all year, not be rebuilt in a rush before an audit. And there are people joining, changing roles and leaving, each needing the right access on day one and none on their last.
That is the lens for this comparison. Lumary, ShiftCare and CareMaster are names larger providers regularly shortlist, and BondiByte is the fourth we think belongs beside them. We compare them as a CEO, COO or operations lead would: multi-site rules, rostering at scale, audit readiness, access control, claiming and payroll flow, and what the bill looks like as headcount grows.
The short answer
- Lumary: a Salesforce-based platform for mid-to-large SIL, SDA, Support Coordination and community providers, with a DC Enterprise tier for governance and multi-site operations. Demo only, no public pricing.
- BondiByte: multi-site rostering where every site carries its own rules, a whole roster drafted from your pattern and approved by a manager before staff see it, a live Audit Centre, and Microsoft Entra single sign-on with SCIM on every plan.
- ShiftCare: published per user pricing, a 7-day free trial, and an Enterprise plan from 250 staff that adds multi-entity governance and single sign-on.
- CareMaster: per user tiers with Premium applying from 50 users, optional add-ons for payroll award interpretation, hosting and DEX reporting, and a demo-led sales process.
What larger providers need
Hold every shortlist against these six points.
- Multi-site rules. Each home, respite service, community program and office needs its own settings for swaps, cancellations, open shifts and clock-in, without rewriting the rules everywhere else.
- Whole-roster automation with approval. A roster drafted for the full period, a named person reviewing it before staff see it, and the option to relax that where trust is earned.
- Audit readiness. Evidence mapped to the NDIS Practice Standards and kept current, not assembled at the last minute.
- Access control as people join and leave. Single sign-on and automated provisioning, so access follows your staff list.
- Claiming and payroll flow. Rostered shifts turning into invoices, timesheets and pay with as little re-keying as possible.
- Predictable pricing at scale. A model you can forecast as headcount grows, and a clear answer on which features sit behind which tier.
Lumary: the Salesforce-based enterprise option
Lumary positions itself as the operational system for sustainable supports and care, built on the Salesforce platform and purpose built for SIL, SDA, Support Coordination and community providers. It says it serves 200+ enterprise and SME providers in Australia, with 500K+ care recipients and $6B in annual NDIS funding processed. Those are Lumary's own figures.
It sells in two tiers. DC Pro is aimed at small to mid-sized providers. DC Enterprise is for larger, more complex providers with advanced governance, multi-site operations and reporting requirements, and it comes with enterprise audit and implementation support. Lumary describes DC as designed for mid-to-large disability providers.
On rostering, Lumary talks about real-time cost visibility, award interpretation, payroll integration and compliance-aware roster management with integrated leave tracking. On claiming, it describes automated NDIS claim generation, service agreement controls and real-time revenue visibility.
What to plan for: Lumary does not publish pricing, access is by demo, and implementation timelines are not published. For a COO planning a cutover, those are the first three questions to put to the vendor.
BondiByte: built for many sites, many rosters and continuous audit evidence
BondiByte treats every site as its own record: SIL homes, respite, community access programs and offices, each with linked participants, primary, secondary and relief teams, per-site capability requirements, and per-site rules for swaps, cancellations, open shifts and clock-in. Each site carries its own settings, so you can tighten one location without changing how everywhere else works.
Smart Rostering is switched on site by site. It drafts the roster from your pattern, explains every recommendation, and by default waits for a manager to review before anything is published. Trusted sites can be set to auto-publish while the rest stay manual.
The Audit Centre gives you a live readiness score by domain, evidence mapped to the NDIS Practice Standards, scoped auditor invites, samples, findings and corrective actions. Across multiple sites, document control and audit evidence need to run continuously, not just at audit time, and that is how the Audit Centre is designed.
Access follows your people. Microsoft Entra single sign-on and SCIM handle access as people join and leave, and they are on every plan. In fact every feature is on every plan, with no feature gating.
Money flows from the roster: invoices are drafted from rostered shifts, with a bulk payment request CSV in the NDIS layout, and timesheets and pay levels connect to Xero Payroll. BondiByte prepares claim-ready data; it does not lodge claims with the NDIA directly. A Support Coordination workspace sits in the same platform.
ShiftCare: transparent pricing and a strong Enterprise tier
ShiftCare says it serves 8,000+ care providers and publishes its prices per user per month, ex GST: Basic at $8 or $9, Professional at $13 or $15, and Premium at $20 or $25. Everyone with a login counts as a user. There is a 7-day free trial, and Premium includes direct NDIA claims with PRODA.
Larger providers should look at Enterprise, which starts from 250 staff with the price not shown. It includes multi-entity governance, franchise and account hierarchy, leave management, single sign-on, an open API, 24/7 support, ShiftCare HR, a dedicated customer success manager, enterprise-grade permissions and custom implementation. Single sign-on is available only on Enterprise, through SAML 2.0 with Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, OneLogin or Google Workspace.
Its AI features focus on filling work quickly: SmartMatch ranks by approved pay rates, the Vacant Visit Agent automatically fills cancelled shifts within your SLA, and the AI Job Board automatically approves suitable staff based on rules you configure.
CareMaster: tiered per user pricing with add-ons
CareMaster says 300+ providers trust its software and that it accommodates providers overseeing thousands of participants to a few. It publishes per user monthly pricing, ex GST: Essential at $16 (minimum 5 users), Standard at $26 (5 to 50 users) and Premium at $36 (50+ users), with Enterprise for 200+ users on request. Admin users and managers count as licences. Add-ons per month are Payroll Award Interpretation at $155, Platform Hosting at $135 and DSS DEX API Reporting at $155.
Its feature set covers NDIS PRODA bulk invoicing, SCHADS award payroll, scheduling and skills-based rostering, and shift broadcasting. The AI Roster Optimiser analyses skills, availability, costs and compliance requirements to recommend care workers, with an Accept Worker button. CareMaster has a page for medium, large and enterprise providers with a guided onboarding sequence, and access is by demo. Its public pages do not mention SIL, single sign-on or multi-site, so ask about each.
Pricing at scale: an illustration at 100 staff
These figures are illustrations only, ex GST and before add-ons, from published list prices. At 100 users, ShiftCare Professional comes to $1,300 to $1,500 a month and Premium to $2,000 to $2,500, with single sign-on reserved for Enterprise from 250 staff. CareMaster Premium comes to $3,600 a month, since Premium applies from 50 users, and the three add-ons are extra. Lumary's pricing is not public.
BondiByte is priced by staff allowance with every feature on every plan, so a growing provider never hits a feature wall. Self-serve plans cover up to 500 active staff, staff numbers are an allowance and never a cap, and Enterprise is by arrangement for large or complex operating models. Tax treatment is confirmed at onboarding.
Rostering at scale: who builds it and who approves it
Rostering is where these platforms differ most. For a larger provider the question is not only who can suggest a worker for a shift. It is who builds the whole roster, who checks it, and who is accountable when it goes out.
Lumary
Lumary describes compliance-aware roster management with leave tracking, cost visibility and award interpretation. Its public pages do not spell out how a roster is drafted from a pattern or how approval works, so make that a demo question.
BondiByte
BondiByte drafts the whole roster from your pattern, ranks every candidate with reasons, and puts a manager in the approval seat by default. The model is set out in detail below.
ShiftCare
ShiftCare's automation is built around speed: SmartMatch ranking by approved pay rates, a Vacant Visit Agent that fills cancelled shifts automatically within your SLA, and an AI Job Board that approves suitable staff against pre-configured rules.
CareMaster
CareMaster combines skills-based rostering and shift broadcasting with an AI Roster Optimiser that recommends workers, then an Accept Worker button. Its public pages do not describe an approval step across a whole roster.
The BondiByte model in depth
Smart Rostering follows a deliberate sequence, and you control it per site.
- By default, shifts are created from the pattern about three weeks before the period begins.
- A draft roster is generated for the whole period.
- Hard blocks come first: leave, inactive status, double-booking, blocked time and full shifts are excluded before any ranking happens.
- Remaining candidates pass five suitability checks and are ranked on eleven factors, with reasons shown on every recommendation.
- A manager reviews the draft and publishes it.
Auto-publish is off unless you turn it on for a site. That means a long-established house with a stable team can auto-publish while a newer site stays under manual review. Because every recommendation carries reasons, the reviewer is checking a roster they can explain, which is what an executive wants to be able to say to a board, a family or an auditor.
Side-by-side comparison
| Capability | BondiByte | Lumary | ShiftCare | CareMaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Providers of any size, from a single site to multi-site operations | Mid-to-large SIL, SDA, Support Coordination and community providers | Care providers of all sizes, with Enterprise for larger | Small to Enterprise NDIS providers |
| Pricing basis | Staff allowance, every feature on every plan | Not published | Per user per month; every login counts | Per user per month; admins and managers count; add-ons extra |
| Public pricing | Self-serve plans up to 500 active staff; Enterprise by arrangement | No | Yes for Basic, Professional and Premium; Enterprise not shown | Yes for Essential, Standard and Premium; Enterprise on request |
| Enterprise threshold | Self-serve plans cover up to 500 active staff; Enterprise by arrangement | DC Enterprise for larger providers; threshold not published | From 250 staff | 200+ users, on request |
| Multi-site rules | Each site has its own settings and rules | DC Enterprise covers multi-site operations | Enterprise multi-entity governance and hierarchy | Not mentioned on its pages |
| Whole roster drafted from a pattern | Yes, shifts created from the pattern and a draft roster generated | Not stated publicly | Not stated publicly | Not stated publicly |
| Approval before staff see it | Manager review by default; auto-publish per site | Not stated publicly | AI Job Board approves against configured rules | Accept Worker button; approval not stated |
| Audit readiness tools | Audit Centre with live readiness score and mapped evidence | Enterprise audit and implementation support | Not stated publicly | Not stated publicly |
| Single sign-on | Microsoft Entra SSO and SCIM on every plan | Not stated publicly | Enterprise only, via SAML 2.0 | Not mentioned on its pages |
| Free trial or demo | 28-day free trial on Starter, Foundation and Growth; demos for larger models | Demo only | 7-day free trial | Demo only |
Which should you choose?
- Choose BondiByte if you run multiple sites and want each to have its own rules, if you want the whole roster drafted from your pattern and approved before staff see it, if audit evidence needs to run continuously, and if you want Microsoft Entra single sign-on and SCIM without an enterprise upgrade.
- Choose Lumary if you are a mid-to-large SIL or SDA provider who wants a Salesforce-based system, and you are comfortable with a demo-led process and pricing discussed with sales.
- Choose ShiftCare if you value published per user pricing and a 7-day trial, and you use Okta, OneLogin or Google Workspace for single sign-on on an Enterprise plan from 250 staff.
- Choose CareMaster if payroll award interpretation as an add-on, PRODA bulk invoicing and a guided onboarding sequence matter most, and you will confirm multi-site and single sign-on details in a demo.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lumary better than ShiftCare for large providers?
They are built differently. Lumary is a Salesforce-based platform with a DC Enterprise tier for larger providers. ShiftCare has published per user pricing and an Enterprise plan from 250 staff. If you want multi-site rules, roster approval and audit tools in one platform with no feature gating, BondiByte is worth putting on the same shortlist.
What is the difference between ShiftCare and CareMaster?
Both charge per user per month, ex GST. ShiftCare's published plans run from $8 to $25 with Enterprise from 250 staff and a 7-day trial. CareMaster's run from $16 to $36 with Enterprise at 200+ users, add-ons for payroll award interpretation, hosting and DEX reporting, and demo-only access.
Which NDIS software supports single sign-on?
ShiftCare offers it only on Enterprise, via SAML 2.0 with Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, OneLogin and Google Workspace. BondiByte includes Microsoft Entra single sign-on and SCIM on every plan. Lumary and CareMaster do not state single sign-on on their public pages, so ask them directly.
Does Lumary publish its pricing?
No. Lumary is demo only, with no public pricing and no published implementation timelines. ShiftCare and CareMaster publish their lower tiers, and BondiByte prices plans by staff allowance with Enterprise by arrangement.
What NDIS software suits multi-site providers?
Look for per-site rules, not just a list of locations. BondiByte runs every site with its own settings, team structure and requirements. Lumary offers multi-site operations on DC Enterprise, and ShiftCare offers multi-entity governance on Enterprise from 250 staff.
Can large providers trial NDIS software before buying?
Some can. BondiByte offers a 28-day free trial on Starter, Foundation and Growth, with demos for larger operating models. ShiftCare offers a 7-day free trial. Lumary and CareMaster work by demo.
How does pricing change as a provider grows?
With per user models, every extra login moves the bill, and at ShiftCare everyone with a login counts. CareMaster moves to a higher tier from 50 users. BondiByte plans are priced by staff allowance with every feature on every plan, and the allowance is never a cap.
Should an automated roster be approved before staff see it?
For most larger providers, yes at first. A manager reviewing a draft with reasons on every recommendation keeps accountability clear. BondiByte reviews by default and lets you switch auto-publish on only for the sites you trust.
See it on your own roster
If you run several sites, the quickest test is your own pattern. Start a 28-day free trial of BondiByte on Starter, Foundation or Growth, or ask for a demo if your operating model is larger or more complex. And watch the Smart Rostering video on this page to see trusted sites auto-publish while the rest stay in manager review.
How we compared
We compared the four platforms using each vendor's public information, checked on 15 October 2026. Prices and plans change, so confirm current details with each vendor. BondiByte details come from bondibyterobotics.com.au.