How to Get NDIS Clients: Referrals and Local Search

NDIS participants find providers two ways: through people who help them use their plan, like a support coordinator or their my NDIS contact, and by searching, asking people they trust and reading reviews. Keyword Planner shows 2,400 searches a month for 'ndis providers near me'. Work both routes, and never pay for referrals: kickbacks are banned from 27 November 2026.

This guide covers the routes participants actually use, what the NDIS Commission saw when it visited support coordination providers in 2025, and the rules that limit what you can offer. It is general information, so check anything you are unsure of with the NDIS Commission or your own adviser. For how we run this work for providers, see our NDIS marketing service.

Where do NDIS participants find providers?

The NDIA's own advice to participants starts with people, then research. Its guide, How to find and choose a provider, opens with their my NDIS contact, support coordinator or recovery coach. It then suggests asking people they trust for recommendations, researching providers and their services, checking reviews, and using the NDIA's Provider Finder to search registered providers by suburb or postcode.

Source: NDIA pages on finding providers, the my NDIS contact, NDIS partners, support coordinators and plan managers, checked 1 October 2026.

One rule shapes all of this. Participants whose funding is NDIA-managed must use registered providers, while self-managed and plan-managed participants can usually choose either. Some supports always need a registered provider, including specialist behaviour support, plan management, specialist disability accommodation (SDA) and supported independent living (SIL). Say plainly on every page which you are.

What did the NDIS Commission's 2025 support coordination visits find?

Coordinators usually give participants several options, and they find providers through public platforms, their own lists and local research. Between 26 March and 5 June 2025 the NDIS Commission visited 51 support coordination providers (36 registered, 15 unregistered) across five states. Together they employed about 988 support coordinators serving more than 24,300 participants. The Commission's campaign snapshot reported that:

• most support coordinators gave participants at least three service options, except where few existed, notably allied health in regional areas
• coordinators found suitable supports through public platforms, provider databases they built and maintained themselves, and ongoing research and engagement in local communities, particularly in the absence of formal service directories
• 71 percent of providers visited also delivered services other than support coordination, under the same ABN or through an associated entity, which is why conflict of interest management was a focus
• providers reported uncertainty about the shift to navigators and the timing of mandatory registration.

Read that as a brief. If coordinators compare at least three providers and keep their own databases, you need to be in those databases with accurate details, findable on the public platforms they search, and easy to compare on services, areas, capacity, wait times and registration status. In August 2023 the Commission's own motion inquiry found about 45 percent of active participants had support coordination in their plans, so this route reaches a large share of participants, though not all of them.

How do you get referrals from support coordinators?

Give coordinators what they need to recommend you with confidence, and nothing else. In practice that means:

• a referral page on your website listing the supports you deliver, the suburbs or regions you cover, who you work with, current capacity and wait times, your registration status, and how to refer by phone, email or a short accessible form
• a one-page summary of the same details that a coordinator can save to their own database or pass on with the participant's consent
• a prompt, consistent reply to every referral, including a clear no when you are full, because a coordinator comparing options can only recommend providers who answer
• factual capacity updates to the coordinators you work with, rather than marketing emails
• disclosure of any relationship that could look like a conflict, such as a coordinator who works for a related entity
• no gifts, payments or rewards for referrals, of any kind.

The last point is not new. The NDIS Commission's Code of Conduct guidance for providers already says providers should not give or accept inducements or gifts that could affect how they provide supports, including through referral arrangements. From 27 November 2026 kickbacks are banned by law as well.

Do not build the business on a handful of coordinators either. The government has announced a new commissioned support coordination and connection service from 1 July 2028, which will replace the way participants receive support coordination now, and consultation on its design closes on 2 October 2026. The coordinators who refer to you today may not be the ones doing it in 2028.

Do local area coordinators and plan managers refer participants?

Local area coordinators connect people with services; plan managers look after the money. Local area coordinators are NDIS partners for people aged 9 to 64, and early childhood partners work with younger children. A participant's my NDIS contact, who may be one of these partners, can help them find or change providers. Partners are independent community organisations rather than NDIA staff, and they do not approve plans or allocate funding. Letting your local partner office know plainly what you deliver is worth doing, but treat it as making sure they know you exist, not as a referral pipeline.

Plan managers must be registered providers. Their job is to submit claims, pay providers and track the participant's budget, so they are not a referral channel by design. What they do see is your invoicing, and invoices that match the plan make you easy to keep working with. The government's timeline also has a new panel of plan management providers starting on 1 October 2027, with a six-month transition, so plan management itself is changing.

Should you list on Provider Finder and NDIS directories?

If you are registered, yes. If you are not, third-party directories and your own Google profile matter more. Keyword Planner shows 3,600 searches a month for 'ndis provider finder' and 3,600 for 'ndis registered providers' in Australia (October 2026), and the NDIA's Provider Finder lists registered providers only, so an unregistered provider will not appear there.

When we checked Google Australia on 1 October 2026, the results for 'ndis provider directory' (140 searches a month) mixed the NDIA's Provider Finder and the NDIS Commission's register search with a run of independent directories. Before you pay for any listing, check who actually uses it, whether it shows your registration status accurately, and how it charges. If a platform charges you per participant it sends, get advice on how the kickback ban applies before 27 November 2026.

What do participants and families search for?

They search by support type and place, not by provider name. These are average monthly searches in Australia, with Google's top-of-page bid range:

Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, Australia, average monthly searches and top-of-page bid ranges, pulled 1 October 2026.

Three things stand out. Searches name the support, so a page for each support type works harder than one long list of services. Several include 'near me', which means your Google Business Profile and service-area pages decide whether you appear. And some of the dearest clicks, such as 'ndis support worker near me' at up to $55.21, sit on searches with modest volume, which is worth knowing before anyone proposes a broad ad budget.

How do you set up Google Business Profile and local SEO as an NDIS provider?

Start with the profile, then build a page for each support and area you genuinely cover.

• Choose the primary category that matches your main support, and list each service you deliver.
• Set service areas to where your workers actually go, and hours to when someone answers.
• Add accessibility details about your premises if participants visit you.
• Use photos of your team and premises, and only use images of participants with their informed, written consent.
• Ask for reviews in a way that suits each participant, and never offer anything in return.

On the website, write in plain English first and offer Easy Read versions where your participants need them. Build to WCAG 2.2 level AA, the current version of the W3C accessibility guidelines: real headings, image descriptions, captioned video, readable contrast and forms that work with a keyboard and a screen reader. State your registration status, and the registration groups it covers, accurately on each page. When the site itself is the problem, our page on NDIS provider websites covers how we rebuild them.

Can NDIS providers use Google Ads and Facebook ads to find clients?

Yes, within the platforms' rules for health and disability. Google's health category for personalised ads covers disabilities, even when an ad is aimed at a carer, so ads for disability services cannot use advertiser-curated audiences such as Customer Match lists, your own data segments or lookalike segments. Keyword and location targeting still work. Meta's advertising standards bar copy that asserts or implies a person's disability or health, so 'Living with a disability?' is out, while a plain description of the service, such as 'Disability support in Penrith', is the kind of wording Meta's own examples allow.

Whether ads pay is a separate question. Top-of-page bids for 'ndis providers near me' run from $3.99 to $15.56, and for 'ndis support worker near me' from $10.64 to $55.21 (Keyword Planner, October 2026). Ads make sense for support types where you have capacity and a signed service agreement is worth more than the cost of winning it, and our guide to cost per lead shows how to work that out. Run them without remarketing lists or uploaded participant data, and keep participants' health information out of every ad platform.

What should you never do to win NDIS clients?

Never offer anything to win or keep a participant, and never pay for referrals. From 27 November 2026 the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026 bans providers from offering or giving an inducement or kickback that is likely to encourage a person to engage, keep using or increase their use of the provider's services. The government's fact sheet defines an inducement as a reward, benefit or other offer intended to influence a person's decision or behaviour, and a kickback as a payment, gift or other benefit given in exchange for favourable treatment or a business referral. Breaches can bring a fine, up to two years' imprisonment, or both.

• Allowed, according to the fact sheet: genuine pricing practices, and certain merchandise such as hats or tote bags.
• Banned in all cases: alcohol, tobacco and associated products, cash and cash-like products, and electronic devices.
• Already ruled out by the Code of Conduct guidance: inducements or rewards with no link to a participant's plan, high-pressure sales, and gifts or inducements that could affect how supports are provided, including through referral arrangements.

The enforcement context is real. In February 2026 the NDIS Commission and the NDIA reported investigations in the Northern Territory into providers that offered cash, alcohol, cigarettes and other inducements to sign participants up, and said NDIA investigations had shown a strong link between providers making 'incentive' or 'referral' payments and fraud.

Two other lines hold in every channel: never suggest a registration you do not hold, and never describe a product or service as 'NDIS approved'. Our guide to NDIS advertising rules covers both, along with logo use and consent.

How do you know which referral sources work?

Record the source of every enquiry and follow it through to a signed service agreement. Ask each new participant or their supporter how they heard about you, and log the answer in your client management system or CRM. Give your website referral form a hidden source field, use tagged links in emails to coordinators (our free UTM builder makes them in seconds), and track calls from your Google Business Profile and website separately, as our guide to call tracking explains. Review the mix every quarter: if most new participants come from two coordinators, treat that as a risk to fix. None of this needs participants' health information, and none of it should go to an ad platform.

Quick answers

Are NDIS providers struggling?

Many are working through change. Providers visited in the NDIS Commission's 2025 support coordination campaign reported uncertainty about the shift to navigators and the timing of mandatory registration, and the government's reform timeline runs to 2028 and beyond.

Can anyone become an NDIS provider?

Many supports can be delivered by unregistered providers to self-managed and plan-managed participants, and the NDIS Code of Conduct applies to them too. Some supports, including SIL, SDA, specialist behaviour support and plan management, need registration, and NDIA-managed participants must use registered providers. The government's implementation timeline has expanded mandatory registration for higher-risk supports, such as personal care and daily living supports, rolling out from 1 July 2027, alongside a new enrolment system for most providers.

How do NDIS providers make money?

They are paid for the supports they deliver, from the participant's plan funding. For NDIA-managed funding the provider submits claims and the NDIA pays. For plan-managed funding the plan manager pays. For self-managed funding the participant pays the provider and claims from their plan.

Where to go from here

Getting NDIS clients mostly comes down to being easy to refer, easy to find and easy to trust, inside rules that are tightening. Our NDIS marketing page explains how we run local search, referral pages and ads for providers, and when we tell a provider it does not need us. For a straight read on your own referral mix and profile, book a free 30-minute profit audit.

General information only, based on NDIA, NDIS Commission, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Google and Meta sources checked on 1 October 2026. It is not legal advice: the NDIS Commission, the NDIA or your own adviser can confirm how a rule applies to you.