"It all happened in a week."
A fall, a hospital stay, and a social worker saying Mum cannot go home. Now you are making a decision about hundreds of thousands of dollars while you are exhausted and upset.
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Every calculation is unlocked. Change one figure and re-run it as many times as you like — nothing is deducted, nothing counts down, and none of it expires.
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Good to know
All guides
Rate schedule in use
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Fees index on 20 March and 20 September
The rate that turns a room price into a daily fee
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Reset 1 Jan, 1 Apr, 1 Jul and 1 Oct
Fees next change
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Re-run your scenario after this date
Basic daily fee
—
Everybody pays this one, whatever they have.
Your account
Access and ordersYou have about 28 days to get this right
Don't lose over $100,000. We'll show you your aged care payment options.
Mum or Dad needs a nursing home. There is a room price, a deadline, and nobody mentions the part that matters: several legal ways to pay for it, and more than $100,000 between the best and the worst that you must decide to go with.
An adviser sorts it out for $3,500 to $9,000, over weeks you do not have. We do it in three minutes — every option priced and ranked, so you know which to take and which to avoid.
- Free estimate. No card, no sign up
- Full report $249 — an adviser charges $3,500+
- Ask the report questions in plain English — optional, and it never sees your name
- Built on the 20 March 2026 fee schedule
30 second estimate
Three inputs for a quick estimate:
$
$
$
—
You will pay
$—
a year
You could lose
$—
—
A rough guide only. The full calculator asks a few more questions and works out every option.
If this is you
If none of this makes sense,
that is not your fault.
Aged care pricing in Australia is genuinely hard to follow, and nobody whose job it is to explain it has done so. You were handed it in the worst week of your year and expected to keep up. Most families we hear from say the same five things.
"I don't understand the letter."
RAD. DAP. Means tested amount. Hotelling contribution. These are real charges with real dollar figures behind them, written in language nobody outside the industry uses.
"Everyone tells me something different."
The home says one thing, Centrelink says another, your brother read something online, and the friend who "went through this" was under the old rules that changed in 2025.
"Do we have to sell the house?"
Almost everyone assumes yes. Often the answer is no, and selling when you did not have to is one of the most expensive mistakes a family can make.
"How do I know this price is fair?"
You are quoted a room price and asked to sign. Nobody shows you what other homes charge, or what the same room costs if you pay for it a different way.
So we built the thing that was missing.
You type in what you have. We apply the actual government rules, work out every way you are allowed to pay, and put them in order from cheapest to dearest. No jargon, no appointment, no sales call.
The government won't tell you
Services Australia works out what you owe. It does not tell you which way of paying
leaves your family with the most money.
The home won't tell you
Aged care homes quote their price. They are not there to help you pay it the cheapest
way, and most staff genuinely do not know.
An adviser will — for thousands
A specialist charges $3,500 to $9,000 and takes weeks. That is the right call for some
families. Most just need the numbers.
Three questions, thirty seconds, and you will know roughly where you stand. It costs nothing.
The loss
Two families. Same money.
$179,000 difference.
There is not one decision to make here. There are four, and each one changes the next. Get two of them wrong and the money is simply gone. It is all perfectly legal, nobody writes to tell you, and you do not get a second go.
Guessed
The Mitchell family
- Sold the house quickly, to "be safe"
- Paid the whole room price up front, in one go
- Never checked if the government would help pay
- Did not know one of the fees even existed
Money left after 3 years
$612,000
Checked first
The Okonkwo family
- Kept the house and rented it out for two years
- Paid part up front and part as a daily fee
- Stayed under the limit that kept their pension
- Knew about every fee, including the one with no limit
Money left after 3 years
$791,000
Same money in. Same room. One family lost this.
$179,000
One family lost $179,000 - that is $59,667 a year, or
$163 a day, every day of the stay. Neither family did anything wrong. There
are up to fourteen legal ways to pay for a room. The Mitchells were never shown them, so they
picked one and paid extra for it for the rest of their lives.
The report that stops this being you costs $249.
An example, using this year's real rates. Your number will be different. That is the whole point. See how the lump sum decision alone moves it.
The alternative
Three ways to pay for an aged care room.
Two of them cost you.
| Guess What most families do |
Hire an expert Aged care adviser |
RAD or DAP This calculator |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing now, tens of thousands later |
$3,500 – $9,000 | $249 |
| How long it takes | An afternoon of worrying | 3 – 8 weeks | Under 3 minutes |
| Ways of paying compared | One, and not properly | Usually 2 or 3 | Up to 14 |
| Change a number and try again | — | New fee | Unlimited |
| Uses this year's rates | No | Yes | Yes — 20 March 2026 |
| Available at 11pm on a Sunday | Yes | No | Yes |
The families who lose the most are not careless. They just never knew there was a choice to make.
The clock
Four dates that change what aged care costs you
Aged care runs on deadlines. Miss one and the choice gets made for you, at a price you did not pick and cannot change back.
To choose how you pay
You get 28 days after moving in to tell the home how you want to pay: one big lump sum, a daily fee, or a mix of both. Say nothing and you are automatically put on the daily fee, charged at 8.43% a year. It is usually the dearest option. How the split works.
Before the house counts
For two years after moving in, the old house is ignored when Centrelink works out the pension. On day 731 it counts in full, and a part pension can disappear overnight. Keep, rent or sell.
20 Sep
Every fee goes up
All the limits and daily fees change twice a year. A sum worked out on last year's numbers is not a little bit wrong. It is wrong in every single line. What changed this round.
The rules changed
Anyone who moved in from 1 November 2025 is on a completely new fee system. New charges, new limits, and the home now keeps 2% a year of any lump sum you pay. That is new. Old rules vs new rules.
The report
The Aged Care Funding
Decision Report
The free estimate tells you roughly where you stand. This is the part that gives you the actual numbers and puts every option in order, cheapest first. Ten short sections and eight charts, written to be printed, emailed to your brother or sister, and taken into the meeting.
Free — tells you there is a problem
- Whether the government helps pay, or you pay it all
- Which fees you have to pay, and which you do not
- The one fee everybody pays, to the cent
- A rough daily cost, as a range
- How much money is riding on the room decision
What stops the loss — $249
- Exactly what your income and savings add to the bill, to the cent
- Every fee shown per day, per week and per year
- Up to 14 ways to pay for the room, in order from cheapest to dearest
- Whether a lump sum or a daily fee is better for you, and by how much
- Keep, rent out or sell the house, compared side by side
- What each choice does to the pension, in dollars
- A year by year forecast, recalculated every year
- How much of the lump sum comes back to the family at the end
- The exact questions to ask the home and Centrelink
- The whole thing as a PDF you can print, charts included
Most households are one unchecked decision away from a five figure loss they will never see itemised.
How it works
Your aged care costs in three steps
If you can read a bank statement, you can use this. Simple mode asks six questions. Advanced mode is there if you want to go deeper.
Tell us what you have
Savings, income, the house, and the room price you were quoted. Six boxes in simple mode. No names, no Medicare number, nothing you would not tell a bank teller.
See where you stand, free
We apply the real government rules to your numbers and tell you which fees you have to pay, which you do not, and roughly what a day costs.
Stop the leak
$249 opens the full report: every way of paying worked out and put in order, so the expensive one is obvious before you sign. PDF included, ready to print.
Built on the actual law
Every number comes from the official fee schedule, the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Aged Care Rules 2025.
Kept up to date
Rates change on 20 March and 20 September each year, and the interest rate every three months. Your report always says which set it used.
Your numbers stay yours
We never ask for a Medicare number, a tax file number or a bank detail. The sums run on your own device, and the optional assistant is given figures — never your name.
Nothing renews. Nothing expires.
One payment, and it is yours with no end date on it — run the numbers for any home, for either parent, as often as you like. Export the PDF or make a shareable link and keep those too. We never store your card details.
Included with the report
And if you do not follow something,
just ask it.
Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report — your figures, your options, your numbers — and answers questions about it in plain English. Not a search box and not a help page. It knows what your report says because it has been given it.
Ask Agent
Why does selling the house leave us worse off?
Because the proceeds are counted in full by the means test, while the house itself
is only ever counted up to a capped amount. On your figures that adds about
$685,000 to your assessable assets. Keeping it and renting it out
finishes $117,723 ahead over the three years.
What is a RAD in normal words?
A big deposit you hand the home, like a bond. It is refunded to the estate at the
end, minus a deduction of 2% a year. Yours would be…
An example of the kind of answer it gives, on the sample report's figures.
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It has your report, not a script Ask why an option ranks where it does, what a term means, what changes if you stay four years instead of three. It answers from your own figures and quotes them back to you.
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Plain English, on a subject that is anything but It is built for this one subject and told to explain rather than impress — no jargon without the meaning attached, short answers, and no lecture.
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Entirely optional. Use it or ignore it. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it. Nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it, and nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask it something.
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It is never told who you are What it receives is the figures on your report — amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail, because we do not hold those. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given.
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Nothing is kept The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it. We record that a question was asked so we know the feature is used — never what it said. Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
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It explains. It does not advise. It will tell you what the rules say, what each option costs and where the figures come from, and it will not tell you what to do — the same line the report itself holds. Nothing here is personal financial advice.
Pricing
Less than the parking
at the first meeting
One payment, no expiry, nothing to renew, and we never keep your card. It opens the whole report and lets you redo the sums as often as you like, for as long as you like.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
We would rather do that than have you rely on a number that does not apply to you.
Prices in Australian dollars. Paid securely through PayPal — card or PayPal balance, no account needed. See a sample report before you decide.
Questions
The questions everyone asks first
It is an assistant built for this one subject that has been given your
report and answers questions about it in plain English — why an option
ranks where it does, what a term means, what changes if an assumption changes. It
quotes your own figures back to you rather than speaking in generalities.
You do not have to use it. It sits behind one button on the report
and does nothing until you press it. Nothing in the report is held back from
somebody who never opens it.
It is never told who you are. What it receives is the figures on
your report — amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not
your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail, because
we do not hold those. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is
not part of what it is given. The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone
when you close it; we record that a question was asked, never what it said.
Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out
exactly what does and does not travel.
It explains, it does not advise. It will tell you what the rules say and what each
option costs, and it will not tell you what to do.
Everyone pays a standard daily fee of $66.80 a day. That figure is set at 85%
of the single pension, so it is the same for everybody.
After that it depends on your money. If you have savings or income above the limits, you
also pay up to $22.15 a day towards daily living costs like meals and
laundry, and up to $107.32 a day towards your care. Then there is the
room itself, on top.
So a pensioner with modest savings might pay little more than the $66.80. Someone who
funded their own retirement and is paying a full market price for a room can go past
$85,000 a year.
See four worked households.
It depends on what your money would otherwise earn, and there is a single number that settles it. If you pay for the room daily instead of as a lump sum, the fee is worked out at the government's set Rate, currently 8.43%. A lump sum costs you the return you give up, plus the 2% a year retention introduced on 1 November 2025, less the extra Age Pension a deposit can unlock because it is exempt from the pension assets test. The report solves for the exact break even return for your household. The full comparison.
It is the most consequential and least understood decision in the whole process. The former home is counted in the aged care means test at a capped $214,884 and no more. Sell it and the proceeds count in full, which can raise the fees. Against that, converting counted assets into a refundable deposit can lift the Age Pension, because a deposit is an exempt asset for pension purposes. The two effects pull against each other and the winner changes household by household. Keep, rent or sell.
Because most of what you are paying an adviser for is arithmetic, and arithmetic scales. A specialist statement of advice runs $3,500 to $9,000 and takes three to eight weeks, and a large part of that is modelling exactly what this calculator models. What an adviser adds is a personal recommendation and the licence to make it. We do not do that, and we do not pretend to. What advice actually costs.
No. We are not licensed to and we do not. What we do is apply the published rules to your figures and show you, in full, what those rules produce — every option, priced, ranked and charted, with the workings visible so you can check them. The conclusion you draw and the choice you make are entirely yours.
Support at Home, from 1 November 2025. Eight ongoing classifications with annual budgets from $11,010 to $80,137. Clinical care is fully government funded at 0%, independence services attract 5% to 50%, and everyday living services 17.5% to 80%. Anyone who had or was approved for a package on or before 12 September 2024 is protected by the no worse off principle. The full breakdown.
You will make this decision once.
There is no undo. The room price is agreed in writing, the payment method is locked in after 28 days, and the retention clock starts the day the deposit lands. Three minutes now is the cheapest three minutes of the entire process.
No card. No sign up. Your answer on the next screen.
Aged care cost calculator
Most calculators show aged care costs. This one prices what you'll lose getting it wrong — and then shows you every lawful method side by side, so you can make the right decision for your family.
Let's start — so we can save you from losing it
Step 1
Just started
Figures as at —.
Your estimate
What aged care is about to cost you
Which fees you have to pay
The part that decides whether you keep it
You could lose $0
That is what the most expensive way of paying for this room costs you compared to the cheapest, on your own figures. Both are open to you right now. Only one of them leaves the money in the family, and nothing on this page tells you which.
Aged care adviser
$3,500 – $9,000
Getting it wrong
—
This report, right now
$249
Stop it happening — unlock the full report
You can provide a different email to use as your login - or the PayPal one
Secured by PayPal
Refundable
Nothing renews
And you can ask it questions. Your report comes with an assistant that has read it and explains any figure in plain English — if you want it. It is given the amounts on your report, never your name or your email, and the conversation stays in your browser.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and
we refund you in full.
Not deciding today?
Send this estimate to yourself — free
Your figures, your position and this page's estimate, in your inbox in a minute. Pick it up when you are ready, forward it to whoever else is helping, and come back to the full report whenever the decision gets close.
One email, then only if the rates change or a deadline is close. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address and never pass it to a provider.
Before you sign anything
Know what it costs before you agree to it
Getting this wrong can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars — not in fees, but in choosing the wrong way to pay for the same room, which is a decision most families make with nobody showing them the alternatives. We price every option open to you, on your own figures, so the one you choose is the one you chose on purpose.
The only thing you can lose here is $249 — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
We would rather do that than have you rely on a number that does not apply to you.
See a sample report before you buy.
Before you decide
Yes, it is included, and using it is entirely your choice. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it — nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it.
When you do ask it something, what it receives is the figures on your report: amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail — we do not hold those in the first place. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given. The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it, and we record that a question was asked without recording what it said.
Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel, including who processes it.
No. You pay once and the access is yours. There is no subscription and nothing renews. PayPal handles the payment, so we never even see your card number.
Yes. One payment covers as many reports as you like, for as many people as you like, and you can save up to 20 of them to compare. If one parent goes into care and the other stays home, they are assessed separately — the calculator handles that.
We update it every time the government does — 20 March and 20 September for the fees, and every three months for the interest rate. Just run your numbers again and it uses the new ones. Every report says which set of rates it used.
Email us. If the calculator cannot handle your situation properly we will say so plainly and refund you. We would much rather do that than have you trust a number that does not apply to you.
RAD or DAP provides information, not financial product advice. We are not licensed to give personal financial advice, and we never tell you which option to pick. What we do is apply the published government rules to the numbers you enter, and show you the result. Your real fees are set by Centrelink and by the contract you sign with the aged care home.
Checkout
Two clicks and nothing about this decision is guesswork again.
What you are getting
Total
$0.00
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Secured by PayPal
Pay by PayPal or card
No renewals
Worked examples
Eight households. Eight six figure answers.
Four families who could lose a fortune without doing anything wrong, and four the government pays for. Every figure is worked out properly, on the current rules. None of it is made up.
First, the two things nobody explains
1
There is more than one way to pay for the room
An aged care home advertises a room price — often several hundred thousand dollars. You can pay it as one big deposit that is refunded to the family later, or as a fee every day like rent, which never comes back, or as a mix of the two.
The room is identical either way. The cost over a few years is not — and it is your choice, not the home's.
2
If you do not have much, the government pays for the room
There is a point below which you are not asked to pay for your accommodation at all — the government pays the home instead. It depends on what you own and what you earn, and the family home often counts for far less than people expect, or for nothing.
It is not automatic. Somebody has to work out that you qualify. Families who assume they do not can pay an advertised price they never owed.
Everything below is those two facts, in real dollars, for eight different households. Worked out on the current fee schedule.
None of these is you.
Your figure is based on your room price, your assets, your income and who is still living in the house. Yours takes about three minutes and costs nothing.
RAD or DAP
The Aged Care
Funding Decision Report
Prepared for Margaret Doyle
Your options, side by side
Every way Margaret is allowed to pay for this, and what each one leaves her family after 3 years. Same care, same room — the difference is only in how the money is arranged.
The short version
Four numbers. Everything else in this report explains where they came from.
Cost today$215.98a day$78,832 a year
Means tested amount$72.30a dayAbove the supported line
Options priced9ways to payRanked on what is left at the end
Spread between them$209,733Over 3 years
Full price resident — you negotiate the room price directly
Any part of the room price not paid as a lump sum is charged daily at the Maximum Permissible Interest Rate of 8.43%, so $550,000 unpaid costs $127.03 a day.
What you pay, and what for
There are four separate charges here, each with its own rules. The shaded ones are the ones that change depending on your income and savings.
| Component | Daily | Weekly | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic daily fee | $66.80 | $468 | $24,382 |
| Hotelling contribution means tested | $22.15 | $155 | $8,085 |
| Accommodation payment means tested | $127.03 | $889 | $46,365 |
| Total | $215.98 | $1,512 | $78,832 |
Basic daily fee. $66.80 a day, set at 85% of the single basic Age Pension. Every resident pays it and no means test changes it.
Hotelling contribution. $22.15 a day. It begins once assessable assets pass $258,000 or assessable income passes $101,105, and it caps at $22.15. There is no annual cap, no lifetime cap and no time limit on this one.
Non-clinical care contribution. Not payable. Your assessable assets are below $536,384 and your assessable income below $141,253.
How the government works out your share
Centrelink turns your income and your savings into a single daily figure. That one number decides whether the government helps with your room, and how much of the care fees you pay. Here is how it was built from what you entered.
| Assessable income | $34,814 |
| Less the income free area | −$35,313 |
| Counted at 50% | $0 a year |
| Income tested amount | $0.00 a day |
| Assessable assets | $379,884 |
| Less the asset free area | −$64,500 |
| Counted at 17.5% | $26,317 a year |
| Asset tested amount | $72.30 a day |
| Means tested amount | $72.30 a day |
| Supported resident line | $72.30 a day |
The annual figures are divided by 364, not 365 — that is how the fortnightly social security cycle lands on a daily amount. Both tapers are calibrated so that the first thresholds of $214,884 in assets and $87,948 in income land exactly on the maximum accommodation supplement of $72.30. Cross either one and the government stops contributing to your accommodation entirely.
How your assessable assets were built
| Financial assets | $150,000 |
| Superannuation | $0 |
| Investment property | $0 |
| Other assets | $15,000 |
| Former home Counted at the capped value of $214,884 | $214,884 |
| Total | $379,884 |
How your assessable income was built
| Age Pension counted as income for aged care | $31,223 |
| Deemed income on financial assets | $3,591 |
| Total | $34,814 |
Every way to pay, cheapest first
All 9 legal combinations of what you do with the house and how you pay for the room, each one costed over 3 years. The top row leaves your family the most money.
| # | Option | Lump sum | Daily payment | Fees over 3y | Pension over 3y | Left at the end | Behind the leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keep the home and rent it out — largest deposit you can fundcash runs out in year 3 | $85,500 | $107.28 | $217,775 | $45,741 | $1,029,254 | — |
| 2 | Keep the home and rent it out — Daily payment in full | $0 | $127.03 | $238,825 | $43,278 | $1,020,934 | −$8,320 |
| 3 | Keep the home, leave it empty — largest deposit you can fundcash runs out in year 2 | $85,500 | $107.28 | $215,625 | $62,447 | $981,292 | −$47,963 |
| 4 | Keep the home, leave it empty — Daily payment in fullcash runs out in year 3 | $0 | $127.03 | $235,862 | $62,447 | $974,674 | −$54,580 |
| 5 | Sell the home — Refundable deposit in full | $550,000 | $0.00 | $216,170 | $82,279 | $922,864 | −$106,390 |
| 6 | Sell the home — 75% lump sum, 25% daily | $412,500 | $31.76 | $249,990 | $75,947 | $908,256 | −$120,999 |
| 7 | Sell the home — 50% lump sum, 50% daily | $275,000 | $63.51 | $282,962 | $63,592 | $888,005 | −$141,249 |
| 8 | Sell the home — 25% lump sum, 75% daily | $137,500 | $95.27 | $314,815 | $35,831 | $852,852 | −$176,402 |
| 9 | Sell the home — Daily payment in full | $0 | $127.03 | $347,174 | $10,118 | $819,521 | −$209,733 |
How the ranking is calculated. Each option is projected year by year for 3 years. The means test is re-run every year, because paying a deposit, selling a house or simply spending capital changes the assessment and therefore the fee. The final column is what remains: accessible cash and investments, plus the refundable deposit after retention, plus any home still owned. That single measure folds in the fees paid, the pension received, the retention deducted, the return earned on money not tied up in a deposit, and growth on a home that was kept.
This ranking is arithmetic, not advice. It reports what the numbers do under the assumptions you set. It does not know your health, your family, your tax position or what matters to you, and it is not a recommendation to choose any particular option. Which one you take is your decision to make.
One big payment, or pay daily?
This is the most expensive decision in aged care and it comes down to one comparison. Pay a large refundable lump sum, or keep your money invested and pay a daily fee instead.
Maximum Permissible Interest Rate8.43%What an unpaid room balance is charged at
Retention on a deposit2%a yearFor up to 5 years, from 1 November 2025
Break even return—One choice wins at every rate
What the break even means
A deposit for the full room price cannot be funded from the assets entered, so the comparison below is between the largest deposit that can be funded and a full daily payment.
And if the stay is longer or shorter than you assumed
| Length of stay | Pay the deposit | Pay daily | Ahead by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | $1,037,809 | $1,036,142 | Lump sum by $1,667 |
| 2 years | $1,024,569 | $1,020,882 | Lump sum by $3,687 |
| 3 years | $981,292 | $974,674 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
| 4 years | $934,050 | $927,432 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
| 5 years | $885,582 | $878,965 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
| 6 years | $835,858 | $829,240 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
| 7 years | $784,845 | $778,227 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
| 8 years | $732,509 | $725,891 | Lump sum by $6,618 |
A daily accommodation payment is the room price multiplied by the Maximum Permissible Interest Rate and divided by 365. Nothing else goes into it. The rate that binds you is the one current on the day the room price is agreed, so a price agreed in one quarter and settled in the next keeps the earlier rate. Daily payments are now indexed on 20 March and 20 September, so they rise over a long stay; a lump sum does not.
5 more sections, and the 4 charts in them
- 06What to do with the house
- 07Year by year
- 08What comes back to the family
- 09What stands out in your numbers
- 10What to ask before you sign anything
Everything above is real arithmetic on a fictional household. Run yours and this half opens on your own figures.
And you can ask it questions. Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report and explains any figure in it in plain English — why an option ranks where it does, what a term means, what changes if you stay four years instead of three. Using it is entirely your choice, it does nothing until you press the button, and it is given the amounts on your report and never your name, your email or your account.
We could not find that link
The link may have already been used. If you are still getting emails, write to us and we will stop them by hand.
Guides
Every aged care cost, explained properly
Plain English, this year's rates, and all the working shown. Written for families doing this for the first time, in a hurry, at the worst possible moment.
Reading is useful. Knowing what this is about to cost you is better.
Home care
Support at Home contributions
Your pension status sets the range. Your income and assets set the exact number inside it. Here is the taper, in full, and what the no worse off principle protects.
The three bands
| Your situation | Clinical | Independence | Everyday living |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full pensioner | 0% | 5% | 17.5% |
| Part pensioner or self funded with a Seniors Health Card | 0% | 5% – 50% | 17.5% – 80% |
| Self funded without a card, or means not disclosed | 0% | 50% | 80% |
"Pensioner" includes anyone on an income support payment, not only the Age Pension. And if your income and assets happen to match those of a full pensioner, you can qualify for the lowest rates even without receiving a payment — but only if you actually disclose them to Services Australia.
How the taper works
For part pensioners and Seniors Health Card holders, one calculation places you between the two bounds.
income reduction = 50% × (assessable income − income free area)
asset reduction = 7.8% × (assessable assets − asset free area)
taper point = the greater of the two ÷ the maximum reduction amount, capped at 1
independence rate = 5% + 45% × taper point
everyday living rate = 17.5% + 62.5% × taper point
Note that it uses the greater of the income and asset reductions, not their sum — which is the opposite of how the residential aged care means test works. The free areas are the Age Pension test free areas, so they differ for homeowners and non-homeowners and for singles and couples.
A worked example. A single part pensioner, homeowner, with $200,000 in financial assets and total income including the pension of $45,500. The income reduction dominates, and the taper point lands around 20%, producing an independence rate of about 14% and an everyday living rate of about 30%.
What that means in dollars
Contributions are a percentage of what is actually spent, so your service mix matters as much as your rate. On a Level 4 budget of $30,469, with 10% removed for care management, $27,422 is available for services. Spend it 30% clinical, 45% independence, 25% everyday living:
| Category | Spent | Rate | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical | $8,227 | 0% | $0 |
| Independence | $12,340 | 14% | $1,728 |
| Everyday living | $6,855 | 30% | $2,057 |
| Total | $27,422 | 13.8% | $3,785 |
$3,785 a year, or about $73 a week, for $30,469 of care. That blended rate falls further if more of the budget goes on clinical services, and rises if more goes on gardening and cleaning.
The no worse off principle
If you were receiving, or had been approved for, a Home Care Package on or before 12 September 2024, you are protected. Your contributions can never exceed what you would have paid under the old programme, even if you are later reassessed into a higher classification.
| Your situation | Clinical | Independence | Everyday living |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full pensioner | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Part pensioner or Seniors Health Card holder | 0% | 0% – 25% | 0% – 25% |
| Self funded retiree | 0% | 25% | 25% |
A grandfathered full pensioner pays nothing at all, ever, on any Support at Home service. Their lifetime cap also stays at the older $86,185.23 rather than $137,917.01.
If you think you might qualify, check. The date turns on when you were approved, not when services started, and plenty of people approved in mid 2024 do not realise they are covered.
The "means not disclosed" trap
If you do not provide your income and assets to Services Australia, you are recorded as means not disclosed and charged at the maximum rates — 50% and 80%. On a Level 6 budget with a typical mix that is the difference between paying about $6,000 a year and about $20,000.
There is no penalty for disclosing and no benefit to withholding. If you already receive a payment from Services Australia or the Department of Veterans' Affairs, they use what they hold and you need do nothing.
What is capped and what is not
The lifetime cap of $137,917.01 is shared with residential aged care's non-clinical care contribution. Once reached, you contribute nothing further to either.
There is no annual cap and no time cap on Support at Home contributions. And if you cannot afford them, financial hardship assistance is available through form SA462, which can cover some or all of your contributions.
How you pay
Contributions are collected directly by your provider, after services have been delivered, on whatever cycle you agree — weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Your provider must issue an itemised monthly statement showing exactly what was spent, what the government paid, and what you contributed. Read it. Errors in service category coding are the most common source of overcharging, because the difference between an independence service and an everyday living service can be 16 percentage points.
A band is not a rate, and the difference between them is money
Free: your rate band. The full report gives your precise percentages and prices every classification.
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About
Why this exists
Aged care in Australia is one of the largest financial decisions most families will ever make, and almost all of them make it in a fortnight, under pressure, from a hospital corridor.
The rules are not secret. They are published in the Schedule of fees and charges, the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Aged Care Rules 2025. They are simply spread across dozens of documents, written for administrators, and indexed twice a year — which is why so few families ever see their own numbers before they sign.
RAD or DAP does one thing: it applies those published rules to your figures and shows you, in full, what they produce. Every option priced. Every option ranked. Every working visible so you can check it, argue with it, or take it to somebody who can.
We do not tell you what to do. We are not licensed to, and frankly the arithmetic is the part families are missing — not the opinion. Here is what the advice costs if you decide you want it as well.
Privacy Policy
Short version: we hold as little as we can, we never ask for the identifiers that matter most, and the calculation runs on your own device. The long version is below, because you are entitled to it.
1. About this policy
This policy explains how XTO Pty. Ltd. (we, us, our) collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information, and how you can access, correct or complain about it. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
It applies to calculatedchoices.com.au and to every email we send you. It does not apply to any third party site we link to.
2. What we never collect
We do not ask for, and you should never send us, your Medicare number, tax file number, Centrelink Customer Reference Number, bank account details or card number. The calculator does not need them. If you send one to us anyway we will delete it rather than store it.
We do not collect sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act — health information, racial or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal record. Where the calculator asks about care needs it asks about funding categories, never about a medical condition.
3. What we collect, and why
Information you give us
- Account details — first and last name, email address, and optionally phone, suburb, state, postcode and your relationship to the person entering care. Used to create and secure your account and to deliver what you bought.
- Saved reports — the figures you entered and the results produced, stored against your account only if you choose to save one. Used so you can return to and compare them.
- Purchases — the order, amount, currency, access period and the PayPal transaction reference. Used to grant access, issue receipts and meet our tax and record keeping obligations.
- Correspondence — what you write to us and our reply. Used to answer you and to resolve disputes.
- Email estimates and reviews — the email address you give us to receive a free estimate, and any review you submit for publication.
Information collected automatically
- Technical data — IP address, browser user agent, device type, screen and viewport size, and the referring page.
- Activity data — the pages you open, the order you open them in, time spent on each, how far you scroll, which calculator steps you complete, and which buttons you press. Used to understand where the site is confusing and to improve it.
- Advertising identifiers — where you arrive from an advertisement, the click identifier appended to the link (for example Google's gclid) and any campaign parameters, so we can measure which advertising works.
4. Where the calculation happens
In your browser, on your device. The figures you type into the calculator are processed locally to produce your result. They are transmitted to us only if you choose to save a scenario to your account. If you never save one, we never receive them.
Two exceptions, and both are things you have to choose to do:
- If you ask us to email your free estimate, the headline figure that estimate produced is stored with your email address so the estimate we send you is the one you saw.
- If you use the optional report assistant, the figures in the report you have open are sent to us and on to the service that answers it. That is the only part of this site that sends anything to a third party, and section 5 sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
5. The report assistant
A paid report comes with an optional assistant you can ask questions about your own figures. It is the one part of this site that sends anything to a third party, so it is set out here in full.
It is entirely your choice, and it does nothing until you use it. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you open the assistant and ask a question. If you never open it, this section does not apply to you at all, and the rest of the report works exactly the same.
What is sent when you do ask
- A plain-text summary of the figures in the report you have open — the amounts, categories and comparisons the report already shows you on screen.
- The question you typed, and the questions and answers already in that conversation, so a follow-up makes sense.
What is not sent
- Your name. The name field on the calculator is optional and is used only on your own report cover. It is not part of what the assistant is given.
- Your email address, your account, your phone number or your street address. The assistant is not told who you are, and is given no way to find out.
- Your Medicare number, tax file number, Centrelink Customer Reference Number, bank account or card details — we never hold these in the first place. See section 2.
What travels is a set of amounts and categories. On its own it does not identify anybody, and we do not send anything alongside it that would.
Who processes it
The request is answered by Google's Gemini API, which processes it outside Australia — see sections 10 and 11. We do not train any model on your figures and we have no arrangement permitting anyone to do so; what Google does with data sent to its API is governed by its own terms, which we do not control.
How long it is kept
- The summary of your figures is held in our server's memory for one hour so a conversation does not have to re-send it with every question, and is then discarded. It is never written to our database.
- The conversation itself is stored in your own browser tab and is gone when you close that tab. We do not keep a copy.
- We record that a question was asked, and how long it was, so we know whether the feature is used. We do not record what it said.
Because the assistant is optional, you can have the entire paid report without any of the above ever happening. Nothing in the report is withheld from somebody who never opens it.
6. Cookies and browser storage
We use the following, and nothing else:
- An authentication cookie — set only when you sign in, so you stay signed in. Strictly necessary.
- A guest identifier — so a scenario saved before you register can be attached to your account when you do.
- A session key (browser session storage) — identifies one visit for the activity data described above. It is a random value and is discarded when you close the tab.
- A visitor key (browser local storage) — a random value kept for up to twelve months so we can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It contains no personal information and is not shared with anyone.
- Preferences — your light or dark theme choice.
You can clear or block these through your browser at any time. Clearing them will sign you out and reset your preferences; the site will otherwise work normally.
7. Analytics and advertising
We use Google Analytics and Google Ads to measure how people find and use the site and whether our advertising is worth running. Where these are enabled, Google receives your IP address, device and browser information, the pages you viewed, and — when you complete a purchase — the order reference and the amount paid. Google may set its own cookies and may combine this with data it holds from other sources. Google's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy, not ours.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not disclose it to data brokers, advertising networks other than as described above, aged care providers, financial advisers, insurers, or anyone who might try to sell you something.
You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on, and you can adjust personalised advertising in your Google account settings.
8. Payments
Payments are processed by PayPal. Your card or account details are entered on PayPal's systems and are never transmitted to, seen by, or stored on our servers. We receive only the transaction reference, the amount, the status and the email address associated with the payment.
9. Who we disclose information to
- Service providers who host the site, send our email and process payments, and only so they can perform that function.
- Google, as described in sections 5 and 7.
- Professional advisers — our accountants and lawyers, under obligations of confidence.
- A purchaser of our business, if it is ever sold, on terms that require them to honour this policy.
- Law enforcement, courts or regulators, where we are required or authorised by law.
10. Overseas disclosure
Some of these providers store or process data outside Australia, principally in the United States (Google, PayPal) and, depending on our email provider, in other countries. By using the site you acknowledge that we take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the APPs, but that we cannot control and are not accountable for how an overseas recipient handles it once disclosed, and that you may not be able to seek redress in that jurisdiction.
11. Security
The site runs entirely over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2 hashes, not as text anyone here can read. Access to the database is restricted to those who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet, but we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
12. How long we keep it
- Account and saved reports — until you delete them or ask us to.
- Order and payment records — seven years, as required by Australian tax law. We cannot delete these earlier, even on request.
- Activity data — up to twenty‑six months, then deleted or aggregated so it no longer identifies anyone.
- Email leads — until you unsubscribe, then only the record needed to honour that unsubscribe.
13. Direct marketing
If you give us your email address for a free estimate we may follow up about the full report. Every commercial email we send identifies us and carries a functional unsubscribe link, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). We action unsubscribes immediately. You will still receive transactional email — receipts, access details and password resets — because those are not marketing.
14. Accessing, correcting and deleting your information
Write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au. We will:
- give you access to the personal information we hold about you, or explain why we cannot;
- correct anything inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading;
- delete your account and every scenario attached to it, subject to the retention periods in section 12.
We will respond within 30 days and will not charge you for making a request. We may need to verify your identity first.
15. Complaints
If you think we have breached the APPs, write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and respond substantively within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.
16. Children
The site is intended for adults making decisions about aged care. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
17. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The effective date at the top changes when we do. Where a change is material we will tell you by email or by notice on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the updated policy.
18. Contact
Privacy Officer
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au
Terms of Service
Plain English, because the whole point is that you understand it. Section 6 is the one that matters most — please read it before you rely on anything here.
1. Agreement
By using calculatedchoices.com.au (the site) or buying a pass you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site. In these terms we, us and our mean XTO Pty. Ltd.; you means the person using the site or, where you use it on behalf of another person or an entity, both you and that person or entity.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter a contract. The site is intended for use in Australia and applies Australian law and the published Australian aged care fee rules only. If you use it from outside Australia you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for local compliance.
3. What this service is
RAD or DAP is an information and calculation service. It applies the published Australian aged care fee rules to figures you supply and reports what those rules produce, showing its workings and naming the fee schedule used.
4. What it is not
It is not financial product advice, personal advice, legal advice, tax advice, accounting advice or aged care placement advice, and it is not a recommendation to acquire, dispose of or deal in any financial product.
- We do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence and are not authorised representatives of any licensee.
- We do not know your full circumstances, objectives, financial situation or needs, and nothing produced by the site takes them into account.
- Where the report ranks options it does so on a single arithmetic measure that deliberately ignores everything a number cannot capture — health, family circumstances, tax position, estate planning, aged care quality, and what actually matters to you.
- We receive no commission and have no relationship with any aged care provider, adviser, broker, lender or product issuer.
You should obtain independent, licensed advice before acting. Any decision you make is yours.
5. Accuracy and estimates
We take considerable care to keep the rates current and the formulas right, and every report prints the schedule it was built on. Even so:
- All output is an estimate based on the figures you entered. If those figures are wrong, incomplete or out of date, the output will be too.
- Your actual fees are determined by Services Australia after a formal income and assets assessment, and by the written agreement you sign with the aged care home. Those prevail over anything the site produces.
- Rates, thresholds and caps change by legislation and indexation, and legislation can change without notice or retrospectively.
- Projections rely on assumptions about the future — investment returns, indexation, home values, length of stay — which are inherently uncertain and will not be accurate.
Always confirm before you act.
6. Your responsibility for decisions
You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for evaluating the output, for verifying it against official sources, for obtaining independent professional advice, and for every decision you make or do not make. We are not your adviser and no fiduciary or advisory relationship arises from your use of the site.
7. Accounts
You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for everything done under your account. Tell us immediately at support@calculatedchoices.com.au if you suspect unauthorised use. We may suspend or close an account we reasonably believe is being used in breach of these terms.
8. Passes, price and payment
- A pass grants access to the full report from the moment payment is confirmed, and it does not expire. It does not renew and nothing is charged automatically. There is no subscription and no card is kept on file.
- Prices are in Australian dollars and include GST where applicable. We may change prices at any time; the price shown when you buy is the price you pay.
- Payment is processed by PayPal under its own terms. We do not receive your card details.
- A pass is for personal or single household use. It is not transferable and may not be shared, resold or used to provide a service to others.
9. Reports you export
A report you export as a PDF or otherwise save remains yours to keep and to show to family, an adviser or an aged care provider. That licence is personal and non‑commercial. It does not permit republication, resale, or use as part of a product or service you provide to others.
10. Refunds
Our promise: if the calculator cannot properly model your circumstances, or something has gone wrong, write to us within 14 days of purchase and we will refund the pass. No form and no argument. We would rather refund you than have you rely on a number that does not fit.
This is a voluntary commercial guarantee offered in addition to, and it does not limit, your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. Refunds are made to the original payment method within five business days of us accepting the request.
11. Acceptable use
You must not:
- scrape, crawl, harvest, mirror or systematically extract the site or its content;
- attempt to access the paid report engine, any account, or any data without authorisation;
- reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source of any part of the service;
- interfere with the site's operation or security, or impose an unreasonable load on it;
- resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the service or its output;
- use the site to provide financial, legal or placement advice to third parties; or
- use it unlawfully, or to infringe anyone's rights.
12. Intellectual property
All content, code, calculation methodology, report design, text and branding on the site is owned by us or licensed to us and is protected by copyright and other laws. Legislated rates and government data are not owned by anyone; our expression, arrangement and implementation of them is. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you.
13. Availability
We aim to keep the site available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of it, and may perform maintenance, at any time. If we permanently discontinue the service while your pass is running, we will refund the unused portion.
14. Third parties
The site relies on third party services including PayPal, Google and our hosting and email providers, and links to third party sites and government resources. We are not responsible for those services or sites, their availability, their content or their terms.
15. Australian Consumer Law
Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred by the Australian Consumer Law or any other law which cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified. If any part of these terms would do so, that part does not apply.
16. Limitation of liability
Subject always to section 15, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:
- the site and its output are provided "as is" and "as available", and we exclude all warranties, conditions, guarantees and representations not expressly set out in these terms, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including as to accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability and non‑infringement;
- we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, revenue, savings, opportunity, goodwill, data, anticipated benefit, or for any loss arising from a decision made or not made in reliance on the site, however arising and whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise, even if we were advised of the possibility;
- our total aggregate liability to you for all claims connected with the site or these terms is limited, at our election, to resupplying the service or to refunding the amount you actually paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose; and
- where liability cannot be excluded but can be limited, it is limited as set out above.
You agree that this allocation of risk is reasonable given the price of the service and that the service is information rather than advice.
Our liability is reduced to the extent your loss is caused or contributed to by you, including by entering incorrect figures, by failing to verify output against official sources, or by failing to obtain independent advice.
17. Indemnity
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you indemnify us against any claim, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the site, or your provision of the site's output to a third party who relies on it. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, negligence or wilful misconduct.
18. Termination
You may stop using the site at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access immediately if you breach these terms. Sections 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 survive termination.
19. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms and explains how we handle personal information.
20. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non‑exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts entitled to hear appeals from them.
21. General
- Changes. We may amend these terms. The effective date changes when we do, and material changes will be notified by email or on the site before they take effect. The terms in force when you bought a pass govern that purchase.
- Severability. If a provision is unenforceable it is read down to the minimum extent necessary, or severed, without affecting the rest.
- Waiver. A failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.
- Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our consent. We may assign them on a sale of the business.
- Entire agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the site.
22. Contact
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au