What Does It Cost to Live in SIL? A Plain-English Breakdown with Real Examples (2026)

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A 1:1, 24/7 SIL arrangement typically costs somewhere around $500,000 to $600,000 a year in support funding. Share your in-home worker with one other person (1:2) and that part of your cost roughly halves. Share with two others (1:3) and it drops to roughly a third. But here's the catch most people miss: your in-home SIL ratio and your community access ratio are different supports, and community access is usually funded at 1:1 even when your in-home support is 1:3. This guide breaks it all down in plain English, with worked examples.

This article is for participants, families, and coordinators trying to understand what SIL actually costs and why two people with similar disabilities can end up with very different budgets. We'll cover 24/7 versus part-time support, the 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 ratios, the crucial distinction between SIL and community access, the difference between active overnight and sleepover support, and we'll walk through several worked examples so you can see where the money goes. If you want to model your own situation, the Marco Polo Portal support cost calculator does the maths for you.

A quick but important note before we start. Every figure in this article is based on the 2025-26 NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. The numbers are illustrative, rounded for clarity, and use standard support rates. Your actual costs depend on your assessed needs, your provider, your location, and the exact mix of weekday, weekend, and public holiday shifts in your roster of care. Treat the examples as a way to understand the mechanics, not as a quote.

Is that provider actually ripping you off?

A few months back I saw a post in one of the NDIS Facebook groups. A family was furious. They were convinced their SIL provider was trying to rip them off. The quote the provider had put together looked enormous, way bigger than they'd expected, and the assumption in the post was that the provider had padded it to line their own pockets. (not uncommon)

A lot of the comments agreed. Dodgy provider, get a second quote, report them.

So I did what I usually do, which is ask a few questions about what was actually in the quote. And when the family shared the detail, the picture changed completely.

They'd asked for a specific roster of care. Their son had in-home support, a community access program five days a week, and an active overnight worker. The community access was costed at 1:1, because that's how community access almost always runs. The overnight was active, because their son genuinely needed someone awake. When you actually added up the roster they had requested, at current NDIS price limits, the provider's number was correct. It wasn't a rip-off. It was just maths the family had never been walked through.

That's the thing about SIL cost. It looks like a black box, and when a big number lands in front of you it's natural to assume someone's gouging you. Usually they're not. Usually the number is just the honest sum of a roster nobody explained properly. Once you understand how the roster turns into a dollar figure, you can actually tell the difference between a fair quote and a bad one. That's what this article is for.

What SIL funding actually pays for (and what it doesn't)

Let's clear this up first, because it's the source of half the confusion.

SIL funding pays for the support workers in your home. Their time, helping you with daily living, personal care, supervision, and the running of the household. That's it.

SIL funding does not pay for:

• Rent or the cost of the house itself. That comes from your own income, often your Disability Support Pension and Commonwealth Rent Assistance, or through SDA funding if you're one of the roughly 6% of participants who qualify for it.
• Groceries, utilities, internet, and the normal cost of living. You pay for those yourself, the same as anyone.

So when we talk about SIL "costing" $500,000 a year, we're talking about the support funding in the NDIS plan. The participant is not handed that money. It pays the provider to staff the house. The participant still pays their own rent and groceries on top, out of their own pocket.

Keep that distinction clear. SIL cost in this article means the support funding. Living costs are separate, and we have other articles that cover those. Check out out Blogs Page

SIL and community access are two different supports

This is the single most misunderstood thing about SIL cost, so we're dealing with it before anything else.

SIL is the support delivered in your home. Help getting up, personal care, meals, household tasks, supervision, overnight support. It's frequently delivered in a shared arrangement, which is where the 1:2 and 1:3 ratios come in.

Community access (you'll also see it called Assistance with Social and Community Participation) is the support that takes you out into the world. Getting to appointments, shopping, sport, social activities, the gym, a class, a day program. It is funded separately, from a different part of your plan, and it is almost always delivered at 1:1.

Here's the part that trips people up. A participant can have a 1:3 ratio for their in-home SIL support and still have a 1:1 ratio for their community access, at the same time. The two ratios are set independently because they're two different supports doing two different jobs. Three housemates can share one worker reasonably well while they're all at home in the evening. Those same three housemates usually can't share one worker for a 1:1 trip to three different appointments in three different directions. So community access stays 1:1.

I've added the words "for now" in a few places in this article deliberately. The reform agenda is pushing toward more group-based and shared models for community participation, and the way community access is funded and delivered may change. As of the 2025-26 rules, community access is funded as its own support, separate from SIL, and usually at 1:1. Plan on that, but keep an eye on it.

The two big levers on the SIL part: ratio and overnight type

For the in-home SIL component specifically, almost everything about cost comes down to two questions.

Question one: how many people share your in-home support worker? This is your support ratio. 1:1 means a worker is dedicated to you alone. 1:2 means one worker supports you and one other person. 1:3 means one worker supports you and two others.

Question two: what happens overnight? Either a worker is awake and actively working (active overnight), or a worker sleeps at the house and is only paid a flat rate to be there and respond if needed (sleepover).

Get those two answers for the SIL component, add your separately-funded community access on top at 1:1, and you can estimate a total budget within a reasonable range. Everything else (weekend loadings, public holidays, the occasional extra active hour) adjusts the figure from there.

The ratio: why 1:1 in-home support costs roughly triple 1:3

Here's the mechanic, and it's simpler than people expect.

A support worker costs the same to roster whether they're helping one person or three. In a shared SIL house, the cost of that worker's hour is split between the participants who share them.

• In a 1:1 arrangement, you carry 100% of the worker's hourly cost.
• In a 1:2 arrangement, you and your housemate each carry roughly 50%.
• In a 1:3 arrangement, you and two housemates each carry roughly a third.

That's why ratio is the single biggest lever on the in-home component. Same worker, same hours, same house. Just split differently.

Using the 2025-26 standard weekday support rate of about $70 an hour as a reference point, one hour of in-home support delivered looks like this:

• 1:1: about $70 to your budget.
• 1:2: about $35 to your budget.
• 1:3: about $23 to your budget.

Multiply that across a full week of in-home support, including evenings, weekends, and overnights, and you can see how a 1:1 in-home roster lands in very different territory to a 1:3 one.

Two honest things to say about ratios.

First, your ratio is determined by the NDIA based on your assessed functional capacity, not by your preference and not purely by your provider. If your occupational therapist's assessment says you need 1:2 but your SIL quote is costed at 1:3, your budget won't cover the support you actually need. Alignment between your assessment and your quote matters.

Second, post-NDIS Review, in-home SIL is increasingly delivered at 1:3. That has a real cost logic behind it, but it also means more participants sharing one worker, which makes housemate compatibility more important than ever. A 1:3 ratio works beautifully with the right housemates and miserably with the wrong ones. This is exactly why matching housemates first, rather than being placed into a vacancy, matters so much. The Marco Polo Portal exists for precisely that.

24/7 versus part-time SIL

Not all SIL is 24/7. This surprises people.

24/7 SIL means there is a support worker present and available at all times, including overnight. This is what most people picture when they hear "SIL," and it's the most expensive structure because someone is always rostered on.

Part-time or lower-intensity SIL means support is rostered for set blocks: mornings and evenings, for example, with the participant independent in between and no overnight worker. This is much cheaper because you're not paying for 24 hours of coverage.

If your support needs genuinely don't require someone there around the clock, a part-time SIL roster, or stepping out of SIL entirely into drop-in support, can cost a fraction of a 24/7 arrangement. Drop-in support, funded through Core Supports rather than as SIL, is the most overlooked option here and worth a serious look if you can manage stretches of the day independently.

Active overnight versus sleepover: the overnight scenario

Overnight support is where a lot of money is either spent well or wasted, so this section matters.

Active overnight means the worker is awake and working through the night. Think of someone who needs repositioning, regular medication, frequent toileting support, or supervision because of seizures or behaviours that occur at night. Active overnight is billed at the hourly night rate (around $79 an hour on a standard weekday in 2025-26) for every hour of the shift. An eight-hour active overnight shift therefore costs roughly $630 a night at standard rates, before any weekend loading.

Sleepover means the worker sleeps at the house and is paid a flat shift rate to be present and available, not to be awake and working. The 2025-26 flat sleepover rate is around $297 for the shift, and that rate includes up to two hours of active support if the participant needs help during the night. If the worker is woken and active for more than two hours, the additional time is billed separately at the applicable hourly rate.

The cost difference is dramatic. A sleepover at roughly $297 versus an active overnight at roughly $630 means active overnight costs more than double. Over a year, that's the difference between roughly $108,000 and roughly $230,000 just for the overnight component.

The honest point here: active overnight should be funded when it's genuinely needed, and a sleepover should be funded when that's what the situation actually calls for. Participants sometimes get an active overnight in their roster when a sleepover would safely do the job, and sometimes get a sleepover when they genuinely need active support and end up unsafe at night. Both are problems. Make sure your overnight arrangement reflects your real needs, backed by your assessment, not what's cheapest and not what's most convenient for the provider.

Working examples of costs

These are illustrative, rounded, and built on standard 2025-26 rates. They're designed to show you the mechanics. Notice in each one that the in-home SIL hours take the shared ratio, but the community access hours stay at 1:1. That split is the whole point. For your own numbers, use the Marco Polo Portal support cost calculator.

Example 1: Josh, 1:1 in-home with a sleepover

Josh has 8 hours of 1:1 support in the home each day, 8 hours of community access each day (also 1:1, as community access almost always is), and a 1:1 sleepover overnight.

• In-home support: 8 hours a day at 1:1. At a blended rate of roughly $75 an hour, about $600 a day, roughly $4,200 a week.
• Community access: 8 hours a day at 1:1, roughly $4,200 a week.
• Overnight: a 1:1 sleepover at roughly $297 a night, about $2,080 a week.
• Weekly total: roughly $10,500.
• Annual total: roughly $545,000.

Josh sits squarely in the "1:1 24/7" band of about $500,000 to $600,000 a year. Note that both his in-home and his community support are 1:1, so nothing is being shared and nothing is discounted. This is the most expensive way to structure a roster.

Example 2: Maria, 1:1 in-home with an active overnight

Maria has the same daytime support as Josh, 8 hours in the home and 8 hours of community access, both 1:1. The difference is Maria needs an active overnight worker because she requires repositioning and medication through the night.

• In-home support: roughly $4,200 a week.
• Community access: roughly $4,200 a week.
• Overnight: an 8-hour active overnight at the night rate, roughly $630 a night, about $4,400 a week.
• Weekly total: roughly $12,800.
• Annual total: roughly $665,000.

Maria's arrangement costs over $100,000 a year more than Josh's, and the only difference is the overnight. Same daytime support, same ratios. The active overnight is the entire gap. This is why the overnight question matters so much.

Example 3: Aisha, 1:2 in-home with a sleepover

Aisha has 8 hours of in-home support and 8 hours of community access a day. She shares her in-home worker with one compatible housemate at a 1:2 ratio. Her community access stays at 1:1, because she goes out on her own program. Overnight is a shared sleepover.

• In-home support: 8 hours a day, but at 1:2 Aisha carries roughly half the cost. About $2,100 a week for her share.
• Community access: 8 hours a day at 1:1, the full rate, roughly $4,200 a week. This part is not shared and not discounted.
• Overnight: a shared sleepover, Aisha's half is roughly $1,040 a week.
• Weekly total: roughly $7,340.
• Annual total: roughly $382,000.

Look closely at Aisha. Her in-home support costs half of Josh's, because she shares that worker. But her community access costs exactly the same as Josh's, because community access is 1:1 for both of them. The sharing only discounts the part of the roster that is actually shared.

Example 4: Tom, 1:3 in-home with a sleepover

Tom lives with two compatible housemates. All three share an in-home support worker at a 1:3 ratio, and share a sleepover overnight. Tom also has his own 1:1 community access program.

• In-home support: 8 hours a day, but Tom carries roughly a third. About $1,400 a week for his share.
• Community access: 8 hours a day at 1:1, roughly $4,200 a week. Again, not shared, not discounted.
• Overnight: a shared sleepover, Tom's third is roughly $690 a week.
• Weekly total: roughly $6,290.
• Annual total: roughly $327,000.

Here's the lesson from Tom. His in-home support is a third of Josh's. But his total annual cost is not a third of Josh's, it's closer to 60% of it. Why? Because the community access component, $4,200 a week at 1:1, is identical for Tom and Josh. The 1:3 discount only applies to the part of the roster that's genuinely shared. This is exactly the maths the Facebook family hadn't been walked through.

Example 5: Priya, part-time SIL, no overnight

Priya doesn't need 24/7 support. She has a morning shift and an evening shift, 3 hours each, 1:1 in-home, and she's independent overnight and through the middle of the day. She has 6 hours a week of community access at 1:1.

• In-home support: 6 hours a day at 1:1, blended rate roughly $75 an hour, about $450 a day, roughly $3,150 a week.
• Community access: 6 hours a week at 1:1, roughly $450 a week.
• Overnight: none.
• Weekly total: roughly $3,600.
• Annual total: roughly $187,000.

Priya's cost is in a completely different universe to Josh's, despite both being "SIL." She isn't paying for hours she doesn't need. For many participants currently in 24/7 SIL, a part-time roster or a move to drop-in support would be both a better fit and dramatically cheaper.

What these examples tell you

Line them up and the pattern is clear.

• Josh, 1:1 in-home with sleepover: roughly $545,000.
• Maria, 1:1 in-home with active overnight: roughly $665,000.
• Aisha, 1:2 in-home with sleepover: roughly $382,000.
• Tom, 1:3 in-home with sleepover: roughly $327,000.
• Priya, part-time, no overnight: roughly $187,000.

Two big lessons.

First, the in-home ratio is a powerful lever, but it only discounts the in-home part of the roster. Josh and Tom both have 8 hours a day of community access at 1:1, and that component costs them exactly the same. Tom's 1:3 ratio doesn't touch it. That's why Tom's total isn't a third of Josh's even though his in-home support is. If you only remember one thing from this article, make it this: the shared-ratio discount applies to SIL in-home support, not to community access.

Second, none of this range is about the severity of disability. Josh, Maria, Aisha and Tom all receive the same 16 hours of daytime support coverage. The cost ranges from $327,000 to $665,000. It's all structure: in-home ratio, overnight type, and how much of the roster is genuinely shared versus 1:1.

When a provider or a planner quotes you a number, the questions to ask are always: what in-home ratio is this costed at, is my community access in here at 1:1, and what's the overnight arrangement? Those three answers explain almost the whole figure. And usually, like the family in the Facebook post, you'll find the number is correct once you can see the roster behind it.

The honest bit about ratios and choice

There's a tension worth naming here.

The NDIA increasingly funds in-home SIL at 1:3 because it's more efficient. From a pure budget point of view, Tom's in-home arrangement is the system's preferred outcome: same coverage, a third of the in-home cost.

But 1:3 only works if the three people sharing the worker actually fit together. Put three incompatible people in a house and the 1:3 ratio becomes a daily source of stress, conflict, and tenancy breakdown. The cost saving on paper turns into a much bigger cost down the line: failed placements, emergency moves, escalating behaviours, hospital admissions.

So the efficiency of 1:3 isn't automatic. It depends entirely on whether the housemates were matched for compatibility or just placed into a vacancy. This is the whole reason Marco Polo Portal exists. Choosing your housemates first, and then approaching providers as a pre-formed group, is what makes a shared ratio genuinely work rather than just genuinely cheap.

How to use this when you're planning

A few practical takeaways.

When you receive a SIL quote, ask what in-home support ratio it assumes and check that against your OT assessment. A quote costed at 1:3 when you've been assessed for 1:2 will leave you short.

Check that your community access is costed separately and at 1:1. If someone has tried to fold your community hours into a shared SIL ratio, the quote will be unrealistically low and the support won't be deliverable.

Ask whether the overnight is active or sleepover, and make sure that reflects your genuine need.

Ask whether weekend and public holiday loadings are included. A quote that only uses weekday rates will significantly understate the real annual cost.

And model it yourself before you sit down with anyone. The Marco Polo Portal support cost calculator lets you plug in your own in-home hours, ratio, community access hours, and overnight arrangement and see a realistic figure, so you walk into provider and planner conversations already knowing roughly what the number should be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does 1:1 in-home SIL cost so much more than 1:3?

Because in a 1:1 arrangement you carry the entire cost of the support worker's time, while in a 1:3 arrangement that cost is split three ways between you and two housemates. The worker costs the same to roster either way. The difference is purely how many people share them. Remember though, this discount only applies to your in-home SIL support, not your community access.

Is my community access funded at the same ratio as my in-home SIL?

Usually not. Community access (Assistance with Social and Community Participation) is a separate support, funded from a different part of your plan, and it is almost always delivered at 1:1, even if your in-home SIL is 1:2 or 1:3. The two ratios are set independently because they're two different supports. This may change as group-based community models are pushed under reform, but as of 2025-26, plan for community access at 1:1.

Does SIL funding pay my rent?

No. SIL funding pays for support workers only. Rent, groceries, utilities, and general living costs are paid by you, usually from your Disability Support Pension and Commonwealth Rent Assistance. Specialist Disability Accommodation funding can cover the dwelling cost for the roughly 6% of participants who qualify, but that's separate from SIL.

What's the difference between an active overnight and a sleepover?

An active overnight means the worker is awake and working all night, billed hourly (around $79 an hour on a standard weekday in 2025-26, so roughly $630 for an eight-hour shift). A sleepover means the worker sleeps at the house and is paid a flat rate (around $297 in 2025-26) to be present and respond if needed, including up to two hours of active support. Active overnight costs more than double a sleepover.

Who decides my support ratio?

The NDIA, based on your assessed functional capacity, usually informed by an occupational therapist's assessment. Your provider and your preferences feed into the picture, but the ratio is ultimately an NDIA decision. If your assessment and your SIL quote use different ratios, that mismatch needs to be sorted before the plan is finalised.

Can I be in SIL without 24/7 support?

Yes. SIL can be delivered part-time, with support rostered for set blocks of the day and the participant independent in between. Part-time SIL costs much less than a 24/7 roster. If your needs are lower again, drop-in support funded through Core Supports may suit you better and cost less still.

My provider's SIL quote looks huge. Are they ripping me off?

Not necessarily, and usually not. The most common reason a quote looks shocking is that nobody has walked you through the roster behind it. Add up the in-home hours at their ratio, the community access at 1:1, and the overnight, all at current price limits, and the number is often correct. Get the roster of care in writing and check it line by line before assuming the worst. If the roster itself doesn't match your assessed needs, that's the real issue to raise.

Why did my SIL budget get cut at my plan review?

Common reasons include a reassessment that changed your support ratio, a shift from active overnight to sleepover, or the NDIA deciding the previous roster wasn't "value for money." If you believe a cut leaves you without the support you genuinely need, you can seek a review of the decision. Gather evidence from your OT and your provider, and consider getting independent support coordination or advocacy involved.

Is a 1:3 ratio bad?

Not at all, when the housemates are compatible. A well-matched 1:3 house can be a genuinely good home and an efficient use of funding. A poorly matched 1:3 house, where three people who don't get along are sharing one worker, is a recipe for stress and tenancy breakdown. The ratio isn't the problem. The matching is.

Your home. Your support. Your call.

SIL cost can look like a black box, but it isn't. It comes down to a few things: how many people share your in-home worker, the fact that your community access is usually 1:1 regardless, and what happens overnight. Once you can see that, a quote stops being something handed down to you and becomes something you can question, check, and understand. More often than not, you'll find the number is fair. You just needed the roster explained.

If you want to model your own situation before you talk to a provider or planner, the Marco Polo Portal support cost calculator does the maths for you. If you're a participant or family looking for compatible housemates so a shared ratio actually works, signing up to Marco Polo Portal helps. If you're a support coordinator helping clients understand their SIL quotes, our coordinator page has the tools to make those conversations clearer. And if you're a SIL or ILO provider who'd rather build houses around well-matched groups than fill vacancies, our provider page is built for you.

Your home. Your support. Your call. Always.