Physiotherapy & Allied Health Software Comparison for Australian Clinics
An honest look at the practice management and booking platforms available to Australian physiotherapy and allied health clinics — pricing, features, and how to choose
In this guide
Choosing software for an Australian physiotherapy or allied health clinic means choosing between two genuinely different categories: clinical practice management systems (Cliniko, Nookal, Zanda, Jane App) built around Medicare claiming and clinical documentation, and booking-first platforms built around scheduling, payments, and client experience. The categories overlap on the surface — both manage appointments — but they solve different problems.
This guide compares the major options available to Australian clinics in 2026, with particular attention to the things that matter locally: Medicare, DVA, and HICAPS claiming, AHPRA record-keeping obligations, AUD pricing, and support availability during Australian business hours.
We sell Bella Booking, so we have an obvious bias. We will be upfront about it: Bella Booking has no Medicare, DVA, or HICAPS claiming, no SOAP-note clinical documentation, no Xero integration, and no GST/BAS report. If your practice bills Medicare or health funds, or you are required to keep formal clinical records in your software, a practice management system is the right choice — and this guide will say so plainly.
What Australian clinics need from software
Before comparing platforms, it helps to separate the requirements every clinic shares from the requirements that depend on how your practice operates. The second list is what decides which software category you need.
Universal requirements
- •Reliable online booking that works 24/7
- •Automated SMS and email reminders to reduce no-shows and late cancellations
- •Client records with appointment history and notes
- •Practitioner scheduling with individual availability
- •Reports that show utilisation, retention, and revenue
Requirements that depend on your practice
- •Medicare, DVA, WorkCover, or HICAPS claiming — non-negotiable if you bill these schemes
- •Clinical SOAP notes and treatment documentation that meet AHPRA record-keeping obligations
- •Telehealth video consultations
- •Exercise prescription and outcome measures
- •Deposits and cancellation policies to protect limited daily capacity
- •Prepaid session packages for multi-visit treatment courses
If any of the first three items in the second list apply to you, you need practice management software — booking software cannot replace claiming integrations or compliant clinical documentation. If none of them apply (or you handle them in a separate clinical system), a booking-first platform is simpler and usually cheaper. Our companion guide, Booking Software vs Practice Management, covers that category decision in depth; this guide compares the specific platforms.
The main platforms compared
The Australian allied health software market is dominated by purpose-built practice management systems, two of them Australian-made. Here is an honest overview of the most commonly considered platforms.
Cliniko
Cliniko is Australian-made (Melbourne, founded 2011) and used by 65,000+ healthcare professionals. It is purpose-built practice management: SOAP notes with templates, clinical letters, Medicare, DVA, and WorkCover claiming, a patient portal, and telehealth on all plans. Pricing is tiered by practitioner count — US$45/month for a solo practitioner, US$95 (up to 5), US$145 (up to 8), US$195 (up to 12), and US$395 for large practices — and has been unchanged since 2011. Note that Cliniko publishes pricing in USD only, so the AUD cost moves with the exchange rate (roughly A$69/month for a solo practitioner at recent rates). SMS costs A$0.10 per message and Medicare claiming A$0.30 per claim.
Nookal
Nookal is also Australian-made (Gold Coast, founded 2011) with a strong AU/APAC focus. Pricing is A$55 per practitioner per month, with unlimited admin and reception users free and unlimited locations included. It covers Medicare, DVA, WorkCover, and HICAPS claiming, AI-powered voice-to-text clinical notes, exercise prescription with patient handouts, outcome measures, group classes, and telehealth. Like Cliniko, SMS is A$0.10 per message and Medicare claiming A$0.30 per claim.
Zanda (formerly Power Diary)
Zanda is an Australian practice management vendor that rebranded from Power Diary in November 2024. It positions as a budget-friendly, AI-forward option for allied health, with Medicare and DVA claiming integrations and native AI clinical-note generation. We have not independently verified Zanda's current plans and pricing in the same depth as the other platforms here, so treat this as a starting point — check their published pricing directly, and confirm which claiming integrations your practice needs are included.
Jane App
Jane App is Canadian-made (North Vancouver, founded 2012) and serves 240,000+ practitioners across 40+ disciplines. Its strength is clinical charting depth, with telehealth on higher tiers and a patient portal. Insurance billing is Canadian-focused, with HICAPS support for Australian practices. Pricing is per practitioner, published in CAD: Balance at C$54/month (capped at 20 appointments per month), Practice at C$79, and Thrive at C$99 — roughly A$62 to A$114 per practitioner converted. Support is Canadian-based, so hours may not align with Australian business hours.
Bella Booking
Bella Booking is Australian-built booking-first software, not practice management. It has no Medicare, DVA, or HICAPS claiming, no SOAP notes, and no telehealth. What it does instead: branded 24/7 online booking, deposits with cancellation policies, digital intake and consent forms with signatures that auto-send when an appointment is confirmed, recurring appointment series (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly), prepaid session packages clients can buy online, service variants with first-time vs returning client eligibility (useful for initial consultation vs follow-up pricing), a waitlist with automatic slot matching, family booking, and an AI assistant on all plans. Pricing is flat per plan in AUD inclusive of GST — Solo A$25, Starter A$47 (up to 3 bookable team members), Professional A$79 (unlimited) — not per practitioner, with SMS reminders included (50–500/month depending on plan) and no commission on bookings.
Pricing models and hidden costs
Allied health software pricing falls into three models, and the differences compound as your clinic grows.
Per-practitioner pricing
Nookal charges A$55 per practitioner per month (admin staff free), and Jane App charges per practitioner from roughly A$62/month converted. This is predictable but scales linearly — a 6-practitioner clinic on Nookal pays A$330/month for the same features a solo practitioner gets for A$55. Jane's entry Balance tier also caps appointments at 20 per month, which most full-time practitioners will exceed.
Tiered pricing by practitioner count
Cliniko prices in bands — US$45 for one practitioner, US$95 for up to 5, US$145 for up to 8, US$195 for up to 12, and US$395 for 26–200. The bands soften the per-practitioner cost as you grow, but pricing is published in USD only, so your actual AUD cost fluctuates with the exchange rate.
Flat subscription pricing
Bella Booking charges a flat monthly rate per plan — A$25, A$47, or A$79 inclusive of GST — regardless of appointment volume, with unlimited bookable team members on the Professional plan. Deposits are available from the Starter plan; forms, packages, memberships, and reviews are on Professional. The trade-off is the honest one stated throughout this guide: no claiming and no clinical documentation at any price.
Hidden costs to watch for
- •Per-SMS charges — Cliniko and Nookal both charge A$0.10 per message, which adds up across reminder-heavy caseloads
- •Per-claim fees — Medicare claiming costs A$0.30 per claim on Cliniko and Nookal
- •Currency conversion — Cliniko (USD) and Jane App (CAD) pricing moves with exchange rates, and your card may add foreign transaction fees
- •Appointment caps on entry tiers — Jane's Balance plan is limited to 20 appointments per month
- •AI add-ons — AI note-taking and scribe features are sometimes priced separately, so confirm what your quoted plan includes
Ask every platform: "What is my total monthly cost in AUD for X practitioners, Y appointments, and Z SMS reminders per month — including claiming fees?" The per-message and per-claim charges are where advertised prices and real costs diverge.
Australian-specific considerations
Several factors are specific to running an allied health practice in Australia and should anchor your comparison.
Medicare, DVA, and health fund claiming
If you bulk bill, process DVA or WorkCover claims, or submit private health fund claims through HICAPS, claiming integration is the first filter — it eliminates every platform that lacks it. Cliniko and Nookal have native Australian claiming; Zanda offers Medicare and DVA integrations; Jane App supports HICAPS. Bella Booking has none of these. No amount of scheduling polish compensates for re-keying claims into a separate system every day.
Clinical record-keeping obligations
AHPRA-registered practitioners have professional obligations around clinical records. Practice management systems structure documentation to meet them — SOAP templates, clinical letters, audit trails. Notes in booking software are operational (preferences, history, alerts), not compliant clinical documentation. Do not try to use booking software as a workaround for clinical records; if you need them, that requirement alone decides the category.
SMS and communications
Appointment reminders are standard practice and directly affect no-show rates. Compare what is included against per-message pricing: Cliniko and Nookal charge A$0.10 per SMS, while Bella Booking includes 50–500 messages per month depending on plan. For a clinic sending two reminders per appointment, the difference is real money every month.
Support time zones
Cliniko (Melbourne), Nookal (Gold Coast), Zanda, and Bella Booking (Sydney) are Australian companies with timezone-aligned support. Jane App's support team is in Canada, which can mean waiting overnight for answers to a Monday-morning problem.
Feature comparison by category
The table below compares the four platforms we have verified in detail. Zanda is covered qualitatively above rather than in the table, because we have not verified its current plans to the same standard — confirm details directly before shortlisting it.
| Capability | Cliniko | Nookal | Jane App | Bella Booking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical notes (SOAP) | Yes — templates and clinical letters | Yes — with AI voice-to-text | Yes — charting across 40+ disciplines | No |
| Medicare / DVA claiming | Yes (A$0.30 per claim) | Yes — including HICAPS | Canadian insurance focus; HICAPS in Australia | No |
| Telehealth | Yes — all plans | Yes | Yes — higher tiers | No |
| Online booking | Yes — patient portal | Yes | Yes — embeddable widget | Yes — branded page, 24/7 |
| Deposit collection at booking | No | No | Yes | Yes — fixed or percentage |
| Prepaid packages & memberships | No | Partial — session packs | Partial — multi-visit packs | Yes — online purchase and recurring billing |
| Two-way SMS | No | No | No | Yes — Messages Plus add-on |
| SMS reminders | A$0.10 per message | A$0.10 per message | Yes | Included — 50–500/month |
| Pricing model | Tiered by practitioner count (USD) | A$55 per practitioner | Per practitioner (CAD) | Flat per plan (AUD, inc. GST) |
Where practice management wins
- •Claiming — Medicare, DVA, WorkCover, and HICAPS integration (Cliniko, Nookal)
- •Clinical documentation — SOAP notes, treatment templates, clinical letters
- •Telehealth — built-in video consultations
- •Exercise prescription and outcome measures (Nookal)
- •Group classes — pilates, exercise physiology, group therapy
Where booking-first software wins
- •Deposits collected at booking time, with cancellation policies and automatic refunds
- •Prepaid session packages clients purchase online — useful for multi-visit treatment courses
- •Memberships with recurring billing for ongoing care or wellness programmes
- •Service variants with first-time vs returning eligibility — initial consultation and follow-up pricing without manual policing
- •Included SMS allowance and two-way SMS messaging
- •Waitlist with automatic slot matching when cancellations open up
- •Family booking — one parent books and manages appointments for children and partners
- •AI assistant for business questions and a weekly performance digest
Neither column is universally better. The question is which list maps to your actual daily workflow — and for practices that need both, running a practice management system for clinical work alongside booking software for the client-facing experience is a legitimate pattern, covered in our Booking Software vs Practice Management guide.
Migration and switching costs
Switching clinic software is disruptive but manageable — with one allied-health-specific caveat around clinical records.
What transfers easily
- •Client contact details (name, email, phone) via CSV export
- •Appointment types, durations, and pricing (often recreated manually from a list)
- •Practitioner and team member details
- •Basic appointment history
What typically does not transfer
- •Clinical notes — Cliniko's patient CSV export, for example, does not include clinical notes, and bulk note export is limited on most platforms
- •Exercise prescriptions and outcome measure history
- •Medicare claiming history (this stays with Medicare — no migration needed)
- •Form submissions and signed consents (may need to be re-collected or archived as documents)
Most platforms, including Bella Booking, support CSV import for clients and services, and Bella Booking includes free data migration with onboarding. The real cost of switching is reconfiguration time — availability rules, reminder templates, policies — rather than the data transfer itself.
If you are leaving a practice management system, export your clinical records for your archive before cancelling. Your record-keeping obligations continue after you switch platforms, and clinical documentation generally cannot be imported into another system — booking software will not hold it at all.
Making your decision
There is no objectively best allied health software — there is the right category for your obligations, then the best fit within it. A practical sequence:
- 1Answer the claiming question first: if you bill Medicare, DVA, WorkCover, or health funds through your software, shortlist practice management systems only
- 2Decide where clinical records will live — in the same system, a separate system, or not required for your service mix
- 3Calculate total monthly cost in AUD for your practitioner count, including SMS and per-claim fees
- 4Sign up for free trials and run a real week through each shortlisted platform
- 5Book yourself in as a patient and judge the online booking experience your clients will see
- 6Contact support with a genuine question and note the response time against your business hours
Free trials matter more here than in most software categories, because the daily workflow differences — note-taking speed, claiming steps, booking flow — only show up in use, not on feature pages.
If you need clinical compliance and a polished client booking experience, you do not have to compromise on either: some clinics run practice management for clinical notes and claiming alongside booking-first software for scheduling, deposits, reminders, and packages.
Key takeaways
- ✓The first filter is claiming: if you bill Medicare, DVA, or health funds, you need practice management software — booking-first platforms (including Bella Booking) cannot do this
- ✓Cliniko and Nookal are Australian-made practice management with native claiming; Zanda is the budget-friendly Australian option; Jane App leads on clinical charting depth
- ✓Per-practitioner pricing scales with headcount — a 6-practitioner clinic pays A$330/month on Nookal, while flat-rate plans stay constant as you grow
- ✓Watch per-SMS (A$0.10) and per-claim (A$0.30) fees, plus currency exposure on USD- and CAD-priced platforms
- ✓Appointment-led clinics that do not claim and keep records elsewhere get a simpler, cheaper system with stronger booking, deposit, and package features from booking-first software
- ✓Export clinical records for your archive before leaving any practice management system — your record-keeping obligations outlast the subscription
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Last updated: 2026-06-11