Recovery Coach vs Support Coordinator: What's the Difference?
Both help you use your NDIS plan and coordinate supports, and both sit in the same support category. A psychosocial recovery coach is specifically for psychosocial disability: they need mental health qualifications or experience, and they coach and stay alongside you through harder periods. Support coordination suits any disability and is usually time-limited. For most people with psychosocial disability, the NDIA recommends a recovery coach on its own.
How Do They Compare?
The main differences are who they're for, the experience the worker needs, and how long the support usually lasts.
| Psychosocial recovery coach | Support coordinator | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it's for | Participants with psychosocial disability | Any participant who needs help using their plan |
| Focus | Recovery, capacity and resilience, coaching, and coordinating supports, including mental health services | Understanding and using the plan, choosing providers, connecting with services |
| Worker requirements | Certificate IV in Mental Health or Mental Health Peer Work or equivalent, or 2 years' mental health work experience | Not set out in the NDIS pricing schedule |
| Lived experience | You can choose a coach with lived experience of mental ill health and recovery | Not part of the role description |
| How long | Designed to keep you engaged through periods of increased need | Usually time-limited, as you build confidence to manage the plan |
| Levels | One, priced by time of day | Three: support connection, coordination of supports, specialist support coordination |
| Max weekday daytime price, 2026-27 (national) | $110.44 an hour | Level 1 $80.06, Level 2 $100.14, Level 3 $190.54 an hour |
| Plan budget | Capacity building, category 07 | Capacity building, category 07 |
Should You Have a Recovery Coach or a Support Coordinator?
For most people with psychosocial disability, the NDIA recommends a recovery coach only.
The NDIA's psychosocial recovery coach factsheet says that for most people it recommends having only a recovery coach, because it's a better use of your NDIS plan. Depending on your plan or situation, you may choose to have both.
A support coordinator may make more sense if you have other disabilities as well, or a very complex situation that needs specialist support coordination. Talk it through with your NDIA planner or my NDIS contact, and say what you'd like the support to help with.
Looking for a Recovery Coach?
We'll connect you with a registered provider of psychosocial recovery coaching, in person or online.
What Do They Have in Common?
Quite a lot. Both help you find providers, link with services outside the NDIS and build confidence to manage your supports.
- Both are funded from the same capacity building category, support coordination and psychosocial recovery coaches
- Both are set up on a new plan through a request for service, which the provider has to accept within 4 days
- Both help connect you with community and mainstream services as well as NDIS providers
- You choose the provider for both, and you can change provider
I Have Support Coordination. How Do I Get a Recovery Coach?
Talk to your support coordinator, NDIA planner or my NDIS contact about changing to recovery coaching.
The NDIA's factsheet says you can speak to your support coordinator, or contact your NDIS planner or local area coordinator, to find out how to get a recovery coach. If it means a change to your plan, our guide to getting recovery coaching in your plan explains the request forms and evidence.
Questions People Ask
Can a support coordinator be a recovery coach?
Some organisations offer both. A recovery coach has to meet the recovery coaching qualification or experience requirements in the NDIS pricing schedule, which a support coordinator may or may not meet.
Is a recovery coach more expensive than a support coordinator?
Per hour, the 2026-27 weekday daytime maximum for recovery coaching ($110.44) sits between Level 2 support coordination ($100.14) and specialist support coordination ($190.54).
Can I have both a recovery coach and a support coordinator?
Yes, depending on your plan or situation, but the NDIA recommends just a recovery coach for most people because it's a better use of the plan.
Keep Reading
- What is a recovery coach?A psychosocial recovery coach is an NDIS-funded worker with mental health knowledge who helps you plan, build skills and coordinate supports.
- Recovery coaching in the NDISHow NDIS recovery coaching works: which budget it comes from, how hours are set, the request for service, self, plan or agency managed, and getting started.
- Recovery coach price guideNDIS price limits for psychosocial recovery coaching in 2026-27: hourly maximums by time of day and remoteness, what else is charged, and who they apply to.
- Getting recovery coaching in your planHow to get a psychosocial recovery coach in your NDIS plan: at planning, through a plan change, the evidence that helps, and what to do if the answer is no.
- Choosing a recovery coachHow to choose a psychosocial recovery coach: the NDIA's five questions, lived experience, qualifications, registration, and what to agree before you start.
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