Take a personal care operator in Melbourne's north with a small team and a name that gets passed around at the local shops. She wants to grow into aged care properly, and two paths are on the table: buy into a home care franchise, or partner with a registered provider. The franchise pitch is polished — brand, systems, territory. But something nags at her: she already has a brand people trust. Why would she pay to trade under someone else's?
This example is illustrative, created to show how the local partner model works in practice.
It's a genuine fork in the road, and the right answer depends on what you're really buying. Here's how the two models compare for a community care business under Support at Home.
What a franchise actually sells you
A franchise offers a package: an established brand, operating systems, marketing and a defined territory. In exchange you typically pay upfront and ongoing fees, trade under the franchisor's name, and run the business by the franchisor's rules — from pricing frameworks to suppliers to how you advertise. For someone starting from zero, that structure can be the point. For an operator who already has clients and a reputation, it can mean paying to replace the very asset that got them this far.
What a local partnership leaves with you
Partner with Care's local partner model inverts the deal. You keep your brand, your client relationships and your pricing power. PWC acts as the registered backbone: under the new Aged Care Act (from 1 November 2025), providers must be registered with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and registered providers carry the compliance and audit obligations. In the partnership, those obligations sit with PWC — no registration queue and no audit risk for your business — along with the claiming and government-facing work. What the partnership adds is access: your business becomes bookable by Support at Home clients, whose funding can then pay for the services you already deliver. The mechanics are at become a partner.
The compliance question: backbone vs rulebook
Both models answer the compliance problem, but differently. A franchisor hands you a rulebook and audits your adherence to it — brand standards and regulatory requirements bundled together, enforced from above. A backbone provider carries the regulatory obligations itself and asks of you what was always yours to own: safe, respectful service and prompt reporting when something goes wrong. One model adds a layer of oversight; the other removes one.
The asset test: in community care, the most valuable asset is local reputation — the name a family passes to a neighbour over the fence. Before signing anything, ask: does this arrangement grow that asset under my name, or under someone else's? Self-managing Support at Home clients choose their own suppliers, so the name they know is the name that gets booked.
Exit flexibility: whose business is it at the end?
Play the tape forward ten years. Exit a franchise and the brand, the territory and often the client goodwill stay with the franchisor, on terms the franchise agreement dictates. Exit a local partnership and you walk away with everything you walked in with — your brand, your clients, your goodwill — because none of it was ever transferred. The partnership was infrastructure, not ownership.
With Australia's ageing population and government policy favouring care at home, demand is coming either way. The question is who owns the business that meets it. If you'd rather it be you, see how we back that position at why us.