What personal alarms actually cost in Australia.
Published prices in this market are unusually hard to find, and several providers will not quote without a phone call. Here is what the main Australian services charge, the costs that turn up later, and what the government will pay for.
Figures taken from each provider's own website in August 2026. Always confirm before buying.
The short answer
There are two pricing models. Monitored services usually give you the home device free and charge a monthly fee, commonly around $42 to $59 a month, which is roughly $500 to $700 a year, every year. Unmonitored alarms are bought outright, typically $567 to $597, then about $90 a year from year two.
Over five years the monitored route generally costs more, but it is the only one that gets an ambulance sent by someone else. If you are approved through My Aged Care, funding may cover either.
The two ways these are priced
Almost every Australian personal alarm falls into one of two camps, and comparing a price from one against a price from the other is the most common way people get confused.
Monitored, paid monthly
You pay a monthly fee for a 24/7 response centre. Press the button and a trained operator answers, works out what is happening and can send an ambulance or ring your contacts. The basic home device is often free, so the headline price looks small, but the monthly fee continues for as long as you have the service. That fee is where the real lifetime cost sits.
Unmonitored, bought outright
You buy the device and it calls and texts your nominated family directly instead of a centre. The upfront cost is large and the ongoing cost is small. There is no monthly monitoring fee because there is no monitoring, which means your family are the emergency response. That suits some households and not others.
What the main providers charge
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.| Provider | Upfront | Ongoing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| MePACS (monitored) | Home alarm $0. Mobile alarm $385. Watch $795 to $825. | $42/mo home alarm. $55/mo home and mobile bundle. $59/mo watch. | 24/7 Australian monitoring centre. Falls pendant option quoted at $249 a year. Funded rates available if approved. |
| LiveLife (unmonitored) | $567 pendant. $597 watch. | $90/yr from year two. First year included. | Calls and texts family directly. Fall detection and GPS included. Optional 24/7 monitoring available as an add-on. |
| VitalCALL / Tunstall (monitored) | Professionally installed from around $199. | Monitoring fees apply; not published, quoted on enquiry. | Long-established monitored provider. Ask specifically what the fee becomes after any introductory period. |
| Daily check-in app (HelloToday) | $0. Nothing to buy. | Free plan, or A$16.99/mo or A$169.99/yr for Premium. | Not an alarm. No monitoring centre, no fall detection, no ambulance. Alerts family if a daily check-in is missed. |
| Red Cross Telecross | $0. | Free. | A volunteer phone call each morning between 8:00 and 9:30, 365 days a year. Needs a My Aged Care or NDIS referral. |
Checked August 2026 against each provider's own website: MePACS, LiveLife, VitalCALL, Australian Red Cross. Several providers do not publish full pricing, so treat unpublished figures as indicative and confirm directly.
The pattern worth noticing: on a monitored plan you will typically pass the cost of an outright-purchase alarm somewhere in the second year, and keep paying after that. That is not necessarily the wrong choice, because you are buying a response service rather than a gadget. But it should be a deliberate decision rather than a surprise.
The costs people do not expect
- The second-year fee. Plenty of outright-purchase alarms include the first year of connection, then start charging. Ask what year two looks like before you buy.
- Watch versus pendant. The watch form factor is consistently the dearer option, sometimes by hundreds of dollars, both upfront and monthly.
- Fall detection as an extra. It is not always included in the advertised price. Confirm whether it is bundled or billed separately.
- Installation and transfer. Professional installation can be a few hundred dollars, and buying a used device may attract an ownership transfer fee.
- Network changes. The 3G shutdown made a number of older alarms useless. Check anything you buy is 4G capable, especially second hand.
- Batteries and replacement. Wearables have a finite life. Budget for replacement every few years.
- Mobile coverage. A mobile alarm is only as good as the reception where it is used. This bites hardest in regional areas, which is exactly where help is furthest away.
What the government will fund
This is the part most people miss, and it can take the cost to zero.
Support at Home and the AT-HM scheme
Support at Home replaced the Home Care Packages Program in November 2025. Alongside it sits the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications scheme, which funds equipment separately from your ongoing services. Personal alarms are treated as low-cost assistive technology under AT-HM, and the funding can cover both the device and the monitoring for the funding period.
From 1 July 2026 the AT-HM tiers are $513 for low-cost supports, $2,052 for medium, and $15,390 for high-cost or complex supports. A personal alarm generally sits in the low tier. You need an assessment through My Aged Care to access it.
Other routes
- NDIS. Participants under 65 may have alarms funded as assistive technology where it relates to their plan goals.
- Commonwealth Home Support Programme. Some services, including Telecross, are delivered through CHSP at no cost to the participant.
- State schemes. Several states run their own programs, including Personal Alert Victoria and the Personal Alert Systems Rebate in South Australia. Eligibility varies, so check your state specifically.
- Department of Veterans' Affairs. Eligible veterans may have access through DVA rather than aged care funding.
Most of the large alarm providers are approved suppliers under these schemes and will help with the paperwork, which is genuinely useful. Just remember they also have an interest in the outcome, so it is worth confirming your entitlement independently through My Aged Care or the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
Before you spend anything
We make a daily check-in app, not an alarm, so we have an obvious interest here. With that declared, the most useful thing we can tell you is this: the cheapest alarm is the one that gets worn, and the most expensive is the one that does not.
- If there is real medical risk, a heart condition, a history of serious falls, or a long time alone each day, buy the monitored alarm. Nothing else on this page sends an ambulance.
- If you already suspect it will not be worn, spend nothing yet. Read about what to do when a parent refuses a pendant first, because buying a second device rarely fixes it.
- Check funding before you pay retail. An assessment takes time, but it can cover the lot.
- Do not treat a check-in app as an alarm. HelloToday has no monitoring centre, no fall detection, no GPS and no emergency dispatch. In an emergency the answer is 000.
Get family care tips in your inbox
Short, practical advice for supporting independent parents. No spam, ever.
Common questions
It depends on which of two models you choose. With a monitored service you generally pay little or nothing for the device and then a monthly fee, commonly around $42 to $59 a month, which works out at roughly $500 to $700 a year. With an unmonitored alarm you buy the device outright, typically $567 for a pendant or $597 for a watch, and then pay a smaller annual fee of around $90 from the second year. Mobile and watch devices on monitored plans can add $385 to $825 upfront.
With monitored services, yes, and that fee is the bulk of the lifetime cost. It pays for the 24/7 response centre. With unmonitored alarms there is no monthly monitoring fee because alerts go straight to family, though most still charge an annual amount to cover the SIM and network connection. Always ask what happens in year two, because a lot of the advertised prices only cover the first year.
It can. Under the Support at Home program, the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications scheme funds personal alarms as low-cost assistive technology, and that funding can cover both the device and the monitoring for the funding period. From 1 July 2026 the AT-HM tiers are $513 for low cost supports, $2,052 for medium and $15,390 for high. You need to be assessed and approved through My Aged Care. NDIS participants may be funded through assistive technology, and some states run their own schemes.
If you qualify, the cheapest is a funded alarm through My Aged Care or the NDIS, which can bring your cost to zero. Red Cross Telecross is free but is a daily phone call rather than an alarm, and needs a referral. Among things you can start today without an assessment, a daily check-in app is the lowest cost, with free plans available. It is worth being clear that these are different products: a check-in app cannot summon an ambulance.
The main ones are the second-year annual fee on outright-purchase alarms, ownership transfer fees if you buy second hand, installation charges, the price jump between a pendant and a watch, battery replacement over time, and network changes. The 3G shutdown left some older devices unusable, so check any device is 4G capable. Also ask whether the advertised monthly price includes the fall detection option, which is sometimes billed separately.
They are, if they get worn. A monitored alarm is the only option on this page that reliably gets an ambulance to someone who cannot reach a phone, and for a person with real medical risk that is worth several hundred dollars a year. The catch is compliance. A large number of alarms end up unworn, which makes them an expensive way to buy nothing. Before spending, be honest about whether the person will wear it every day.
Start with free.
If you are still working out what your family needs, a daily check-in costs nothing and takes two minutes to set up.
Free plan available forever. New users can try Premium free for 7 days.