If you run an allied health practice in Australia, the practice management software shortlist usually ends at the same two names, and every forum thread comparing Cliniko vs Halaxy goes in circles. Both are good. Both will run your diary, your notes and your invoicing without drama. The choice comes down to about five questions, and the biggest difference between them is one most comparison pages skip entirely: which currency your bill arrives in.
The short answer: Halaxy costs nothing to run and charges in Australian dollars for what you use, roughly 22c per text or Medicare claim, so it suits a solo practitioner keeping fixed costs at zero. Cliniko is a flat monthly subscription with every feature on every plan, but it bills in US dollars, so what lands on your card moves with the exchange rate. Run your own numbers before you trust anyone's verdict, including ours.
| The decision row | Cliniko | Halaxy |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | ●From $45 USD a month, every feature included | ✓$0, any size practice |
| Pay per use | Texts only, 10c USD each | Credits, 15c to 22c AUD each, GST included |
| Currency | US dollars | Australian dollars |
| Medicare and DVA claiming | Through a Tyro Health account | Built in, one credit per claim |
| Reception and admin users | Free and unlimited | Free, no per-user fees at all |
Prices as published on each vendor's own pricing page, 26 August 2026, worked out in the sections below.
Which one is cheaper?
Halaxy, on the subscription, because there is no subscription. Whether it stays cheaper depends on how busy your practice is, because Halaxy charges as you go.
Halaxy's core is free for any practitioner, any size practice. The paid part is credits: texts, telehealth and claiming each draw from a credit balance priced between 15c and 22c a credit, GST included, cheaper in bigger bundles. Cliniko flips that. The solo plan is $45 USD a month with every feature switched on, and the only common extra is texts at 10c USD each.
So the arithmetic is worth 10 minutes. Take a solo practice sending 150 appointment reminders and processing 100 bulk bill claims a month. On Halaxy, at the top credit price, that is about $33 in texts and $22 in claims: around $55 for the month, GST included, and nothing else. On Cliniko it is $45 USD plus $15 USD in texts before the claiming side, converted at whatever the dollar is doing that month. A quieter practice tilts the sums toward Halaxy, since a free platform with light usage costs almost nothing. A flat-out diary narrows the gap.
| The month | Cliniko | Halaxy |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | $45 USD | ✓$0 |
| 150 text reminders | $15 USD | $33 AUD |
| 100 bulk bill claims | ●Priced by Tyro Health, check their site | $22 AUD |
| The bill | ●About $60 USD plus claiming, at the day's exchange rate | About $55 AUD, GST included |
Illustrative arithmetic from each vendor's published unit prices, 26 August 2026, using Halaxy's top credit price of 22c. Your volumes will differ; count last month's texts and claims and redo the sums.
What currency will you actually pay in?
Australian dollars on Halaxy, US dollars on Cliniko. Halaxy publishes its credit prices in AUD with GST included. Cliniko's pricing page says plainly that its prices are in United States dollars, so your $45 plan might cost you a different amount each month, and your card may add an international transaction fee on top. Cliniko's page does not say anything about GST either way, so ask them before you line the totals up side by side.
None of that makes Cliniko poor value. It does mean the two prices you see on the two pricing pages are in different currencies, and plenty of owners compare them as if they were the same. Do the conversion on the day you compare.
How does Medicare and DVA claiming work in each?
Both handle it well. Halaxy has Medicare claiming built in; Cliniko does it through a partner called Tyro Health.
On Halaxy, once your provider number and Medicare Location ID are set up, a bulk bill or DVA claim is one click on the invoice, costs one credit per successful claim, and the rebate is paid overnight, with DVA taking about a day longer. On Cliniko, you open a Tyro Health account, add its key into Cliniko, and then claim straight from the invoice with no terminal needed. It works, and practices run it every day. It is one more account to set up and one more pricing page to read, so check Tyro Health's claiming costs at tyrohealth.com before you total up.
If claiming is the beating heart of your billing, the built-in version is one less moving part. If most of your work is private-fee, this question matters less than the two above it.
Which one suits a solo practice, and which suits a group?
Halaxy leans solo, Cliniko leans group, and neither locks you out of the other. Starting out on your own, Halaxy's $0 base means the software bill cannot arrive before the patients do. Cliniko's bands reward a team: $95 USD a month covers 2 to 5 practitioners with every feature, which splits to less per person than most tools charge, and reception and admin logins are free and unlimited on both platforms.
The honest tiebreaker for a group is less about price and more about who has to manage the usage. A flat subscription is one line in the budget. A credit balance is something somebody watches.
What do the extras cost?
Texts, mostly, plus card payments if you take them online. Halaxy's texts sit inside the credit system at 15c to 22c each, and its online payments cost between 1.5% and 1.9% per transaction plus 75c to $1, charged only when a payment succeeds. Cliniko's texts are 10c USD each on a prepaid balance. Cliniko gives you 30 days free to try the whole thing; Halaxy's core is free from the start, so trialling both against a fortnight of your real diary costs you nothing but the setup time. For card payments across the desk, the terminal fees are a separate question, and we compared Zeller, Square and Tyro on a real month of takings.
Why the software is only half the answer
Whichever one you pick, it runs one appointment at a time, and the work that leaks money in a small practice happens around the diary, never inside it. The phone that rings while your hands are busy, the follow-up that never gets booked, the new arrival who picks whoever lets them book first. One Australian clinic-software company estimates the average practice loses $3,000 to $8,000 a month to cancellations, no-shows and weak rebooking, and even the bottom of that range dwarfs either software bill. We wrote up where a solo practice leaks, and what closes each gap, in how solo allied health clinics cut the admin. It plays out the same on the Sunshine Coast as anywhere else.
Where to start
Pick the one whose bill fits how you work: Halaxy if you want the base cost at zero and do not mind watching a credit balance, Cliniko if you want one flat line in the budget and can live with the exchange rate. Then make it earn its keep. Whichever one you run, we build the practice system on top of it: online booking off your real appointment times, intake before arrival, a rebooking link on the payment receipt, and a morning report pulling your bookings and money into one short page before you open. Everything is approved by you before it reaches a patient, and your booking software stays exactly where it is. You can see the whole thing working on our demonstration website for a clinic.
Our prices are flat and published: the Engine is $3,500 one-off and element packs are $950, yours outright. Or start smaller: answer a few short questions and the 60 minute consult is $295, credited toward a build.