Investment
What STEP costs.
A STEP Implementation Partnership is not consulting days. It is a twelve-month structural change to how your school builds wellbeing capacity, for less than a fraction of one wellbeing FTE, and designed so the capacity outlasts any one staff member.
A 0.6 FTE wellbeing appointment costs $60,000 or more per year, recurring, and leaves when the person does. A Build partnership is paid once, and the annual layer that follows it is a fraction of that.
Three steps, in order
Start free. Nothing you do first is wasted.
Step one
Audit and Fit Call
A two-minute Wellbeing Capacity Audit online, and a free fifteen-minute Fit Call. Neither is a product. They are how schools find the doors.
Step two
Discovery
A Wellbeing Capacity Review, the Supervising Well workshop, a consultation, or a Re-Entry Review. Discovery is Stage One, and it carries across in full.
Step three
Partnership
A twelve-month Build, an annual Operating layer once it is built, and Practice support that runs independently of both.
Discovery is Stage One of a partnership. 100% of your Discovery investment carries across to a partnership commenced within twelve months. You never pay twice for the same thinking.
Discovery Services
Published in full.
Published in full, so you can plan around them. All figures ex GST.
One flat fee, no levels, any delivery mode$3,000
Single cohort up to 20, full materials$3,000
Capped at 12 participants$2,000
Scoped to a single question. Not creditableFrom $1,200
For schools resuming after a lapsed partnership$1,800
Payment for the Review is 50% on engagement confirmation and 50% on delivery of the final report.
Support, also published
Practice has no prerequisite and no set order, so you can act on these without anything else.
The default recommendation. One place per school$4,500 per leader
Per year, ex GST. Leaders Program figures are per leader, not per cohort. The Leaders Program is per place. One-to-one plans are scoped on school size, staffing profile, leadership involvement and complexity, and confirmed in your proposal.
Governance and continuity
Following an amber governance outcome$2,400
Re-anchoring the model with an incoming leadIncluded
Partnerships
Your figure arrives with the recommendation.
We will not quote a Build level before the Review, because until we understand your readiness we would only be guessing. The Review sets the level, the level sets the figure, and both arrive together in your proposal.
This is the part most schools expect to be a sales conversation, and it is not. Lower readiness means more support and a higher investment. STEP earns the same from the Review either way, which is what makes the recommendation worth trusting. Schools may choose more support than we recommend. We will not recommend less in order to win the work.
Build · twelve months
From $15,500 ex GST, total
Three levels of support: Equip, Guide and Embed, with networks and clusters of schools scoped separately. The same model is built at every level. What changes is how hands-on STEP is.
Your level is set by readiness. Where you sit inside that level is set by scale and complexity: intended annual placement intake and peak concurrency, number of Task Supervisors, campuses or sub-schools, placement disciplines, and travel zone.
Operate · annual, from Year 2
From $7,500 per year, ex GST
Banded to the placement capacity you intend to run, so a smaller school is never priced like a larger or more complex one. Available only to schools that have completed a Build partnership.
Your band is confirmed each year through the Readiness and Capacity Check.
Worth knowing early
The things worth knowing before you start.
Delivery mode and travel
Investment is set by scope, not by delivery mode. The one exception is Supervising Well, where onsite and online genuinely deliver different things.
Travel is a flat fee per onsite visit, so there is one number to budget. Zone 1 and Zone 2, up to about ninety minutes from STEP’s base, are included. Zone 3 is $750 a visit and Zone 4 is $1,400, plus accommodation at cost where an overnight is genuinely needed. Wellbeing Capacity Reviews for Zone 3 and Zone 4 schools default to fully online at no travel charge, because the review is identical in every mode and a country school should not pay a quarter more for it. Fully online delivery carries no travel charge at any distance.
Indexation
Annual partnership investment is reviewed each year and adjusted by CPI plus up to 2%, notified at the Annual Governance and Drift Review. No adjustment applies in a year returning an amber governance outcome.
Stated at signature this is unremarkable. Introduced in year four it is a price rise, which is why it is here.
What carries, and what does not
A service carries if what you paid for is reused inside the partnership. The Review carries, because its findings become the implementation plan. Supervising Well carries, because it is a session of the build.
A Follow-Up, a Consultation and a Practice Partnership do not carry, because each is delivered and consumed. A school holding Practice for twelve months or more receives the Review at 50% instead.
A named STEP Lead
Every partnership names a school STEP Lead, contractually. If your STEP Lead moves on, STEP re-anchors the model with your incoming lead at no cost. Key person change is the most common way these models drift, and this keeps yours safe through it.
All figures exclude GST. Travel is applied per the STEP Travel Policy. The full price book, including the range within each Build level, is provided in your proposal alongside the recommendation it belongs to.
Foundation Partners · 2026
Three schools. Half the first-year investment.
Three schools will work with STEP as Foundation Partners, at half of list on their Wellbeing Capacity Review and on a Build partnership if they go on to one. In return we ask for honest feedback and, if you go on to build, a case study.
Closing
Applications stay open until the three places fill · partnerships commence Term 2 2027.