A consultant finishes your reporting cycle and hands over a PDF and a folder of working files. That's the deliverable. Next year you pay again, roughly the same, because nothing they built carried over. The real question isn't consultant or software. It's whether you want to keep renting the method or own it.
Both have a place. The mistake is using one for the job the other does better. So here's the honest version, from someone who works alongside both.
What consultants charge in Australia
Nobody publishes a rate card. From what we see across engagements, independent specialists bill around $150–$250 an hour, mid-tier firms $200–$350, and Big 4 sustainability practices $250–$500. At those rates a mid-market entity doing NGER and ASRS work can spend tens of thousands on data collection and reporting in a single cycle, with ASRS disclosure preparation running higher again. Assurance is a separate firm and a separate fee. The following year lands in much the same place.
The part nobody says out loud
Most of a consulting engagement isn't strategy. It's someone opening two hundred utility bills, typing consumption into a spreadsheet, and multiplying by an emission factor. That spreadsheet was built for this one engagement, and it quietly breaks next year when a site is added or DCCEEW updates the NGA Factors. The calculations were valid. They just aren't repeatable without the consultant back on the phone.
That's the trap: you pay a specialist rate for data entry, and you pay it again every cycle. Software keeps the method in-house and repeatable — here's how that runs, step by step.
Consultant vs software, side by side
| Consultant | Software | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost shape | Per-cycle engagement, tens of thousands | Annual subscription |
| What you get | A report and working files | A system you re-run |
| Next year | Re-engage from close to scratch | A re-run, not a rebuild |
| Who holds the method | The firm | Your team |
| Best at | One-off judgement, complex calls | Ongoing data and calculation |
Where a consultant is still worth it
Independent assurance is a requirement of the ASRS regime, so you'll engage an assurance provider regardless, and that's a good thing, not a cost to design out. And for genuinely hard judgement calls (a tricky organisational boundary, a first scenario analysis, a contested materiality decision), a specialist who knows NGER and the GHG Protocol earns the fee. Pay for judgement. Stop paying for data entry.
“A consultant leaves you with a report. The next October, you're back on the phone and the meter starts running again.”
Why the method has to stay in-houseOwn the method instead of renting it
Our AI Sustainability Analyst does the cyclical data work and leaves you a footprint you can re-run, with the source and factor behind every figure.
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