The Price of Hearing: Why Where You Live in Australia Changes What Scares You About Hearing Aids

 

There’s a number that should bother anyone who cares about hearing health in this country: 67.5%.

That’s the proportion of Western Australians in our recent consumer survey who named cost as a top barrier to getting a hearing aid. Two in three people, essentially saying the same thing: I know I might need help, but I’m afraid of what it’ll cost me.

Now compare that to Victoria, where only 48% said the same.

This 20-point gap is striking. Despite sharing the same country, Medicare coverage, and hearing aid technology, the difference persists. So what explains this divergence?

The Audiology Place surveyed 425 Australians across every state and territory in early 2026, and the state-by-state breakdowns paint a picture that is, frankly, hard to explain with economics alone.

Here’s how cost ranked as a barrier across the five major states:

You might expect Sydney, with its notorious cost of living, to top the list. It nearly does. But Perth has overtaken it, and Melbourne sits almost 20 percentage points lower. If this were purely about hip-pocket pressure, you’d expect different results.

The gap between WA and Victoria is not a rounding error. It’s a chasm.

Dig into the other numbers, and something starts to make sense. Western Australians don’t just worry more about cost. They trust the industry less.

When asked about large retail hearing chains, 22.5% of WA respondents actively distrusted them. In Victoria, that figure was 9%. In South Australia, just 4%. WA’s retail chain trust score sat at 3.14 out of 5, the lowest in the country, while Victoria and SA both scored 3.65.

One WA respondent described their experience with a large chain this way: a Specsavers adviser told them they needed hearing aids. Their ENT specialist told them they didn’t. They believe the specialist saved them money.

That single anecdote encapsulates something the data confirms across the board. When people don’t trust who’s selling the product, the cost doesn’t just look high; it feels high. It looks suspicious.

Victoria’s results are strange in a good way. Victorians reported the highest perception of hearing aids generally (66.5 out of 100, compared to 60.4 in NSW). They were the most comfortable with free hearing tests from retail chains (74.2 vs 62.5 in WA). And a full 24% said nothing would stop them from getting a hearing aid if they needed one, compared to just 16.1% in NSW.

Something in Victoria’s hearing healthcare landscape is building confidence that other states haven’t managed to build. Whether it’s provider density, marketing, word of mouth, or just cultural attitude, Victorians seem less afraid of the whole process. Cost still matters to nearly half of them, but it doesn’t dominate the way it does out west.

Queensland deserves its own mention because Queenslanders distrust everyone. Not dramatically, not rudely, just… consistently.

Their trust in audiologists was the lowest of any state (4.33 out of 5, vs 4.51 in Victoria). Their trust in retail chains was second-lowest. They were the state most likely to say they’d go to an audiologist first (40%, well above the national average), yet simultaneously the least trusting of them. It’s the hearing health equivalent of choosing a restaurant while complaining about the menu.

The QLD data suggests something important for hearing providers: scepticism and engagement aren’t opposites. Queenslanders are paying attention. They’re just not easily impressed.

Cost gets the headline, and it should. But look at what lurks underneath.

In South Australia, 40% of respondents cited anxiety or fear about using hearing aids as a barrier. That’s the highest in the country by a wide margin (Victoria was at 18%). In NSW, 32.1% reported the same fear. These aren’t people worried about price tags. They’re worried about the devices themselves, about what it means to need them, about whether they’ll cope.

SA also led the pack on “not wanting to feel old” at 36%, beating Victoria’s 31% and Queensland’s 23.8%.

Put this together, and a picture emerges. South Australians are anxious about hearing aids in a way that goes beyond money. WA is suspicious of who’s selling them. NSW is feeling the financial squeeze. Queensland is watching everything sideways with arms folded. Victoria, somehow, has figured out something the rest of the country hasn’t.

For anyone providing hearing services, these aren’t just numbers. They’re a map.

Telling a Western Australian that your hearing aids are “great value” isn’t going to cut it when their default setting is distrust. That’s a market where independence matters, where clinical credibility counts double, where transparency about what things cost and why they cost it is the bare minimum.

In NSW, the conversation probably needs to start with pricing clarity and financing options before anyone even gets to the audiogram.

In SA, the conversation needs to start before the conversation. The anxiety barrier there is so high that many people will never walk through the door if the first thing they encounter is a sales pitch.

And in Victoria? Whatever’s working, bottle it.

There’s one more state-level finding worth noting. We asked respondents whether they knew that some hearing clinics are owned by hearing aid manufacturers. In WA, a state already defined by its distrust, only 12.5% were aware of this. Victoria, the most trusting state, had the highest awareness at 23%. Even there, more than three-quarters had no idea.

The fewer people who know about who owns the clinic they’re walking into, the less informed their choices about cost and trust can be. This isn’t about demonising any business model. It’s about the fact that consumers can’t evaluate what they can’t see.

Where you live in Australia shapes how you feel about hearing aids in ways that have nothing to do with your hearing. Cost is the universal barrier, but the meaning of cost, whether it represents a financial stretch, a sign of industry greed, or just one more thing to be anxious about, changes depending on your postcode.

For hearing healthcare to work better, providers must tailor messages for each state’s unique fears. Victorians need encouragement to act. Western Australians need trust and transparency to be established first. South Australians need reassurance regarding anxiety. Recognising these differences is crucial to improving care outcomes across Australia.

The ears might be the same everywhere. The hesitations are not.

This analysis is based on The Audiology Place Consumer Perception Survey 2026, examining attitudes toward hearing services among 425 Australians across all states and territories. Survey respondents ranged in age from 18 to 89.

The Audiology Place is an independent audiology practice. For more information, visit theaudiologyplace.com.au