The one thing to get straight first
Work-for-accommodation means you help a host a few hours a day, on a farm, a hostel, a family home, a boat, and in exchange you get a free bed, usually meals, and a slice of real Aussie life you'd never find in a hostel dorm. It is one of the best ways to slash your costs between paid gigs, meet locals, and land somewhere beautiful you couldn't otherwise afford. BUT here is the catch that trips people up every season: it does NOT count toward your 88 days. Since 2015, specified work for your second-year visa must be PAID at lawful market rates, so an unpaid farm stay is a lovely experience and zero visa days. Treat work-for-accommodation as a way to save money and live well, not as a shortcut to year two. If someone tells you their WWOOF placement counts for the 88, they're mistaken, and it's an expensive mistake to discover at the visa stage.
The four platforms, and who each suits
WWOOF Australia is the original: organic and regenerative farms, structured and respected, with a paid annual membership. It's the pick if you want proper farm life and are happy on the land. Note the AU membership is separate from WWOOF New Zealand, so if you're doing both countries you join both. HelpX was born from an Aussie/Kiwi backpacker and is broad and practical: farms, farmstays, hostels, B&Bs, even sailing boats, with a cheap two-year membership. Workaway is the biggest global network by far, with the widest variety, farms, hostels, families needing a hand with kids or language, eco-builds, so it's the best if you want maximum choice. Worldpackers leans toward hostels and eco/community projects, with the strongest community feel and a solid review system, and it runs the clearest affiliate/ambassador programme of the four. Most people join one, try it, and add a second if they catch the bug.
The fair deal: hours for a bed
A reasonable exchange is roughly 4-5 hours a day, five days a week, for your bed plus food. Anything approaching full-time hours for just a bunk is exploitation dressed up as an adventure, and you should walk. Before you commit to anywhere, agree the specifics IN WRITING (a message thread is fine): exact hours per day, how many days off, whether ALL meals are included or just some, whether there's wifi and phone signal, and what the actual work is. 'A few hours helping around the place' has a habit of becoming eight hours of hard labour once you've driven four hours to get there. And separate the two things cleanly in your head: the accommodation exchange is unpaid and doesn't count for the visa, but if a host also pays you cash for EXTRA hours at market rates with a payslip, that paid portion is real work: just don't blur the line, and never accept 'we'll pay you in board' as if it were wages.
Safety, you'll be isolated, so vet hard
You're going to a stranger's property, often remote, sometimes with no signal. That's fine for the vast majority of lovely hosts, but you vet for the exceptions. Only pick hosts with multiple recent, detailed reviews from other travellers, and read the lukewarm ones closely, the red flags hide in the 'the work was more than expected' comments. Have a video call before you commit so it's a real person, not a profile. Tell a mate exactly where you're going and agree a check-in time. Keep your own transport or a clear exit plan and enough cash to leave at any moment; never let a host hold your passport or your only way out. Trust your gut on arrival, if it feels off, you're allowed to leave, no explanation owed. This goes double if you're travelling solo, and the platforms with proper review systems (Worldpackers, Workaway) are worth the membership for that reason alone.
Make it work for you
Used well, work-for-accommodation is a savings machine: a month living free on a farm can bank the cash for your van, your reef trip, or the gap between harvest jobs. Stack it around your PAID specified work rather than instead of it: do your 88 paid days for the visa, and use work exchange to live cheaply and beautifully in between. Line up your next placement before you leave the current one, because the good hosts book out in peak season. And whatever the arrangement, log it honestly: paid days go in your 88-Day Tracker with the employer attached; unpaid exchange stays out of the count but is still worth a note in your journal, because those farmstays and boat weeks end up being the stories you actually tell. See the Backpacker Toolkit for the platform links.