24-hour care at home or a care home: how the cost compares

When you read that care at home costs about the same as a care home, the first group is what that claim describes, and for one live-in carer it is fair. A typical live-in week on PrimeCarers is £1,120, with our fee included, and a typical residential care home place is £1,160. The live-in carer sleeps in a room of their own, gets up once or twice if your relative needs them, and needs rest breaks each day, which somebody else may need to cover. Is live-in care cheaper than a care home? works through that case in full, with a calculator for your own house, savings and income.

This page is mostly about the second group, where 24-hour care means somebody awake and ready at every hour. A live-in carer cannot do that. They are booked on the understanding that they sleep at night, and a carer who is up for hours most nights cannot care well the next day. Live-in care or 24-hour care sets out where that line falls. Once the nights need somebody awake, the cheapest arrangement at home is a live-in carer by day and a waking night carer, at about £2,156 a week. That is nearly twice a residential care home place and £746 a week more than a typical nursing home, which has a registered nurse on duty.

Over a year the gap is large. One live-in carer comes to about £4,853 a month. A live-in carer with waking nights comes to about £9,343 a month, and a care home place to about £5,027. What 24-hour care costs has the monthly and yearly figure for every arrangement, and our guide to 24-hour care at home explains how each one works hour by hour.

Through an agency, a live-in carer alone costs about £1,400 a week, more than a care home place. Care home fees vary between areas and homes, so ask the homes near your relative for their weekly fee in writing, and use the care cost calculator for a local figure.

When your relative stays at home, the bills stay with them: council tax, gas and electricity, water, the weekly shop, insurance and repairs. A live-in carer also needs a bedroom of their own. In a care home, the fee covers the room, the meals and the heating.

So before setting the home figure against the care home fee, add the running costs of the house to the home side. Care home per week versus home care per week does that with published national figures for council tax and energy, and the costs people forget lists the smaller extras on both sides.

For one live-in carer, council tax and energy alone are more than the small weekly difference between the live-in rate and the care home fee, so once the house is added back the care home is slightly cheaper on cost alone. For a live-in carer with waking nights, adding the house back makes the gap wider still. Where a husband, wife or other relative still lives in the house, though, most of those costs would carry on whichever choice you made, and the comparison is closer to the care figures alone.

At home, bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the carer's rate and Christmas Day at twice, and mileage is paid only where agreed in writing beforehand. Deposits, cancellation and notice covers how paying works.

None of these has a price. For one family, keeping their mother at home beside their father is worth spending savings on. For another, a nurse down the corridor is what lets them sleep at night. See the figures first, then decide which of these things matter most to your relative. What a care home offers that home care cannot goes through each side in more detail, and care at home or a care home covers the whole decision, not only round-the-clock care.

If the nights at home need a nurse rather than a carer, the comparison changes again. Carers on PrimeCarers are not nurses. 24-hour nursing care at home explains what a nurse must do, what can be passed to a trained carer, and how the NHS pairs district nurses with carers at home. Nursing home or care home explains the two kinds of home.

A live-in carer for a couple costs about £1,350 a week on PrimeCarers, a little more than for one person, because there are two people to help. Two residential care home places at the typical fee come to about £2,320 a week. So for a couple whose nights are settled, care at home is the cheaper choice by about £970 a week, and they stay together in their own house. Why live-in care costs more for couples explains the higher rate.

If one of the couple needs somebody awake at night, a waking night carer at about £148 a night is added on top of the live-in week, and the total comes to about the cost of two care home places, or a little more. Even then, it is two people kept together at home, set against two places that may not be in the same home or the same room.

Sometimes only one of the couple needs a care home. Then the partner at home goes on running the house, and while they live there its value is not counted in the council's means test for the one who has moved. Couples separated by care needs covers that situation, and live-in care or residential care for couples compares the two choices for a couple in full.

The house. Under the Care Act statutory guidance, the value of your relative's home must be disregarded when they receive care anywhere other than a care home. If they move permanently into a care home, the house is ignored for the first 12 weeks and then counted, unless a husband, wife, partner or certain other relatives still live there. For a family whose savings are mostly in the house, this can decide who pays: at home the council may contribute, while in a care home the house could take your relative over the £23,250 limit. Local authority funding explains the means test, and deferred payment agreements explains how care home fees can be paid from the house later.

What the council will pay for. The council has to meet eligible needs, but the guidance lets it weigh the total cost of the suitable options when deciding how to meet them. It should not set arbitrary upper limits, and it should choose the option that delivers the outcomes your relative needs for the best value, which is not the same as the cheapest. In practice, when round-the-clock care at home would cost nearly twice a care home place, a council may offer the care home and ask the family to pay the difference if they choose home. How to get 24-hour care funded explains how to make the case for care at home.

Benefits. Attendance Allowance is £76.70 or £114.60 a week in 2026/27, and the higher rate is for help needed through both the day and the night. GOV.UK says it usually stops if the council pays for a care home, but not if your relative pays the whole fee.

The NHS. NHS Continuing Healthcare pays for all of a person's assessed care when their needs are mainly health needs, at home or in a care home. Where somebody does not qualify but needs care from a registered nurse and lives in a nursing home, NHS-funded nursing care pays the home a flat rate towards the nursing, set at £267.68 a week from 1 April 2026 according to the NHS.

If two or three of these are true, a care home is probably the better choice, and choosing it is not a failure of care at home or of the family. When home care stops being enough sets out the situations in more detail and what is worth trying first, and choosing a care home explains what to look for when you visit. If you are not sure, a short stay can help you judge: trial stays and coming home again explains how they work.

If none of them is true, and the nights are settled enough for a carer who sleeps, care at home costs about the same as a care home and keeps your relative in their own house. When you are ready to look, you can search for live-in carers near your relative and compare their rates, read their profiles and message the ones you like before you agree anything.

Whichever way you lean, ask the council's adult social care team for a needs assessment, and a carer's assessment for yourself, and ask the GP whether an NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist is appropriate. Both are free. A diary of the last two weeks of nights tells a carer, a care home and an assessor what the job is. If you would like help with scheduling and holiday cover once a carer is in place, our optional managed service adds a percentage on top of the carer's rate.