24-hour care at home cost: per week, per month, and against a care home

The phrase says that somebody is there for every hour of the day and night. It does not say whether that person is awake, or asleep upstairs and ready to get up, and it does not say whether it is one person or three. Those are the details that move the cost from about £1,120 a week to about £2,758.

Our guide to 24-hour care at home explains each arrangement in more depth, and live-in care or 24-hour care covers the question families ask first, which is whether one carer sleeping in is enough. The difference between a waking night and a sleeping night explains the choice that moves the price most.

The first build is the simplest and the cheapest. One carer in the house all week gets to know your relative, and is a familiar face at three in the morning. It works while the nights are settled. A live-in carer needs a proper night's sleep and a break during the day, and the standard PrimeCarers contract leaves the timing of rest to the carer, with suitable times agreed between you. Two carers can also take it in turns, a week or a fortnight each, at the same weekly rate. What a live-in carer is entitled to sets out what a normal week looks like.

The second build keeps that one familiar carer for the day and puts somebody awake beside your relative for the night. It is the answer when the nights have stopped being quiet: repeated waking, wandering, turning every few hours, or pain relief that has to be given on time. You do not have to buy seven nights. If the bad nights are three a week, price three. What a night carer costs, sleeping or waking goes through the night on its own in more detail.

The third build is for somebody who needs two people for every transfer, with a hoist or without one, and who needs help at night as well. It costs two live-in rates. It is less usual than the others, so talk to both carers about how they would share the night before you agree it. 24-hour complex care teams covers the arrangements where a nurse trains the carers on health tasks such as a feeding tube.

The fourth build is for a house with no spare room, or a family who wants somebody awake at every hour without anybody living in. It buys a lot of cover and costs more than any live-in arrangement, and it means more carers coming and going through the week.

The fifth build suits a husband, wife or grown-up child who lives with your relative and can manage the days, but cannot keep going on broken sleep. A waking night carer every evening lets the family sleep, and it costs about the same as a live-in week.

The 24 hour live-in care cost for one person, then, is about £1,120 a week at the typical rate, which is about £4,853 a month and £58,240 a year. Two points about all these figures matter when you set a budget. The first is that four weeks is not a month. There are 52 weeks in a year, so a month is closer to four and a third weeks, and budgeting on four will leave you about a month short over a year. The second is that the jump from one live-in carer to a live-in carer with waking nights is the cost of the night carer alone, and it is the largest single step in the table.

For comparison, a live-in care agency charges from £1,400 a week for the first build. The cost of live-in care breaks the weekly figure down by level of need, and how our pricing works sets out what is inside the rate you see on a carer's profile.

The two answers move in different ways. With a live-in carer, the family's hours matter only for the daily break: once somebody can be there for about 2 hours a day, the break costs nothing extra, and if nobody can, an hourly carer for those hours adds about £252 to £350 a week. With nobody living in, every hour the family covers comes straight off the bill, which is why waking nights only can cost less than a live-in week when somebody is at home all day. Take the figures to the carers you speak to and ask what they would charge for your week.

If the ticks fall mostly in the first item of each group, one live-in carer is very likely enough, and you can add nights later if things change. If your relative has dementia and the nights are the problem, 24-hour dementia care at home explains when a sleeping live-in stops being enough, and the page on what sundowning is and what settles it explains what is happening after dark, because a change to the evening routine is worth trying alongside any change to the carers.

The bars leave two things out. A care home fee covers the room, the heating, the food and the laundry, so when your relative stays at home those bills stay yours, and they belong in the comparison before you call the first bar cheaper. On the other side, the value of the house is not counted in a council financial assessment while your relative still lives in it, and at home their routines and a pet can stay as they are.

The comparison changes again for a couple. One live-in carer looking after two people costs about £1,350 a week on PrimeCarers, against about £2,320 a week for two residential places. Live-in care for couples covers how one carer manages two people and the point at which that stops being realistic.

1. 1

   Claim Attendance Allowance

   Not means-tested

   Paid to people over State Pension age who need help with personal care or supervision. There are two weekly rates, £76.70 and £114.60 in 2026/27, and the higher rate is for people who need help during the night as well as the day. Savings and income make no difference, and it can go towards a carer.
2. 2

   Ask for an NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist

   Not means-tested

   Where the main need is a health need rather than help with daily living, the NHS can fund the whole package, including care at home. Ask the GP, the district nurse or the hospital discharge team to complete a checklist. If it passes, a full assessment follows.
3. 3

   Ask the council for a care needs assessment

   Free, and anyone can ask

   A social worker looks at what your relative can and cannot do and writes down the care they need. It is free whatever their savings. A financial assessment follows it: in England the upper capital limit is £23,250, below £14,250 savings are ignored, and the value of the home is disregarded while your relative still lives in it.
4. 4

   If the council will contribute, ask for a direct payment

   Lets you choose the carer

   A direct payment is the council’s contribution paid to you as money rather than as a care package they arrange. It is what lets you choose the carer yourself and keep the same one, instead of taking whichever provider the council has a contract with.

Attendance Allowance is the one to start today, because it is not means-tested and it is not tied to any particular arrangement. Describe your relative's worst days on the form rather than their best; the gov.uk guidance on what you will get sets out the two rates, and Age UK's factsheet on paying for care and support at home explains the financial assessment in full. NHS continuing healthcare is worth pursuing for anyone whose needs are complex, unpredictable and intense, and refusals can be challenged.

Hiring a carer directly, off any platform, can make you their employer, with everything that comes with employing staff, including payroll and pension duties. Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed and insured while they work, and you choose the carer and hold the relationship with them.