The short answer
- You set the rate, and it is one numberThe rate on your profile is what the family pays and the figure you are paid from. Our fee comes out of it rather than being added on top, so there is no second price the family sees and you do not.
- Our commission is 20%, 15% or 12.5%20% on hourly visits under six hours, 15% on a single shift of six hours or more, and 12.5% on live-in care. The longer the booking, the smaller our share.
- The VAT comes out of our commissionVAT is paid out of our fee rather than added to the family’s bill or taken from your share. The figure on your profile is the figure on the invoice.
- Nothing is deducted for tax before you are paidYou are self-employed, so Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance are yours to declare and pay. Set money aside from every payment rather than finding it in January.
Rates are what carers on PrimeCarers advertise, with our fee included, checked 18 September 2026. Commission rates are the ones the platform applies to every booking.
One number
The rate on your profile is the rate the family pays
Most of the confusion about pay on a care platform comes from there being two numbers: what the client is charged, and what the carer is paid. On PrimeCarers there is one. You set a rate, a family sees that rate, and our commission comes out of it before you are paid.
The three figures worth keeping separate
- The rate you set
- What you advertise on your profile, per hour for visits or per week for live-in work. You choose it, and you can change it for new bookings whenever you like.
- What the family pays
- The same number. Nothing is added at checkout and no VAT is added on top, so a family comparing two carers is comparing what they will be charged.
- What reaches you
- The rate minus our commission. That is the figure that lands in your account, and it is the only one worth planning around.
This matters more than it sounds. An agency quotes a family one price and pays its care workers a separate wage decided somewhere else, and the two are rarely published side by side. On PrimeCarers the rate is yours, so raising it raises what a family pays and what you are paid in the same movement. Nothing is negotiated on the doorstep, because the number is on your profile before anyone speaks to you.
The rate also cannot be changed part way through a contract. It stays as agreed for the length of that booking, and a new rate needs a new contract that you and the client both sign. You can change what you advertise for new work at any time, which is why the rate on an older contract may differ from the one on your profile.
What we take
Our commission: 20%, 15% or 12.5% depending on the work
There is one fee and it is a percentage of the rate you set. It is lower on longer bookings, because a live-in placement takes far less arranging per hour of care than a string of one-hour visits. These are the rates the platform applies to every booking, with no tier you have to reach and no fee that rises with what you earn.
Hourly visits
80%to the carer
A visit of less than six hours.
- The rate you set
- £20 an hour
- Our fee, VAT included
- £4
- What reaches you
- £16
Shifts of six hours or more
85%to the carer
A single visit of six hours or longer, which carers usually advertise at a lower hourly rate because the whole block is booked at once.
- The rate you set
- £18 an hour
- Our fee, VAT included
- £2.70
- What reaches you
- £15.30
Live-in care
87.5%to the carer
A 24-hour day in the client’s home, charged by the week.
- The rate you set
- £1,120 a week
- Our fee, VAT included
- £140
- What reaches you
- £980
The percentage is charged on the care itself. Where a bank holiday or Christmas Day uplift applies under the contract, at one and a half times and twice the normal rate, the commission is charged on the uplifted figure in the same way, so the extra reaches you in the same proportion as the rest.
VAT is the part most platforms leave unexplained. Ours is paid out of the commission rather than added to the family's bill or taken out of your share on top of the fee. A carer is self-employed and almost never VAT registered, so no VAT is charged on the care itself. That is why the rate on a profile and the figure on the invoice match.
A week of work
What reaches you in four normal weeks
Percentages are hard to plan around. These are four shapes of week that exist on the platform, at the rates carers advertise, with the client's price and the figure that reaches the carer side by side. None of them is a promise of work; they are the arithmetic on a week you have already filled.
Part-time hourly visits
Client pays £320
16 hours a week of personal care at £20 an hour, which is four visits of four hours or a spread of shorter calls.
£256 reaches you, after the 20% hourly fee. Income Tax and National Insurance come out of that afterwards.
A full week of hourly visits
Client pays £600
30 hours a week at £20 an hour, spread across regular clients rather than one.
£480 reaches you, after the 20% hourly fee. Income Tax and National Insurance come out of that afterwards.
Four long shifts
Client pays £576
Four days a week of eight-hour shifts at £18 an hour, the lower rate carers advertise for a whole block booked at once.
£489.60 reaches you, after the 15% shift fee. Income Tax and National Insurance come out of that afterwards.
A live-in week
Client pays £1120
One live-in placement at the typical rate of £1,120 a week. Live-in carers usually work in a rotation, so this is a week on rather than every week of the year.
£980 reaches you, after the 12.5% live-in fee. Income Tax and National Insurance come out of that afterwards.
The live-in week deserves a note, because it is the one most often quoted misleadingly across the industry. A live-in placement is a 24-hour day in somebody's home, but it is not 24 hours of hands-on care: it usually runs to eight to ten hours of active support with the carer on hand overnight, and live-in carers normally work in a rotation with breaks between placements rather than every week of the year. So the weekly figure is a week on, not an annual rate divided by 52.
The hourly weeks assume the visits are there to fill. Building to a steady 30 hours takes time, and most carers start with a few regular clients and add to them. Gaps between clients are unpaid, which is the single biggest difference between this and an employed role at a lower hourly rate.
Tax and costs
What comes out after our fee, and what nobody pays for you
Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed. That is not a technicality about paperwork; it changes what your rate has to cover. An employed care worker on a lower hourly rate is paid for holiday, gets statutory sick pay and has an employer paying into a pension. You are comparing your rate against all of that, not just against their hourly figure.
Income Tax and National Insurance
Your own costs
Time you are not paid for
No pension contribution from anyone else
On the tax itself, the mechanics are straightforward once you have done it once. You register for Self Assessment with HMRC by 5 October in the tax year after you first earn self-employed income, even before you know what you will owe. Class 4 National Insurance is charged at 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that. Class 2 is voluntary below the small profits threshold of £7,105 and costs £3.65 a week if you choose to pay it, which some carers do to protect their State Pension record.
Your own costs come off your profit before tax is worked out, which is the part carers most often leave money on the table over. Travel between clients, your DBS and Update Service subscription, training you choose to do, your phone, and insurance if you hold your own are all allowable. Keeping the records as you go is far easier than reconstructing them in January.
How to pay tax as a self-employed carer goes through registering, the deadlines and payments on account in full, and handling tax and money responsibilities as a self-employed private carer covers the record keeping.
What the fee covers
What the commission pays for
A fee is only fair if you can see what it does. Some of this is cost we carry whether or not you get work, and some of it is the reason a family is willing to book somebody they have not met.
What the commission covers, and what stays with you
| Covered by the commission | Yours to arrange and pay for | |
|---|---|---|
| Checks | The enhanced DBS check and the Update Service subscription that keeps it current, arranged as part of registering, plus identity and right-to-work checks and an online interview. | Any training or qualifications you choose to do. We do not verify qualifications or training; those are for you to evidence and for a family to check with you. |
| Insurance | Cover while you work on visits booked through PrimeCarers, arranged by us where you do not hold your own. | Your own policy if you prefer to carry one, and cover for any work you take outside the platform. |
| Finding work | Your profile shown to families searching in your area, and the introductions that come from it. | Writing the profile, replying to families, and agreeing the visits and the times with them. |
| Contracts and payment | The written agreement between you and each client, card payment collected after the care has happened, and the chasing when an invoice is unpaid. | Your Self Assessment, your records and your own expenses. |
| Support | A UK support team you can call about a client, a booking or a payment. | The care itself. You decide how you work, which clients to take and when. |
Checks
- Covered by the commission
- The enhanced DBS check and the Update Service subscription that keeps it current, arranged as part of registering, plus identity and right-to-work checks and an online interview.
- Yours to arrange and pay for
- Any training or qualifications you choose to do. We do not verify qualifications or training; those are for you to evidence and for a family to check with you.
Insurance
- Covered by the commission
- Cover while you work on visits booked through PrimeCarers, arranged by us where you do not hold your own.
- Yours to arrange and pay for
- Your own policy if you prefer to carry one, and cover for any work you take outside the platform.
Finding work
- Covered by the commission
- Your profile shown to families searching in your area, and the introductions that come from it.
- Yours to arrange and pay for
- Writing the profile, replying to families, and agreeing the visits and the times with them.
Contracts and payment
- Covered by the commission
- The written agreement between you and each client, card payment collected after the care has happened, and the chasing when an invoice is unpaid.
- Yours to arrange and pay for
- Your Self Assessment, your records and your own expenses.
Support
- Covered by the commission
- A UK support team you can call about a client, a booking or a payment.
- Yours to arrange and pay for
- The care itself. You decide how you work, which clients to take and when.
PrimeCarers is an introductory service. We are not an agency, we do not employ or manage carers, and we hold no CQC registration.
Is it worth it
How the rate compares with being employed in care
A percentage taken out of your rate is only worth paying if what reaches you beats the alternative. The honest comparison is not our headline rate against a care worker's hourly wage, but what reaches you after our fee against what an employed care worker is paid, with the paid holiday and sick pay they get and you do not.
£16
reaches a carer from a £20 hourly visit on PrimeCarers, against a median of £12.60 an hour for an employed care worker in the independent sector, as at December 2025.
PrimeCarers advertised rates, 18 September 2026. Employed figure: Skills for Care, Pay in the adult social care sector, published 24 March 2026.
The gap is real and it is large, but it is not free money. Out of the difference you fund your own holiday, your own sick days, your own pension and the weeks where a client stops and the next one has not started. What the gap buys, if you use it that way, is the ability to cover those things yourself and still come out ahead, and to decide which work you take.
It is also worth being clear about who this suits. A carer who wants guaranteed hours, a rota handed to them and somebody else responsible for finding the next client is better served by an employed role, and there is no shame in that arrangement being the right one. This works for carers who want to run their own book of clients and are willing to do the arranging that comes with it.
What care workers are paid in the UK sets the employed figures out in full, with the sources, including the finding that experienced care workers earn only a few pence an hour more than new starters.
Questions
Questions carers ask about pay and our fee
20% on hourly visits of less than six hours, 15% on a single shift of six hours or more, and 12.5% on live-in care. So a carer keeps £16 of a £20 hour, £15.30 of a £18 shift hour, and £980 of a £1,120 live-in week. The rate does not change with how much you earn.
No. It comes out of the rate you set, so the figure on your profile is what the family is charged and the figure you are paid from. There is no separate charge to the family at checkout and no second price.
No. The VAT due on our commission is paid out of that commission rather than added to anyone’s bill. Self-employed carers do not charge VAT on care, so nothing is added to your rate either.
No. You are self-employed, so you receive the full amount after our commission and declare it yourself. Register for Self Assessment with HMRC by 5 October in the tax year after you first earn self-employed income. How to pay tax as a self-employed carer goes through it step by step.
Because a live-in placement takes far less arranging per hour of care than a series of short visits. One introduction and one contract can cover a week of care, where the same week of hourly visits might involve several clients, several contracts and a great deal more scheduling and payment handling. The rate reflects that: 12.5% on live-in against 20% on hourly visits.
You set your own rate. Carers on PrimeCarers typically advertise between £18 and £25 an hour for visits and from £1,050 a week for live-in care, with our fee included in that figure. Setting a rate well above the local range means fewer families shortlist you, and setting one well below it leaves money behind, so most carers look at what others nearby are charging before deciding.
No. Registering a profile, setting your rate and being shown to families cost nothing, and there is no subscription. The commission on completed bookings is how we are paid, so we earn nothing until you do.
Under the contract a visit the client cancels is payable in full, unless it is because of unplanned hospitalisation or illness, or another reason you and the client agree between you. You can waive part or all of it at your own discretion. PrimeCarers charges nothing of its own when a visit is cancelled.
Not automatically. Travel is chargeable only where you have agreed it with the client in advance and in writing, with the rate and the circumstances set out. Where you drive a client in your own car, the HMRC approved mileage rate of 55p a mile is the usual reference point. Travel between your own clients is a business cost you can set against your profit for tax.