The cost of care by type, from an hour a day to round the clock

The week described beside each figure matters as much as the figure itself. Two one-hour visits a day is a real arrangement for somebody who needs help getting up and help getting to bed, but it leaves fourteen hours of the day and the whole night uncovered. A live-in week covers every hour that carer is in the house. So a live-in week costing four times a visiting week is not four times the price of the same care. It is a different amount of care. The cost of care hub sets out the wider picture, including care homes and the funding routes.

If you are not yet sure how much care your relative needs, that question is worth settling before the price one. Our guide to how many visits a week a parent needs works it out from the tasks a carer would do rather than from a budget, and the care cost calculator will turn those hours into a local estimate.

The shortest visit you can book is one hour. That is deliberate: personal care in the morning takes about forty minutes on its own, and a fifteen or thirty minute call leaves a carer watching the clock while somebody is half dressed. If the budget is tight, spending it in fewer, longer visits usually buys better care than spreading it thinly, and some carers will charge their lower shift rate once a visit runs past six hours.

Hourly care is also the arrangement whose price changes most with the calendar. Under the PrimeCarers contract a bank holiday is charged at one and a half times the carer's normal rate and Christmas Day at double, so a December or an Easter invoice can look wrong when it is not. Our guide to weekend, evening and bank holiday rates sets out when those apply, and the full hourly cost guide shows advertised rates by area.

Getting this choice right is worth doing carefully. Seven waking nights instead of seven sleeping nights adds about £140 a week, and that difference is being paid every week. The rule carers use is about how often somebody is up: if it is once or twice, a sleeping night covers it, and if it is most of the night, a carer who has to stay awake should be paid for staying awake. Our guide to choosing between a waking night and a sleeping night goes through the signs, and the night care cost guide has the fuller picture on price.

A live-in carer is entitled to a proper break, usually two hours a day, and to an undisturbed night's sleep. That is what separates live-in care from 24-hour care, and it is why somebody who is up several times a night needs a second carer rather than a bigger live-in rate. Budget for the carer's food as well, since they eat with the household, and read the cost of live-in care for the full breakdown. If you are weighing this against a care home, whether live-in care is cheaper than a care home sets the weekly figures against each other.

The first route costs the least of the three and asks for only one spare room. The second suits a household with the room for two carers and a preference for the same two faces all week. The third, booking hourly carers around the clock, is the most expensive by a long way, and it is usually a short-term answer while something else is being arranged rather than a plan for the year.

None of these prices are small, and it is worth being sure that 24-hour cover is what is needed before pricing it. Somebody who is up twice a night does not need a waking carer. Our guide to what 24-hour care costs and the three ways to build it goes through each route in more detail, including the point at which one sleeping carer stops being enough.

On visits alone the money does not cross over quickly. 35 hours of visits a week at the typical rate is £700, still well below a live-in week starting at £1,050. On price alone you would have to book more than fifty hours of visits a week before live-in care became the cheaper choice. What changes the answer is the night. Two one-hour visits a day plus seven sleeping nights comes to £1,190, which is already more than a typical live-in week of £1,120, and it buys far fewer hours of a carer being in the house.

So the question worth asking is not only how many hours of care your relative needs, but which hours. Somebody who needs an hour twice a day and sleeps soundly is well served by visits for a long time. Somebody who needs less help in total but is unsafe alone at three in the morning is usually better served, and often more cheaply served, by a carer who is in the house. Our guide to the point where live-in care becomes cheaper than hourly visits works through the arithmetic with different weekly patterns.

All of this comes from the standard agreement between a client and a carer. The PrimeCarers contract is the source of truth for it, and it is worth reading once at the start so nothing in it is a surprise later. PrimeCarers charges nothing to cancel and does not set the terms between you and the carer; our guide to paying for care at home and managing expenses covers how the weekly payment and reimbursement work in practice.

1. 1

   Claim Attendance Allowance

   Not means-tested

   It is paid at £76.70 or £114.60 a week in 2026/27, depending on whether help is needed by day, or by day and night. Savings and income do not affect it, and it can be spent on anything, including a carer.
2. 2

   Ask the council for a care needs assessment

   Free, whatever the savings

   Anyone can ask for one, and the assessment itself does not depend on money. A financial assessment follows it. In England the council may pay towards care where savings are below £23,250, and a direct payment lets you spend that money on a carer you choose rather than on a council service.
3. 3

   Ask about NHS Continuing Healthcare

   Not means-tested

   Where the main need is a health one rather than help with daily living, the NHS can fund the whole care package, including care at home. Ask the GP, the district nurse or the hospital discharge team for a checklist to start it off.
4. 4

   Check what the family carer can claim

   £86.45 a week

   Carer's Allowance is for a family member giving 35 hours a week or more of care, where their own earnings are low. It is taxable and it affects some other benefits, so read the rules before claiming.

The figures above are the 2026/27 rates published by the government for Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance, and the savings threshold is the one the NHS sets out for when the council might pay for your care in England. On our own site, how to claim Attendance Allowance walks through the form, local authority funding covers the assessment and the direct payment that can follow it, and NHS Continuing Healthcare explains who qualifies for a fully funded package.