The short answer
- Weekends cost the sameThere is no weekend uplift in the standard PrimeCarers contract. A Saturday morning call is charged at the same rate as a Tuesday one.
- Evenings cost the sameA tucking-in call at eight in the evening is a normal hour. A few carers set a higher rate for early or late visits, and it is on their profile before you book.
- Bank holidays are time and a halfOne and a half times the carer's normal rate, and Christmas Day is double. Both are written into the contract, so nobody has to negotiate it in December.
- Agencies usually charge moreMany agencies add 25% to 50% at weekends and charge time and a half up to double on bank holidays, on top of a base rate of £28 to £35 an hour.
Figures are what families pay on PrimeCarers: £18 to £25 an hour, typically £20, with our fee included.
Check a day and time
Pick any day of the year and see what an hour costs
Choose the day, the time of day and your carer's normal rate. The card on the left is what happens on PrimeCarers under the standard contract. The card on the right is what is common at a traditional home care agency.
Pick a day
And a time of day
On PrimeCarers
£20an hour
There is no uplift. A Saturday costs the same as any other day.
No weekend uplift in the standard contract. Most carers charge their normal rate on a Saturday.
The standard visiting hours, and the easiest slots to fill.
At a traditional agency
£35 to £53
an hour
Many agencies add 25% to 50% at weekends.
Agencies set their own charges and publish them in their terms. Ask for the weekend, evening and bank holiday rates in writing before you sign, because they are the ones that do not appear in the headline price.
A guide, not a quote. Carers on PrimeCarers set their own rates and the figure on their profile is what you pay, our fee included. Agency figures are the ranges that are common across the market, not any one agency's price list.
The rate you agree
The rate on the profile is the rate you pay
Most of the confusion about weekend and evening pricing comes from how agencies quote. On PrimeCarers there is one number to look at, and you see it before you speak to anybody.
The carer sets it
Usually £18 to £25
Our fee is already in it
Nothing added later
It does not move by the day
Except bank holidays
The exception worth knowing about is the carer who publishes more than one rate. Some carers advertise a lower rate for long shifts of six hours or more, typically around £18 an hour, because a single long booking is worth more to them than three short ones scattered across a day. A small number set a higher rate for visits before eight in the morning or after nine at night, for the same reason in reverse. Either way you see the figure on the profile and agree it before the first visit, rather than finding it on an invoice. Our guide to what hourly care costs goes through every part of the rate.
Weekends
Saturdays and Sundays are ordinary days here
This is the single biggest difference in out-of-hours pricing between booking a carer directly and booking through an agency, and it shows up most on the families who need care seven days a week.
| On PrimeCarers | At a typical agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | The carer's rate, £18 to £25 | £28 to £35 an hour |
| Saturday | The same rate | Often 25% to 50% more |
| Sunday | The same rate | Often 25% to 50% more, and usually the higher end |
| A seven-day week of one-hour morning calls | £140 at £20 an hour | £210 upwards, with a 25% weekend uplift on the lower base rate |
| Christmas Day | Double, £40 for the hour | Almost always double |
Monday to Friday
- On PrimeCarers
- The carer's rate, £18 to £25
- At a typical agency
- £28 to £35 an hour
Saturday
- On PrimeCarers
- The same rate
- At a typical agency
- Often 25% to 50% more
Sunday
- On PrimeCarers
- The same rate
- At a typical agency
- Often 25% to 50% more, and usually the higher end
A seven-day week of one-hour morning calls
- On PrimeCarers
- £140 at £20 an hour
- At a typical agency
- £210 upwards, with a 25% weekend uplift on the lower base rate
Christmas Day
- On PrimeCarers
- Double, £40 for the hour
- At a typical agency
- Almost always double
Agency figures are what is common across the market rather than any one agency's price list. Every agency publishes its own charges, and the weekend and bank holiday rates are usually in the terms rather than the brochure. Ask for them in writing.
The reason for the difference is structural rather than a matter of generosity. An agency runs a rota and has to pay staff a weekend premium to fill it, so the premium is passed on. A self-employed carer chooses their own week: someone who works Saturdays does it because those hours suit them, and most price the week as one thing. It also means the person who comes on Sunday morning is the person who came on Friday, which matters far more to a confused parent than a few pounds an hour. Continuity is worth reading about on its own in the same carer every visit.
Evenings and early mornings
A day of visits, and where the rate changes
Care does not fit office hours. Getting up happens before eight, and settling for the night happens after seven. Neither of those carries a standard uplift on PrimeCarers.
- Before 8am
The early morning call
Up, washed, dressed, breakfast and the morning tablets. It is the busiest hour of the care week, and it is charged at the normal rate.
- 8am to 6pm
Daytime visits
Lunch calls, company, shopping and appointments. These are the standard visiting hours, and the easiest slots to fill.
- 6pm to 10pm
The tucking-in call
Tea, nightclothes, teeth, evening medication and the doors locked. This is charged at the normal rate. A few carers publish a higher evening rate, and you see it before you book.
- After 10pm
A late call
A late call is charged at the normal rate. It is worth a rethink if it is happening often, because two or three late calls a week cost more than an overnight carer would.
- Through the night
Not an hourly visit at all
Overnight care is its own service. A sleeping night is £130 to £145 and a waking night is £150 to £160.
The last row is the one families get wrong most often. If somebody needs help at eleven at night and again at two in the morning, booking two late hourly visits is both expensive and hard to staff, because a carer has to travel twice in the middle of the night. Overnight care covers the whole night for one price, and a sleeping night costs about the same as seven hours of visits while covering nine or ten. If the nights are broken rather than settled, a waking night is the right thing to price instead.
Bank holidays
Time and a half, and double on Christmas Day
England and Wales have 8 bank holidays a year, Scotland 9 and Northern Ireland 10, according to gov.uk. On PrimeCarers all of them are charged the same way, and one of them is charged differently.
- An ordinary hour£20weekday, weekend or evening
- A bank holiday hour£30one and a half times
- A Christmas Day hour£40double
- Agency bank holiday, from£42time and a half on a lower base rate
- Agency bank holiday, up to£70double on a higher base rate
PrimeCarers standard client and carer contract, and typical UK agency charges, August 2026.
The third and fourth bars are worth reading together. A Christmas Day hour on PrimeCarers costs less than an agency's ordinary bank holiday hour, and less than half what an agency charges on the same day. That comes from the base rate rather than from the uplift, which is why the base rate matters more than the multiplier does. One and a half times a smaller number is still a smaller number.
The uplift exists for a straightforward reason. A carer who works Easter Monday is not with their own family, and the extra rate is what makes it worth doing. Because it is written into the contract, neither you nor your carer has to raise it. There is no awkward conversation in the week before Christmas, and no invoice that arrives with a figure on it nobody expected. If your relative does not need care on a particular bank holiday, you simply do not book it.
Christmas and New Year
The fortnight to sort out early
Rates are the easy part of Christmas. Availability is the hard part, and it is decided in October and November rather than December.
What works
- Ask your carer in October what they are doing over Christmas and New Year
- Agree the exact days you need, in writing, and let them plan their own family around it
- Book a second carer for the days your regular one is away, and introduce them beforehand
- Decide early which visits can move rather than disappear: a lunch call at two instead of twelve is easier to staff than one at twelve
- Cover Christmas Day and New Year's Day first, then work outwards
- Say thank you properly. A carer working Christmas morning has given up their own
What tends to go wrong
- Assuming the usual pattern carries on because nobody has said otherwise
- Leaving it to the first week of December, when almost every carer is already booked
- Waiting to see whether family can cover it, and then finding they cannot
- Booking a stranger for Christmas Day itself, which is the hardest day to walk into cold
- Cancelling visits at short notice once the family arrive, which is both unfair and usually still payable
- Forgetting the days between Christmas and New Year, when GP surgeries and pharmacies keep short hours
New Year's Day is a bank holiday like any other under the contract, so it is charged at one and a half times rather than double. It is still one of the two days carers are asked for earliest, along with Christmas Day, so treat the two the same when you are planning. If your family are visiting and you are thinking of pausing care for a few days, agree it with your carer in advance rather than cancelling: notice on an hourly arrangement is 48 hours either way, and what you owe for a visit called off at short notice is covered in cancelled and late visits.
Agreeing the rate
How to make sure nothing on the invoice is a surprise
Five minutes at the start saves a difficult conversation later. Everything here is a normal thing to ask, and any good carer will expect the questions.
- 1
Read the profile rate and the pattern together
Before you messageNote the hourly rate and whether the carer lists a different rate for long shifts or unusual hours. Work out the weekly figure yourself: an hour a day at £20 is £140 a week, all seven days included. - 2
Ask three questions on the call
Ten minutesDo you charge the same at weekends and in the evening? What would you want for a bank holiday? Is there anything about the hours I am asking for that would change your rate? You will get a straight answer, because the carer is the one setting the price. - 3
Put the pattern in writing
Before the first visitWhich days, which times, how long, and what happens on bank holidays. Message it through the platform so both of you have the same version. The standard contract covers bank holidays and Christmas Day already, so you are only recording the pattern. - 4
Record anything that is not the standard contract
In writing, both sidesIf you agree a different rate for early mornings, or agree to pay travel, it has to be written down and agreed by both of you. Travel is not chargeable unless it has been expressly agreed in advance. - 5
Check the first invoice against the pattern
Week twoInvoices are built from the visits you and your carer confirm on the platform, so they are only as accurate as the bookings. Look at the first one properly and raise anything that does not match while it is fresh.
What it adds up to
The uplifts are smaller than families expect
It is worth putting a figure on the whole thing, because the worry about out-of-hours pricing is usually larger than the cost of it.
about £90
What a year of bank holiday uplifts adds to an hour of care every single day at £20 an hour: seven bank holidays at time and a half, plus Christmas Day at double. The care itself for that year is about £7,280.
PrimeCarers rates and the standard contract, August 2026.
Put another way, the out-of-hours premium on a full year of daily visits is roughly the cost of four and a half ordinary hours. On agency rates the same year would carry a weekend uplift on 104 days as well as the bank holidays, which is where the difference lies. If you are trying to build a budget rather than compare a single hour, the cost of care hub sets out every kind of care side by side, the care cost calculator will send you a figure for your own situation, and paying for care covers Attendance Allowance, council contributions and direct payments. Our pricing page explains what our fee covers.
Questions
Questions about out-of-hours rates
Not on PrimeCarers. Carers set their own hourly rate, usually £18 to £25 with our fee included, and there is no weekend uplift in the standard contract. A Saturday morning call costs the same as a Tuesday one. Traditional home care agencies typically do charge more at weekends, often 25% to 50% on top of a base rate of £28 to £35 an hour.
One and a half times the carer's normal rate. That is written into the standard client and carer contract, so it is the same for every carer on the platform and nobody has to negotiate it. At the typical rate of £20 an hour, a bank holiday hour is £30. Many agencies charge time and a half up to double on a higher base rate.
Double the carer's normal rate, which is the only day the contract treats differently from other bank holidays. At £20 an hour that is £40 for the hour. Boxing Day and New Year's Day are bank holidays, so they are charged at one and a half times.
No. New Year's Day is a bank holiday like Easter Monday or the August bank holiday, so it is one and a half times the normal rate. Only Christmas Day is double. New Year's Day is still one of the first days carers are asked for, so book it early even though it costs less than you might expect.
Not as a rule. A tucking-in call at eight in the evening is charged at the normal rate, and so is an early morning call before eight. A small number of carers publish a higher rate for very early or very late visits, and that rate is on their profile before you book. If help is needed more than once after bedtime, overnight care usually works out cheaper than a run of late visits.
Eight in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland, according to gov.uk. On a booking of one hour every day at £20 an hour, the uplifts across all of them add about £90 to a year of care.
Yes, as long as you both agree it in writing before it applies. Carers are self-employed and set their own prices, so a longer regular booking, a different rate for early mornings, or an arrangement about travel are all things you can discuss. Travel is not chargeable unless it has been expressly agreed in advance, and any such agreement has to be recorded in writing.
Many will, and the ones who do are usually booked by the end of November. Ask in October what your carer is planning, agree the exact days in writing, and line up a second carer for anything they cannot cover so your relative has met them beforehand. Christmas Day and New Year's Day are the two to settle first.