The short answer
- Usually cheaper than an agencyCarers on PrimeCarers typically charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, against £28 to £35 for an agency covering the same visit.
- The same carer for every visitYou interview and choose the carer yourself, and the times you agree with them are theirs, not a shift somebody else can be moved onto.
- A carer who keeps what they charge has a reason to stayA self-employed carer sets the rate on their own profile and keeps it after our fee, rather than being paid a wage set separately from what an agency charges you.
- The admin is still done for youThe contract, the payments for each visit, and finding cover if your usual carer is unavailable, are handled through PrimeCarers even though the carer is self-employed.
Figures are what families pay on PrimeCarers, £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included. Agencies typically charge £28 to £35 for the same visit.
The cost of a private carer
Why a private carer usually costs less than an agency
A self-employed carer sets their own rate and keeps it. An agency has to cover its own office, rota and management on top of what it pays the carer, and that difference shows up in what a family is charged for the same hour.
PrimeCarers rates include our fee, so the figure shown is what a family pays. The agency and direct-hire figures are what carers or agencies charge, checked 5 September 2026.
Booking a private carer rather than an agency removes that extra layer. On PrimeCarers the rate shown already includes our fee, so there is nothing else to add. Private carers vs agency carers sets the two routes out side by side, and what a private carer charges per hour covers what else, if anything, gets added to the rate.
Hiring directly, without an introductory service, often looks cheapest of the three on the headline rate. What that figure leaves out is the checks, the contract and finding cover if the carer is unavailable, which become jobs for you rather than something already done. What is still handled for you sets out what those jobs involve.
Same carer, every visit
Why the same carer every day is worth choosing for
Book a private carer directly and you interview and choose the person yourself. That is different from an agency rota, which is built to cover shifts across many clients rather than around one family.
You choose them, not a rota
They learn the small things
For someone living with dementia, a change of face can be more unsettling than it would be for somebody without memory problems, because each new carer has to be trusted again from nothing. Dementia care has more on adapting a home and a routine once that is part of the picture.
Carer pay and retention
Why a carer who keeps what they charge has a reason to stay
Money is not the only reason a carer stays with a family, but it is a documented one. A self-employed carer on PrimeCarers keeps the rate on their profile after our single fee, rather than being paid a wage set separately from what an agency charges you for the same visit.
7 in 10
care workers who leave a job in social care name pay as a key reason for going, and a 10 per cent pay rise is estimated to cut turnover by about three percentage points.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, checked 5 September 2026.
For comparison, the National Living Wage for a worker aged 21 or over is £12.71 an hour from April 2026, the floor many employed care roles are priced against. A carer who sets their own rate and keeps what is left after our fee has a direct financial reason to keep working for a family they get on with, rather than moving to whichever employer is paying that week. What a private carer charges per hour breaks down exactly what is included in the figure a carer quotes.
What is still handled for you
What is still handled for you, even though carers are self-employed
Choosing your own carer does not mean managing every part of the arrangement alone. Book through PrimeCarers and three pieces of the admin are already in place.
The contract
The payments
Cover if your carer is unavailable
None of this makes PrimeCarers the carer's employer or the provider of the care itself. It remains an introductory service, and the carer stays self-employed and answerable for their own work. How to find a private carer covers the search itself, and a problem with your private carer, and what to do first covers what to do once care has started, including if something goes wrong.
Questions
Questions families ask about the benefits of a private carer
Usually, yes. Carers on PrimeCarers typically charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, against £28 to £35 for an agency covering the same visit, because there is no separate employer's margin sitting on top of the carer's pay. What a private carer charges per hour breaks the figure down further.
Yes, that is the arrangement when you book a private carer directly. You interview and choose the carer yourself, and the times you agree with them are theirs, not a shift on somebody else's rota. If a carer cannot make a visit, you or PrimeCarers can help find cover, but the intention is one carer for your family rather than a changing team.
PrimeCarers is an introductory service. It checks a carer's identity, right to work and enhanced DBS status, and interviews them online, before their profile appears. It stores the contract terms you agree with the carer and processes payments for each visit. It does not employ the carer, supervise their work or provide the care itself. How we vet every carer sets out the checks in full.
You can search for a replacement carer yourself for free, the same way you found the first one. If you would rather not do that yourself, call PrimeCarers and we will shortlist carers who cover your postcode and are available, with a £40 finder fee charged only if you go ahead with one of them.
There is no guarantee either way, because pay depends on what an individual carer sets and what an agency pays its own staff. What is different is the structure: a carer on PrimeCarers keeps the rate on their profile after our single fee, rather than being paid a wage set separately from what an agency charges a family for the same visit. Joseph Rowntree Foundation research has found low pay to be one of the main reasons care workers leave a job in the sector.
No. Identity, right to work and an enhanced DBS check on the Update Service, plus an online interview, are complete before a carer's profile appears. Background checks on a private carer covers exactly what each of those checks does and does not confirm.