Care.com Review, Our In-Depth Analysis
Finding reliable home care can be difficult. Most communities have access to home care agencies. However, these services often require you to book a minimum number of hours per week just to receive care at all. Care.com, though, offers greater flexibility that can potentially be useful for those with fluctuating care needs.
Structured like a local directory, Care.com allows you to find home caregivers in your area. The service conducts background checks on all its caregivers, and it facilitates the booking process. For those unafraid of doing a little extra legwork, Care.com might be an ideal way to find home care for your loved one.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- In-home care: Care.com is ideal if you want your loved one to age in place instead of living in an assisted living facility.
- Affordable prices: With hourly prices starting as low as $14, finding an in-home caregiver on Care.com can be much cheaper than popular home care agencies like Visiting Angels.
- Verified caregivers: All Care.com caregivers are background-checked, giving you peace of mind when trusting them to care for your loved ones.
- Various skill levels: Some caregivers have certifications like RNs and CNAs, meaning that Care.com caregivers can provide care beyond companionship and household tasks.
Cons
- Deceptive marketing practices: In August 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had settled for $8.5 million with Care.com due to its deceptive marketing practices to both caregivers and families seeking care. Care.com did not let families easily cancel paid memberships and deceived caregivers about the number of jobs available.
- Contacting a caregiver requires a paid membership: To find a caregiver for my client, I had to pay for a premium membership, which wasn’t the case with Caring.com or A Place for Mom (APfM).
How Care.com Works
Care.com starts with a short screening quiz to find out what your loved one’s needs are. Once you give the website basic facts — like age, the activities they need help with, and if they’ll finance it — it will have you create an account to see your results. The results will show you local caregivers in your area, as well as their experience, ratings, and hourly rates. Think of it like a dating app but for caregivers. However, to be able to contact caregivers requires a paid subscription, which is not the case for most referral services. But, if you pay, you can easily find a caregiver and book them on the Care.com site or over the phone.
Types of Care
Unlike care referral services like APfM and the similarly named Caring.com, Care.com only offers in-home senior care. It can either be purely for companionship or for more hands-on services, like assisting a senior with showering, dressing, and eating — or even caring for someone with memory issues. If you are looking for a nursing home, independent living community, memory care, or adult daycare, Care.com is not the platform for you.
Our Experience With Care.com
I began my search on Care.com by doing an online quiz, which was very quick and easy to use. This quiz asked me:
- When I need the care
- What type I’m looking for (i.e., in-home care, a senior living community, or “not sure”)
- Who needs care
- Their age
- How I would describe them in terms of their independence or need for supervision
- What sort of help they need (i.e., with everyday tasks like laundry; personal care like bathing, companionship, and mobility assistance; or memory care)
- How they’ll pay for the services
I did multiple searches on Care.com for both senior living communities and in-home care. However, every time I searched for senior living communities using multiple ZIP codes, I got the same message: “Unfortunately, no communities on Care.com match your needs.”
This was the case no matter how much supervision they needed, what they needed help with, nor the ZIP code. Sure, it’s only a sample size of three, but connecting people with facilities is never what Care.com did. It doesn’t list nursing homes on its services, so I’m unclear as to why it’s an option on the quiz in the first place.
Rather, it connects people with individual caregivers in their area — be it for seniors, children, pets, or students. When I tried to find in-home care, I had much more success and could easily see a list of people in my area, along with their daily rates and experiences.
I was excited that I got these results so quickly, but there was a catch: To be able to actually reach out to anyone, I had to pay for a premium account. I’ve detailed the pricing below.
But despite the annoying paid membership, I think that Care.com is a great way to find in-home caregivers. It’s certainly not a search you would start on Google, as that would lack background checks or any form of verification. But, at the same time, be sure to thoroughly interview your applicants and check references.
Care.com Costs
Care.com has costs two-fold: a premium membership, which allowed me to actually contact background-checked caregivers, and, of course, what I’d pay the caregivers themselves. As for the premium membership, it costs anywhere from $12.95 to $38.95 a month; I could have purchased a one-, three-, or 12-month package. I can’t imagine anyone taking more than a month to choose a caregiver. So, for most people, you’ll pay nearly $40 a month just to be connected with a caregiver.
From there, caregivers set their own rates. My first applications charged anywhere from $15 to $50 an hour, although the range goes from just $14 an hour. This is a low hourly rate; even someone with 10 years of job experience only charges $25 to $50 an hour. That’s right around the median hourly cost of long-term care. Genworth’s Cost of Care survey notes that it ranges from $36 an hour for homemaker services to $40 an hour for home health aides in Providence, Rhode Island.
What Others Are Saying
There’s no way around it: Across the board, Care.com’s customer reviews are abysmal. The company has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and only 1.57 out of 5 stars from its customers. Also, it boasts 2.3 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot (there are no reviews on Consumer Affairs, unfortunately).
Many customers complained of the same deceptive business practices that made Care.com have to settle with the FTC in the first place. A complaint from August 2024 on the BBB website read, “The date of the transaction was June 8, 2024, for $131.40. I did not use Care.com’s services. I opted into a free trial where they charged me IMMEDIATELY for a whole year.”
However, not everyone was this angry. One user named Maryellen H. wrote in September 2024, “I have had nothing but a good experience with Care.com. Of course, I only needed one service and found a caregiver for myself that has always been punctual and more than willing to help me out with what I need to have done.” A perfect five stars!
Bottom Line
Although Care.com’s business practices have been less than savory, I’m hoping that having to fork over $8.5 million to the FTC means that it’s changed its ways. Fraud aside, Care.com makes it easy to find caregivers in your area — and prices are affordable. While I wish Care.com didn’t come with a subscription, it still will probably be much cheaper than placing your loved one in a nursing home — not to mention a better experience to get to age in place.