Business plan
Sample plan · fictional businessA complete home care business plan: Riverbend Home Care
Greenville, SC · Startup plan · a fictional home care agency, written by the free generator from five answers
Executive summary
Riverbend Home Care is a new non-medical home care agency in Greenville, SC offering personal care: bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting; companionship, conversation and supervision; meal preparation, light housekeeping and laundry; errands, shopping and rides to appointments; respite care so family caregivers can take a break; and overnight and 24-hour live-in care. The model is screened, trained caregivers matched to each client, every shift covered, and families who trust the agency enough to tell the next family.
Startup budget: $96,042 across 11 items, funded from savings. Target: $21,000 in monthly sales.
Twelve months from now, success looks like this: Twelve regular clients and a bench of fifteen trained caregivers by month twelve, every shift covered and every family calling us first
Products and services
Riverbend Home Care's core service is personal care: bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting. Every client starts with an in-home assessment and a written care plan, care is billed by the hour with a minimum shift, and the same small team of caregivers visits each client so the relationship builds.
- Personal care: bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting
- Companionship, conversation and supervision
- Meal preparation, light housekeeping and laundry
- Errands, shopping and rides to appointments
- Respite care so family caregivers can take a break
- Overnight and 24-hour live-in care
Market analysis
The customers are adult children arranging care for a parent, seniors who want to stay in their own home after a fall or a hospital stay, and families caring for someone with dementia who need regular respite — most paying privately, some through long-term care insurance, veterans' benefits or a state program.
- Adult children who live too far away, or work too much, to look after a parent every day
- Seniors who want to stay in their own home after a fall, a diagnosis or a hospital stay
- Families caring for someone with dementia who need a trained break a few times a week
- Hospital discharge planners, senior-living communities and elder-law attorneys who refer families
- Clients paying through long-term care insurance, veterans' benefits or a state Medicaid waiver program
Marketing strategy
Most clients will come from Google and word of mouth. A family in a hurry searches for in-home care nearby and calls the agency that looks trustworthy, so a Google Business Profile with reviews and a website that explains how caregivers are screened do the heavy lifting; discharge planners, social workers and families you've cared for supply the rest.
- Google Business Profile and Google — families search “home care near me” and “in-home care” plus the town, usually in a hurry
- Referrals from hospital discharge planners, social workers, physicians' offices and rehab centers
- Word of mouth from families whose parent you looked after well — the strongest channel in the trade
- Senior centers, churches, elder-law attorneys, financial planners and long-term care insurance agents
- A website that shows your services, service area, how you screen caregivers and a call-back form a worried family can fill in at midnight
Operations plan
The owner runs assessments, scheduling and the first shifts in year one, with a bench of part-time caregivers employed by the agency. Every caregiver is background-checked and trained to the state's rules, visits are checked in through a scheduling app, and a supervisor reviews each care plan on a set rhythm.
- An in-home assessment before care starts, a written care plan and a signed service agreement with the hourly rate and the minimum shift
- Caregivers hired as W-2 employees, background-checked and trained to your state's rules before their first shift
- One scheduler who matches caregivers to clients and covers every call-out the same day — a missed shift is the one mistake families don't forgive
- Visit check-ins through a scheduling app with electronic visit verification, which Medicaid-paid clients require
- A supervisor's visit or call at a set rhythm, and the care plan updated whenever the client's needs change
- Weekly billing to private-pay families, and claims to long-term care insurers, the VA or the state program for the rest
Startup costs
What it will take to open the doors, funded from savings.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Working capital: payroll and costs while clients' payments catch up | $45,500 |
| State home care license or registration and application fees | $2,802 |
| Liability insurance, a fidelity bond and workers' comp (first year) | $4,950 |
| Business registration, legal and accounting fees | $6,250 |
| Policy and procedure manual | $3,500 |
| A small office: rent and deposits | $15,000 |
| Furniture, computers and phones | $7,700 |
| Background checks and caregiver training | $3,230 |
| Scheduling, visit verification, billing and client records (first year) | $960 |
| Website and Google Business Profile | $0 |
| Marketing and branding: brochures, referral visits and local advertising | $6,150 |
| Total | $96,042 |
Typical range to start a home care agency in the US: $63,620–$133,503. Your list is what you decided to spend — replace estimates with real quotes as you get them. Scheduling, visit verification, billing and client records (first year): Your Zarla plan includes client inquiries, bookings, invoicing and customer records — home care scheduling with visit verification is a separate tool you'll still want. Website and Google Business Profile: Your Zarla plan includes the website — your care services, answers to families' questions, a map of the area you cover and a contact form to start — and walks you through your Google Business Profile.
Financial plan
The numbers below come from your own startup list and typical monthly costs for a home care agency in the US. The biggest cost is caregiver payroll, which grows with every client, and what needs planning is the cash gap: wages go out every week while some payers take a month or more.
Typical monthly operating costs for a home care agency: $12,734–$20,548 a month, before the owner's own pay.
At $21,000 in monthly sales, Riverbend Home Care would clear $452–$8,266 a month before owner pay and tax, and recover the $96,042 startup budget in roughly 12 months if costs stay near the low end of the typical range — far longer at the high end, where the margin is thin, so pin your real monthly costs down first.
| Cost | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Caregiver wages for about 600 care hours a month (a dozen regular clients) | $10,200–$12,000 |
| Payroll taxes and workers' compensation | $1,100–$1,900 |
| Liability insurance and bond | $54–$98 |
| Office rent and utilities | $0–$2,000 |
| Scheduling, visit verification and billing software (included with Zarla) | $80–$250 |
| Recruiting, screening and training new caregivers | $500–$1,500 |
| Referral visits, local advertising and your domain | $500–$2,000 |
| Phone, bookkeeping, payroll service and accounting | $300–$800 |
US ranges for a small operation; replace with your own figures as you learn them. Lines marked (included with Zarla) are what those tools cost separately — with Zarla they are part of one monthly plan.
Risks and honest downsides
Every home care agency plan should say out loud what can go wrong. For Riverbend Home Care, the real risks are:
- Caregivers are hard to hire and harder to keep — turnover across the industry runs around 75% a year, and every shift you can't staff is a family you may lose
- Payroll goes out every week while insurers and state programs pay a month or more later, so a growing agency can run out of cash
- One client depends on one caregiver: a no-show, an injury or a theft allegation lands on you, which is why the bond and the screening matter
- State rules on training, supervision and what non-medical caregivers may do are strict, and an inspection can find what you missed
- Overtime still applies to agency caregivers under the federal rule and many state laws, even with a 2025 federal rollback proposal pending, so live-in and 24-hour cases must be priced for it
Licenses, permits and insurance
What Riverbend Home Care needs before it can legally trade in the US. Rules vary by state and city — confirm each item with your local licensing office and an accountant.
- Business registration, EIN and a local business license — Most US agencies form an LLC — a Texas LLC is $300, and every California LLC pays an $800 annual tax — plus a city or county business license where one is issued. The EIN from the IRS is free, and you need one before your first hire.
- State home care agency license or registration, where your state requires one — In the US it depends on the state, and many license non-medical agencies. Texas licenses personal assistance services as a home and community support services agency ($2,625) but exempts companion and household help that involves no personal care; California requires a Home Care Organization license ($5,603 for two years); Illinois a home services agency license ($1,500, paid with the application); North Carolina a home care license that covers companion and sitter services ($510 a year); Washington an in-home services license ($5,000 for the first 12 months from June 2026). Florida registers companion and homemaker services for $50 every two years, and its companions may not give hands-on personal care — that comes from a licensed home health agency, or an aide referred by a licensed nurse registry. Check your state health department before you take a client.
- Caregiver background checks and state-required training — In the US, most states that license home care require criminal background checks, and many a registry and set training hours — California requires five hours before a caregiver provides care and five more each year; Illinois five hours before the first assignment and ten a year; Washington 75 hours, five of them before giving care, then a certification exam. If you bill Medicaid or another federal program, check every hire against the federal exclusion list too. Keep the records — inspectors ask for them.
- Workers' compensation and payroll registration — In the US, set by each state — some require workers' comp from the first employee, some only above a headcount, and Texas lets most private employers choose. Caregivers your agency directs are W-2 employees, not contractors. The Department of Labor's 2013 home care rule gives agency-employed caregivers minimum wage and overtime; in July 2025 the department proposed returning to the older rules and stopped enforcing the 2013 rule against agencies while the proposal is pending, but the rule is still on the books, caregivers can still sue, and many states have their own overtime laws — so price live-in and 24-hour shifts with overtime in.
- Medicaid, VA or long-term care insurance enrollment, if you take those clients — Each US payer has its own enrollment: the state's Medicaid waiver program, the VA's community care network or a VA contract, and each long-term care insurer's paperwork. Medicaid-paid personal care needs electronic visit verification. Private-pay clients need none of it, which makes private pay the simpler start.
- A home health license and Medicare certification only if you provide skilled medical care — A home health care business plan is a different plan, because nursing, therapy and other skilled care is a different business: in the US, a state home health license, Medicare certification through a state survey or an accrediting body, a nurse to run the clinical side and, in at least 15 states and DC, a certificate of need. Medicare requires a new agency to hold reserve operating funds from its application until three months after it can bill — at least half of it the owner's own money — and in May 2026 it paused new home health agency enrollments nationwide for six months, a pause it can extend. Non-medical agencies need none of it.
Milestones: the next 30 days
The first month's to-do list for Riverbend Home Care, in order:
- Check your state's home care licensing rules and start the application — in licensing states it is the longest step
- Register the business, take the free EIN and open a business bank account
- Get liability insurance, a fidelity bond and workers' comp quotes
- Write the policy manual: hiring, background checks, training, client rights, complaints and emergencies
- Set your hourly rate, the minimum shift length and the live-in rate, with overtime priced in
- Recruit and screen the first three to five caregivers and schedule their training
- Set up a free Google Business Profile with your service area and put your website live with a call-back form
- Visit ten hospital discharge planners, rehab centers and senior communities with a one-page sheet
- Take the first client's assessment, write the care plan and ask the family for a review after the first month
Appendix: what a lender will ask for
This plan tells the story and shows the numbers. If you take it to a bank, expect to be asked for these documents as well:
- Two years of personal tax returns and a personal financial statement
- Your state license or registration, or proof the application is filed
- A month-by-month 12-month cash-flow projection that shows payroll paid before clients' payments arrive
- Your insurance certificates and bond
- The owner's or administrator's care or health-care management experience
- Your credit report and anything you can offer as collateral