HOME CARE PRICING GUIDE
Home care pricing: what to charge per hour in 2026
The 2025 median hourly rate for non-medical home care nationally and from the lowest-cost states to the highest, what full-time care costs a family a month, how to set the rate from the caregiver's pay, what families compare you with — and a free calculator that turns it into a rate sheet for your website.
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The short answer
The national median rate for non-medical home care is $35 an hour — CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey, from more than 25,000 rates, up 3% on the year (March 2026). Its state medians run from $24 an hour in Mississippi, $25 in Arkansas and $26 in Louisiana to $45 in Maine, Vermont and Washington and $46 in Wyoming; California is $40, Florida $32, Texas $30 and New York $35.
Full-time care is the same hour multiplied: at 44 hours a week, the national median comes to $6,673 a month or $80,080 a year, from $4,576 a month in Mississippi to $8,771 in Wyoming (CareScout's tables). CareScout now reports homemaker and home health aide services as one “non-medical caregiver” rate.
One way to set the rate is from the caregiver's pay: the rule of thumb in Home Care Pulse's benchmarking (now Activated Insights, July 2020) is a bill rate double the pay rate, and the median personal care aide earns $17.21 an hour (O*NET, 2025 wages) — doubled, $34.42, just under the $35 median. Families also see caregivers listed online: providers on Care.com charge $21.75 to $26.64 an hour on the US average (November 2026).
Put your hourly rate on your website: “home care pricing” is Googled about 1,000 times a month, and “caregiver rates” is put to AI assistants about 1,200 times (DataForSEO, October 2026).
AT A GLANCE · NOVEMBER 2026
Home care pricing at a glance
| The job | Typical US price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate, national median | $35 an hour | CareScout (Genworth), March 2026 |
| Hourly rate, lowest-cost states | $24–$27 | CareScout, March 2026 |
| Hourly rate, the ten largest states | $30–$40 | CareScout, March 2026 |
| Hourly rate, highest-cost states | $44–$46 | CareScout, March 2026 |
| Four-hour visit, lowest to highest state | $96–$185 for 4 hours ($24–$46 per hour) | CareScout, March 2026 |
| Full-time care a month, lowest to highest state | $4,576–$8,771 | CareScout, March 2026 |
The same published figures as the full rate table below; the calculator works out a price for your own job.
FREE PRICE CALCULATOR
What should I charge for this care?
Pick a visit by the hour, the hourly range for your group of states or full-time care by the month. The range uses the published US figures in the table below.
Suggested price
$96–$185
non-medical home care, per hour (CareScout's 2025 state medians, lowest to highest), 4 hours
A starting range from published US medians — not your rate until you've worked it up from your caregivers' pay, your payroll costs and your state's wage rules. Say on the rate sheet whether nights, weekends and holidays cost more.
Show this price on your website ↓Show this price on your website
Put your home care prices where customers look
Add your town, and Zarla builds your home care website from this one line. Then tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your prices, and change them any time.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
RATES · NOVEMBER 2026
Home care rates (2026)
CareScout's 2025 medians for non-medical in-home care (homemaker and home health aide services, now reported together), from its survey of July–November 2025, published March 2026. The state groups take the lowest and highest median in each group, and the full-time row runs from the lowest state's monthly figure at 44 hours a week to the highest; the national median is $6,673 a month. Skilled care is a different service: a private duty nurse's median is $90 an hour or $160 a visit, and needs a license of its own.
| The job | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Non-medical home care, per hour (CareScout's 2025 state medians, lowest to highest) | $24–$46 per hour · about $96–$185 for 4 hours · CareScout |
| Non-medical home care, hourly, by state (CareScout's 2025 state medians) | Lowest-cost states, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama: $24–$27 · The ten largest states, Texas and North Carolina to California: $30–$40 · Highest-cost states, Minnesota, South Dakota, Maine, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming: $44–$46 · CareScout |
| Full-time care, 44 hours a week, per month (CareScout, 2025) | Lowest to highest state, Mississippi to Wyoming: $4,576–$8,771 · CareScout |
| Hourly rate, national median (non-medical caregiver, 2025) | $35 an hour · CareScout (Genworth) |
Rates read off each publisher's page in November 2026. The calculator above uses exactly these numbers, rounded to whole dollars and to the nearest $5 from $100 up. Full source list below.
ADD-ONS AND ADJUSTMENTS
What a family compares you with
The private-hire row is our arithmetic: Care.com's US average for caregivers families hire directly, set against CareScout's agency state medians.
| What | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Compare: a caregiver listed on care.com | Care.com's US average for service providers listed on its site, $21.75–$26.64 an hour, against the $24–$46 state-median range · Care.com figures |
Where a row shows a sum (a rate × a quantity, or a percentage worked out from published dollar ranges), the arithmetic is ours and the inputs are the publisher's.
THE PRICING FORMULA
How to set your home care rate
Six steps from the caregiver's pay to the hourly rate a family sees — and the full-time price that follows from it.
Start from the caregiver's pay
The median personal care aide earns $17.21 an hour (O*NET, 2025 wages). Set your own pay rate first: it's what decides whether you can staff the hours you sell.
Double it for the bill rate
The rule of thumb in Home Care Pulse's benchmarking is a bill rate double the pay rate — $12 an hour of pay billed at $24 in its July 2020 example. Doubled, $17.21 is $34.42.
Check the margin
In that 2020 study, direct care costs were 62% of revenue at the median-sized company, and the study's median gross margin was 38%. Payroll taxes, workers' comp and paid travel between clients come out of the gap, so check them against your own payroll.
Check your state's median
CareScout's 2025 state medians run from $24 an hour in Mississippi to $46 in Wyoming, with the national median at $35. A rate far above your state's median needs a reason the family can see.
Price full-time care by the hour
Multiply the rate by the weekly hours: CareScout's $6,673 a month is $35 × 44 hours × 52 weeks ÷ 12. Quote live-in and 24-hour care only after the overtime question below is settled.
Know what the family compares
Providers listed on Care.com charge $21.75–$26.64 an hour on the US average (November 2026); assisted living's national median is $6,200 a month and adult day health $95 a day (CareScout, 2025).
The rate, worked through
Pay a caregiver the $17.21 median and double it: $34.42, just under the $35 national median. A client who books 20 hours a week at $35 is $700 a week — about $3,033 a month.
Of that $700, the caregiver's pay is $344.20. The other $355.80 has to carry payroll taxes, insurance, scheduling, the office and the margin; the median gross margin in Home Care Pulse's 2020 study was 38%. If your own numbers leave less than that, the rate is too low for the pay you've set.
So “home care from $35 an hour, four-hour visits from $140, full-time care priced by the week” is a fair line for a rate sheet in a state near the median. The figures are the publishers'; the sums are ours.
What to charge in your state — and the rules that set your costs
CareScout's 2025 hourly medians spread almost two to one across the country: $24 in Mississippi, $25 in Arkansas, $26 in Louisiana and $27 in Alabama at the low end; $44 in Minnesota and South Dakota, $45 in Maine, Vermont and Washington and $46 in Wyoming at the top. Price from your own state's median, not the national one.
In the US, whether an agency must pay its caregivers overtime may change: the Department of Labor's 2013 rule “precluded third party employers (like home care agencies) from claiming” the companionship and live-in exemptions, and in July 2025 the Department proposed a return to the 1975 rules (its direct care page) — a proposal, not yet a final rule there. Check the current federal rule and your state's wage law before you price live-in or long shifts, and confirm the payroll lines with your accountant.
Licensing is set state by state too. In California, for one, home care organizations must be licensed by the Department of Social Services and their aides registered, and “home care services are non-medical services” — bathing, dressing, meals, companionship, help with medication the client takes themselves (CDSS fact sheet, April 2022). Check your own state's licensing office for what your caregivers may and may not do before it goes on your rate sheet. Medicaid, VA and long-term care insurance programs pay at rates they set; your rate sheet is for families paying privately.
Outside the US, treat the dollar figures as a shape, not a price: a rate worked up from the caregiver's pay, a state or regional median to check it against and full-time care priced from the hour hold everywhere. Check what the agencies near you publish.
Put your prices on your website
A price list — even “from” prices — answers a customer's first question before they pick up the phone, and it's the line an AI assistant can quote when someone asks what in-home care costs near them.
If you build your site with Zarla, tell the editor “add a pricing section: home care from $35 an hour, four-hour visits from $140, full-time care priced by the week” and your prices go on the site, in a section you can edit any time. Want to see a finished site first? Browse home care website templates or see how Zarla builds home care websites.
Still setting up? Write your home care business plan, and when the prices are set, read how to get your business on Google. Raising prices you set a year ago? The price increase letter tells customers a month ahead.
Home care pricing: common questions
The national median for non-medical home care is $35 an hour (CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey, published March 2026), from $24 in Mississippi to $46 in Wyoming. The calculator above groups the states.
Work it up from the caregiver's pay: the rule of thumb is a bill rate double the pay rate (Home Care Pulse, 2020), and the median personal care aide earns $17.21 an hour (O*NET, 2025) — about $34 doubled. Then check it against your state's median.
$6,673 a month at the national median for 44 hours a week, or $80,080 a year (CareScout, 2025) — $4,576 a month in Mississippi and $8,771 in Wyoming.
Caregivers families hire directly on Care.com charge $21.75–$26.64 an hour on the US average (November 2026), against the $35 agency median. The agency's rate also pays the employer's payroll taxes, insurance and the scheduling that finds a replacement when a caregiver is off; say what yours covers on your site.
In the US it depends on the current federal rule and your state: the Department of Labor's 2013 rule kept agencies from claiming the companionship and live-in exemptions, and the Department proposed reversing it in July 2025. Check your state's wage law and confirm with your accountant before you price long shifts.
Home care is non-medical help at home, priced by the hour at a $35 national median. Skilled nursing at home is a licensed medical service: CareScout's median private duty nurse is $90 an hour or $160 a visit (2025). Price only the services your license covers.
Yes — an hourly rate and a minimum visit answer a family's first question before the call, and it's the line an AI assistant can quote. On a Zarla site, tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your rates, and change them when your rates do.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is read off a published source, dated below. They're US figures for non-medical home care paid privately by families — typical, not a rule; your costs and your market come first.
- CareScout (Genworth) — CareScout Releases 2025 Cost of Care Survey Results (more than 25,000 rates) — dated March 2026, read November 2026
- CareScout — Cost of Care Survey 2025: Median Cost Data Tables (PDF; survey July–November 2025) — dated March 2026, read November 2026
- Care.com — Senior care cost in New York, NY, with the US average (rates of caregivers listed on Care.com) — dated November 2026, read November 2026
- Activated Insights (formerly Home Care Pulse) — How to Grow Your Business and Make More Money With Financial Benchmarking (Stephen Tweed) — dated July 2020, read November 2026
- O*NET OnLine — 31-1122.00 Personal Care Aides (median wages, 2025) — dated October 2026, read November 2026
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division — Direct care workers (the companionship and live-in exemptions) — no date on the page, read November 2026
- California Department of Social Services — Fact Sheet: The Home Care Services Consumer Protection Act (PDF) — dated April 2022, read November 2026
Put your home care rates on your website
Add your town and your agency's name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line. Your hourly rate and visit minimum go in a pricing section you edit by chat.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.