Care: Industry Leader for Caregiving Help

What is Care?

With more than 32 million members, Care is the industry giant. This marketplace connects caregivers of all types — babysitters, elder care workers, and pet sitters — with clients needing all types of care.

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How it works

Caregivers can sign up and create a profile for free. This profile includes your name, background, the area you work in — both geographically and whether you specialize in child, adult or medically-necessary care.

You can also include your credentials, if any, information about references, etc. You also set your own earnings expectations. Normal posted ranges go from $25 to as much as $75 per hour, depending on credentials and the type of care you provide. (Child care ranges typically go from $25 to $35 per hour; medically-necessary care provided by people with licenses, typically pays more.)

The one cost to register is you must be background checked. (Given the nature of caregiving, this seems reasonable.) The site’s background check fee is $15 to $17 annually, depending on your location.

But, if you want to be able to apply for jobs that you see listed here or communicate with parents who message you, you’ll need to pay for membership. And, since paying the membership gives you a free background check each year, we think it’s easy to recommend Care’s premium membership for caregivers.

Notably, Care also allows you to sign up to provide animal care services here. However, the site isn’t well-known for this, so you’re better off signing up to provide animal care on Rover.

Care review

The fact that Care is the largest and best-established caregiving marketplace gives caregivers greater potential to find a job — and provides families with the best chance of finding a good caregiver for children, disabled or elderly adults.

However, the site charges everyone some sort of up-front fee to communicate. That can be discouraging. However, the fees charged to caregivers are modest. And, these are the only fees you’ll pay.

Unlike some other sites that charge commissions on worker wages, when you get a job through this site, you’re paid directly by the client. There are no additional fees deducted from your wages.

Numerous caregivers have told us that this is the most effective site for finding clients. Many sign up, find full-time or regular work and drop their subscriptions, only to sign up again when they lose a client.

Fees for caregivers

Caregivers pay $9 a month or $24 semi-annually for a premium membership.

In addition to allowing you to communicate with potential clients, a premium membership raises your profile on the site. And it provides job alerts, which can be an advantage with a site that has so many members.

Premium members also don’t need to pay the background check fee. So, the net cost is relatively minor.

You can sign up to be a caregiver here. (Click on “find work” at the top of the page.)

Fees for families

Meanwhile, families must also pay a monthly or annual subscription to talk to caregivers. Notably, families can post jobs for free. But, if they want to contact a caregiver to fill that job, they must pay for a premium membership. These memberships cost $155 annually or $39 monthly.

You can sign up to find caregivers here.

Auto-renewal

However, know that memberships — for both caregivers and families — auto-renew. So, if you don’t physically cancel, you’ll pay every month (or year) until you do. Automatic renewal is far and away the biggest complaint we see about this site. The site does not give refunds.

Recommendations

Other sites that offer good child care opportunities are Bambino, SitterCity and Urban Sitter.

You can register to provide elder care at Carelinx or IntelyCare.

A better site to find pet-care jobs is Rover. (You can sign up with Rover here.)

What their users say (from Indeed):

As you might know, Care.com is just a website to match you with the family that best suits you! There are various pay rates, and a well written bio can land you great opportunities.

As a college student I needed to find a flexible job that wasn’t too demanding and easy to navigate. I found great families through Care. com and it really helped put me through school. I learned so much about nannying – how to communicate expectations, negotiate and to care for a range of ages.

Care. com is an excellent resource in finding work with children, pets, and elderly people. I had a lot of luck working off of this site and was able to secure multiple jobs.

Wonderful families

Care. com has helped me meet some wonderful families that i have known for years. the only downside is making the sitters pay for a membership seems insane.

I love the work that I do with care. com. The clients needing assistance with care for their loved one or housekeeping services are very nice and professional. A typical month of work can vary, also you can work as a caregiver and a housekeeper the at the same time.

I’ve worked with Care for 3 years. It can be a good job to have if you want flexible hours and you can set your own prices for services you provide. The only downfall is having to pay a $20 monthly fee to stay premium. If you are not premium then you won’t be able to talk to potential clients. I have also had a difficult time using their payment system. They actually kept drawing money out of one of my client’s accounts. The client and I had to go to our own banks and tell them to stop letting Care take money out of the client’s account. From then on I’ve told future clients to use a different way to pay me.

*Updated 1/30/2023