What: CareLinx serves as a matchmaker between caregivers and the families that need full and part-time help caring for elderly relatives
Expected pay: $15 per hour, on average
Husl$core: $$$$
Commissions & fees: $20 for a background check
Where: Washington, Seattle, San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, San Antonio, Phoenix, Philadelphia, New York, Memphis, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Houston, Fort Worth, El Paso, Detroit, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Charlotte, Boston, Austin, Atlanta
Requirements: Over 18 years old; U.S. citizen or legally authorized to work in the U.S.; clean criminal record; 2 years experience
Review:
If you’d like to provide care for elderly people, CareLinx can serve as an inexpensive way to do your marketing outreach. The site allows care givers to register for free and connect with families that are looking for care. The only cost to the caregiver is a $20 fee to get background-checked. Given that the job involves caring for a vulnerable population, we think that’s a reasonable requirement.
CareLinx makes money by offering payroll processing to families that want to hire caregivers. Importantly, too, the site treats caregivers as employees of the client, so you and your client will both be paying into the Social Security and Medicare systems. This is a great deal for the caregivers. Otherwise, you’d be considered an independent contractor, which means you pay both the employer and the employee portions of these taxes. (See our primer on taxes for a more detailed explanation).
The only downside is that average pay is a little low for seasoned help at $15 an hour. However, site representatives note that this is a national average, which varies by location and experience. Caregivers set their own rate of pay, so if you have experience and expect more, ask for it.
You may also want to check out Care.com, Indeed and Glassdoor for other eldercare jobs. If you want babysitting work, we recommend Urban Sitter, Bambino and Trusted.
What their users say: (from TrustPilot)
I have had several jobs with Care Linx. The employees you deal with are very professional, they really care if you are hired. And unlike Care.com, they follow up. They don’t charge the caregivers to be a part of the company, unlike care.com. I truly believe Care Linx is a better run company.
As a caregiver, I really enjoyed using this site to find good jobs that pay what I want to be paid. I have load of experience and so I was able to charge more what I am actually worth instead of the going rate. I had some trouble when I got a raise and they ended up only processing one of the two, days that needed to be amended, so I lost out a little. The guy who called me at the beginning saying he would be available to me with any questions was impossible to reach after that initial contact but there were other people willing to help. Besides that, all awesome!! I got paid on time, never had an issue there. My clients have been wonderful. It is a great company to work with.
Your payroll part of your company is perfect, was always paid on time and never had a discrepancy with my patient and his family. But I don’t get much response from posting availability on your site.
Probably most of the caregivers on this site are good. However in my case, I already had a caregiver. She was with another agency that went out of business, so we went through Carelinx. But I didn’t know that we are considered the employer, not Carelinx and that there was additional money we had to pay the federal government every quarter. So I couldn’t figure out what the additional costs were for Carelinx. While the rep was nice, the process wasn’t explained very well.
It was not explained prior that my 93-year-old mother had to become an employer, complete with an EIN number and business license. It is difficult enough to own a business in California, let enough have a 93-year-old woman in poor health be responsible for all that goes with it. In addition, she would have needed to give access to her checking account in order for the accounting company CareLinx uses to withdraw quarterly taxes. We were not comfortable with any of this and wound up canceling the service.
I’m using CareLinx as a way to document that I’m paying the caregiver for my mother and it’s been good so far. I told my caregiver, “I need to pay you through an agency.” But my caregiver didn’t want to work for an agency that has a prohibitive fee. A lot of agencies give the caregiver less than half of what they charge the customer. Our caregiver found CareLinx and suggested that we use them. So, we compromised on her registering with CareLinx. They have good customer service and they stay in touch. In fact, they’re asking me too many times how things are going, but I’ll forgive them for that.