What Marketing Actually Costs a UK Home Care Agency in 2026

Last Updated on September 2, 2026

Home care marketing advice usually starts with brand, leaflets and Facebook. The actual money goes somewhere else entirely: directories, referral platforms and, above all, recruiting carers. Two of those three publish prices. One does not.

The mistake is signing up to lead channels that cannot be price-compared while the free, checkable parts of your public record sit empty. Whito read the whole CQC register in August 2026: 7,078 of England’s 14,509 registered home care agencies, 48.8%, have no website recorded on their CQC profile. Fix that before spending anything below.

The directories publish their prices

Both of your main directory options are priced in public, to the pound. A home care agency can hold a top-tier profile on both for £1,224 plus VAT a year.

The referral platforms do not

Lottie states on its provider page that it is free to list with success-based pricing, charged per qualified enquiry or per referred customer, with a 90 day notice period. It names no amounts. TrustedCare’s partners page publishes no fees or commission rates at all. When the priced channel costs £69 a month and the unpriced one charges an unknown amount per lead, price the unknown before you sign: ask for the per-enquiry fee in writing and work out your cost per new client at your real conversion rate.

The fixed stack underneath

Recruitment is marketing in this sector. Every carer vacancy unfilled is capacity you cannot sell, and job advertising is often the biggest real marketing line an agency has. It is also one of the few with published prices, so budget it like a channel, not an emergency.

Franchises: entry prices published, marketing levies not

Home Instead publishes a £41,000 plus VAT franchise fee for a new territory and a 6.5% royalty on revenues. Bluebird Care publishes a £45,000 plus VAT package inside a total investment it puts at £160,000 to £180,000. Right at Home publishes a £39,000 plus VAT fee and a 6.25% ongoing advice and support fee. None of the three publishes a separate marketing levy on those pages, so if you are evaluating a franchise, ask what marketing spend the royalty actually buys, in writing.

What to do, in order

Start: get your website onto your CQC profile. It is one email to the CQC and it is free. Half the sector has not done it. Our step-by-step guide is at how to get your website onto your CQC profile page.

Build: one priced directory profile, a working recruitment budget of at least one £89 advert a month, and a page per town you cover with the registered manager named.

Scale: only then test a per-lead platform, with the fee in writing and a cost per won client calculated against the £69 a month directory you already hold.

The takeaway: in home care, the channels that publish prices cost about £100 a month all in. Everything expensive is either unpriced or is really recruitment. Spend accordingly.

Common questions

What does it cost a home care agency to be listed on the care directories?

At published September 2026 rates, homecare.co.uk charges £34.50 plus VAT a month for Enhanced or £69 plus VAT a month for Platinum, invoiced annually at £414 and £828 plus VAT. Autumna’s premium profile is £33 a month plus VAT for home care agencies and £58 for live-in care branches.

What do referral platforms like Lottie and TrustedCare charge?

They do not publish figures. Lottie states it is free to list with success-based pricing, charged per qualified enquiry or per customer, but names no amounts. TrustedCare publishes no fees or commission rates. An agency cannot compare its two main lead channels on price without a sales call.

What are the fixed costs before any marketing?

The CQC’s published fee scheme for community social care is £239 plus £54.305 per service user per year for a single location, and Homecare Association membership is £1,030 including VAT for a first branch at the rates published in 2026.

Do care franchises charge a marketing levy?

None of the three big franchisors’ own pages publishes one. Home Instead publishes a £41,000 plus VAT franchise fee and a 6.5% royalty, Bluebird Care a £45,000 plus VAT package, and Right at Home a £39,000 plus VAT fee with a 6.25% ongoing fee, but no separate published marketing levy at any of them.

What should a home care agency fix before paying for any of this?

Its own public record. Whito’s August 2026 reading of the CQC register found 48.8% of England’s home care agencies have no website recorded on their CQC profile, the one page families, councils and AI engines all check.

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research bureau. We ask the AI engines what they recommend, then check the businesses they name against Companies House and the sector registers. Figures we publish carry the date they were checked. Companies cannot pay to appear or to rank.

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