Marketing for care homes and home care groups
Almost nobody chooses a care home calmly. The decision is made in a fortnight, usually after a fall, by an adult child two hundred miles away with a laptop. This page covers what that person can see about you before they ring, and how much of it is missing from the register they are told to check.
FINDING
7,078 of England’s 14,509 registered home care agencies, 48.8%, have no website on the CQC register, and 27,551 of all 57,082 registered care services, 48.3%, are missing one, on the CQC care directory file dated 26 August 2026.
Source: The CQC register website gap, Whito Research.
Start, Build, Scale
The right order for care homes
Do the stages in order. Nothing in Build works while Start is missing.
Start, Build, Scale for care homes: the free foundations first, then systems and proof, then measurement. The three stages are listed in full in this figure.
Start
- CQC registration linked in text
- Fees published
- Google Business Profile with real photos
Build
- One page per care type
- Staff introductions
- A clear visit-booking path for families
Scale
- Track enquiries to placements by source
- Reviews from families, asked properly
- Keep the register profile current
What we know, and what we have not measured yet
Whito holds the CQC care directory file dated 26 August 2026 and has published the home care cut of it. Half the register carries no website. That is a measured figure from the regulator’s own published file, and it is the single most useful thing we know about this sector.
That cut is now published. On the CQC care directory file dated 2 September 2026 there are 14,892 registered care home locations in England, and 6,768 of them, 45.5%, have no website recorded. The full study, UK Care Homes 2026, also joins the register to CQC ratings and records what Google AI Mode named when Whito asked for a trustworthy care home in 20 UK towns on 8 September 2026.
One thing we deliberately do not claim. The only national, methodologically consistent self-funder premium is the CMA’s 41%, or £236 a week, and it is from November 2017. Anyone quoting a current national premium is comparing two different measures.
Whito need-to-know for care providers
- Half the register has no website on it. On the CQC care directory file dated 26 August 2026, 27,551 of 57,082 registered services had no website recorded, and 7,078 of 14,509 home care agencies. When Whito spot-checked ten blank home care entries, three had a working website the register did not hold. Adding a URL to your CQC profile is free, takes minutes, and puts you in the visible half.
- Registration is statutory and unregistered operation is a criminal offence. Under section 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, carrying on a regulated activity without registration is an offence carrying a fine or imprisonment. In Scotland it is section 80 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, with a level 5 fine or up to three months. Care Inspectorate Wales and RQIA regulate the other two nations. This is the strongest register block in the /for/ section, and very few providers lead with it.
- CQC does not rate on the same framework any more, and families do not know that. At 1 August 2025, 3,062 adult social care services were rated under the Single Assessment Framework and 20,467 still carried a rating from a previous framework, per the State of Care 2024/25 ratings appendix. A family comparing two homes may be comparing two different measurement systems without being told. If your rating is old, say when it was given.
- The fee benchmark comes from a directory that also sells you listings. carehome.co.uk publishes the most-quoted self-funder averages, £1,298 a week residential and £1,535 nursing, from its own listing data dated 9 September 2025. It also sells enhanced listings at £990 a year and platinum at £1,980, both plus VAT. That is a legitimate business, and it means the sector’s price benchmark and the sector’s main advertising channel are the same company.
- The published local authority rate is public and searchable. Councils publish their own standard rates. Bath and North East Somerset, for example, published general residential at £900.02 a week and home care at £26.16 an hour for 2026/27, effective 6 April 2026. Families increasingly find these before they call you. Knowing your own council’s published rate is basic preparation for the fee conversation.
- Home care fee rates are a published, contested number. The Homecare Association’s minimum price for England for April 2025 to March 2026 was £32.14 an hour, and it reported that only 1% of homecare contracts with public bodies met it. The 2026/27 figure is behind a paywall. If you are quoting a rate to a private client, that published minimum is the number a well-briefed family will have seen.
Why families cannot find or compare you
Missing from the register they are told to check
Nearly half of all registered services carry no website on the CQC record. The family looks you up on the regulator’s site, finds a name and an address and nothing else, and moves to the provider whose entry has a link.
A rating with no date on it
Twenty thousand services still show a rating from a superseded framework. Publishing the rating without the date it was given, and without saying which framework gave it, reads as evasive to anyone who has been comparing homes for a fortnight.
No price anywhere, in the decision with the largest number attached
A family is weighing something in the region of a thousand pounds a week. The directory publishes an average. You publish nothing. The conversation then starts from somebody else’s figure and you spend the call defending it.
What actually works
In this order. Structure before scale.
Fix your CQC profile first
Website, phone number, manager name. It is free, it is the page families are sent to by the regulator, and on the file we hold half the sector has left it incomplete.
Publish the rating with its date
The rating, when it was awarded, which framework, and a direct link to the report. Being straight about an older rating reads better than hiding it, because the family will find it anyway.
Publish a weekly fee range
By room type or care type, as a range, with a dated line saying when it was last reviewed and what is and is not included. Nursing, dementia and respite priced separately if they differ.
Write for the adult child, not the resident
The person searching is usually 45 to 65, working, and frightened. They want visiting hours, what happens at night, how you handle a fall, and what the fee covers. Write those pages plainly.
One page per catchment town
Named towns and villages you actually serve, with travel times. Home care groups in particular lose to national brands on generic pages and win on specific ones.
Reviews from families, not residents
Ask the relative who visits, in the week after the first month, about the handover, the communication and the food. Those are the three things every other family asks about.
Quick wins this week
Add your website to your CQC profile
Free, a few minutes, and on the register file we hold 48.3% of services have not done it. Nothing else on this list has that ratio of effort to effect.
Put the rating and its date on the homepage
With a link to the inspection report. If the rating is from a superseded framework, say so. It costs nothing and it pre-empts the question.
Publish one weekly fee range
Even one line, for your most common room type, with a dated review note. It moves the fee conversation onto your number instead of the directory’s average.
Common mistakes
Buying directory listings before fixing the register
An enhanced listing is £990 a year plus VAT and a platinum one £1,980. A CQC profile URL is free. Do the free one first and then decide whether the paid one adds anything.
Quoting the national average as your price
The most-cited self-funder averages are one directory’s own listing data. They are a benchmark, not a valuation of your home, and a family that finds their council’s published rate will ask you to justify the gap.
Photographs of the building and none of the day
Every care home website shows the garden. Very few show what a Tuesday afternoon actually looks like, which is the only thing the family is trying to picture.
Care home and home care marketing guides
Half the register carries no website. What a family sees when they look you up, what is missing, and how to fix it for nothing.
Care home fees, and what to publishWhat the published benchmarks actually measure, why the national self-funder premium is nine years old, and how to publish a fee range that holds up.
Start, Build, Scale for a care providerWhich stage you are at, what a single site fixes first, and what changes when you become a group.
Care software, and who publishes a priceFour care management vendors, zero published prices for a paid plan. What we found, and what to ask before you sign.
What marketing costs a home care agencyThe published directory prices, the job advert costs and the registration fees a home care agency actually pays.
UK care marketing leaderboardFive UK care providers scored on what search and AI engines can actually read about them.
The register that matters
Care is registered, and unregistered operation is a criminal offence.
Every care home and home care agency in England must be registered with the Care Quality Commission. Section 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 makes carrying on a regulated activity without registration an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine or imprisonment, and on indictment by a fine or up to twelve months. Scotland registers through the Care Inspectorate under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, where section 80 carries a level 5 fine or up to three months. Wales registers through Care Inspectorate Wales under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, and Northern Ireland through RQIA. Registration is not a badge, it is the licence to trade, and the register is public. Which makes the gap on it the strangest thing in this sector: on the CQC care directory file dated 26 August 2026, 27,551 of the 57,082 registered services carried no website at all, and when Whito spot-checked ten blank home care entries, three of them had a working website the register did not hold. Adding it is free. Fees for context, all read at source on 8 September 2026: CQC annual fees for a care home run from £313 for fewer than four service users to £15,710 above ninety on the scheme published as 2024/25, and community social care is charged at £239 plus £54.305 per service user per location.
The library
Every guide, study and tool for care homes
4 guides · 2 studies · 1 tool. All specific to care homes, every figure dated. The data file behind the studies is on sale too.
GuideCare Marketing: Start, Build, Scale
GuideHow to check a care home’s CQC rating (England)
GuideThe CQC Profile, and What Families Actually Check
StudyUK Care Homes 2026: the register gap and who AI names
StudyUK Care Sector Statistics 2026: The Register Gap, Reviews and Costs
ToolCare Management Software in the UK, and Who Publishes a Price
DataThe data file behind our care homes studies, on sale as a single purchase
Ready to fill your beds?
See what search and AI engines can read on your site. Seventeen checks, about twenty seconds, no email, no sales call. Then list your business free in the Whito directory. Money cannot buy either.
Looking for care instead?
Whito is a marketing guide for the trade, not a booking site. If you are trying to hire, the Whito directory only lists UK businesses we can confirm are real, using Companies House where they are registered. If we can’t confirm one, we say so.
Whito is independent and companies cannot pay to appear in our guidance. This page is marketing advice, not regulatory, legal or care advice: check registration requirements and fees with the CQC, the Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Wales or RQIA directly. If you are choosing care for someone, start with the regulator’s own directory and your local authority.