Estimating the Cost of Help at Home

Most families do not buy home care all at once. They start with a few hours of help each week, then add more as needs grow. That is why the cost can be hard to guess. This guide shows a simple way to build your own estimate, step by step, from one clear rate.

This guide is part of our Aging at Home hub. Its sister guides cover comparing home care with residential care expenses, budgeting for expenses Medicare may not cover, and understanding long-term care insurance documents. A related guide is what long-term care costs: the 2025 numbers.

Key takeaways

• In-home non-medical care had a national median rate of $35 per hour in the CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025.
• Your monthly cost is mostly a math problem: hours per week times the hourly rate.
• Ten hours a week at the median rate is about $1,517 a month. Twenty hours a week is about $3,033 a month.
• Adult day programs, at a median of $95 per day, can cover weekday hours for less than one-to-one home care.
• Original Medicare does not pay for non-medical home care. Most home help is private pay, unless Medicaid or a long-term care policy helps.

Start with the hourly rate

CareScout's Cost of Care Survey 2025 puts the national median for in-home non-medical care at $35 per hour. Non-medical care means help with daily tasks: baths, meals, rides, light house work, and keeping company. It is the kind of help an aide or home care agency gives. It is not skilled nursing care.

A median is the middle rate. Half of the places CareScout surveyed charged more, and half charged less. Rates also change by state and by town. Your local rate may sit well above or below $35. Use the median as a starting point, then call two or three local agencies and ask for their hourly rate and their minimum hours per visit.

Turn hours into a monthly cost

The math is simple. Take the hours of help each week. Multiply by the hourly rate. Multiply by 52 weeks. Then divide by 12 months.

At the $35 median rate, the sums look like this:

Read the pattern, not just the sums. Each added hour per week adds about $152 a month at the median rate. So a small change in the weekly plan is not a small change in the yearly bill. Ten extra hours a week is about $18,200 a year. When you build your estimate, write down the tasks that truly need a paid aide, and the tasks family or friends can still cover. That list is what sets your hours, and your hours set your cost.

Also plan for growth. Needs tend to rise over time. A sound estimate has two lines: the cost of help now, and the cost if hours double. If the second line breaks your budget, that is a sign to look at the other choices below while you still have time to choose.

• Five hours a week: about $758 a month.
• Ten hours a week: about $1,517 a month.
• Twenty hours a week: about $3,033 a month.
• Forty hours a week: about $6,067 a month.

Compare with adult day programs and assisted living

Home care is not the only way to buy help, and past a point it is not the cheapest.

Adult day programs had a national median rate of $95 per day in the same CareScout survey. Three days a week at that rate is about $1,235 a month. Five days a week is about $2,058 a month. A day program covers meals, activities, and supervision for a full day, and the person still sleeps at home. For a family that needs weekday cover while a spouse or adult child works, a day program can cost far less than an aide for the same hours.

Assisted living had a national median of $6,200 per month in the CareScout survey. Compare that with the home care sums above. Round-the-clock home care costs far more than assisted living. Even forty hours a week of home care, at about $6,067 a month, is close to the assisted living median, and it covers far fewer hours. The crossover is the key fact in this guide: the more hours of help a person needs each week, the stronger the case for a setting where staff are already on site. Home care wins on cost when needs are light or part-time. It loses on cost when needs are heavy and daily.

Who covers what

• Original Medicare: does not pay for non-medical home care. Medicare home health is a different benefit. It covers short-term skilled care, such as nursing or therapy, when a doctor orders it and the person meets the program's rules. It does not pay an aide to help with baths, meals, or house work on an ongoing basis.
• Medicaid: may pay for home and community-based help through waiver programs in many states, for people who meet income and care-need rules. Each state runs its own programs, with its own waiting lists, so check with your state Medicaid office or your local Area Agency on Aging.
• Private pay: most non-medical home care is paid out of pocket, at the agency's hourly rate. This is the figure your estimate should rest on.
• Long-term care insurance: a policy you already own may pay for home care, often after a waiting period and up to a daily or monthly cap. Read the policy's home care section, or ask the insurer to state in writing what it will pay.

Sample Situation

Dana, age 74, lives alone and needs help after a hip injury. She starts with eight hours of aide time a week, for baths, meals, and rides to therapy. At her local agency's rate, close to the national median, she expects to pay about $1,200 a month. She writes a second line in her budget for sixteen hours a week, about $2,400 a month, in case her needs grow. The two-line plan lets her say yes to help now without fearing the cost later, and it shows her son exactly how they got each figure.

Your next step

When you are ready to see how care costs and coverage fit together, our Paying for Care section walks through who pays for what, step by step.

Sources

• https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care
• https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/home-health-services