How much does in-home care cost per hour?

The national rate and what it assumes

The $35 figure is the 2025 national median for a non-medical in-home caregiver. The same survey prices a year of care at 44 hours a week, which is where the often-quoted $6,673 a month and $80,080 a year come from. That is not a rule about how much help people need. It is the survey's own assumption, quoted so the monthly figure can be compared across care types, and it is written into the footnote rather than left implied.

Treat the monthly number as a benchmark, not a forecast. Most families do not buy exactly 44 hours a week. Some start with a few mornings and add shifts as needs change, which is why the hours table further down matters more than the rate alone.

The hourly rate, state by state

These are the survey's own state medians for a non-medical in-home caregiver, ranked from the most expensive hour to the cheapest. The monthly column is the hourly rate multiplied by 44 hours a week, so it moves with the rate and nothing else.

The spread tracks the local cost of labor and how tight the supply of home health aides is. States at the top of the table pay more to hire and keep a caregiver; states at the bottom pay less. The most expensive hour, in Wyoming, is almost twice the cheapest, in Mississippi, and that gap shows up in every weekly bill.

Why the hours matter as much as the rate

The monthly bill is the rate times the hours, so a cheap state with long shifts can cost more than an expensive state with short ones. That is the single most useful thing to understand before comparing quotes.

Read the table sideways. Twenty hours a week in Wyoming at $46 an hour comes to about $3,987 a month, which is less than 44 hours a week at $24 in Mississippi at about $4,576. A quote that looks expensive per hour is not necessarily the more expensive arrangement.

How to compare two home care quotes

Hourly rates are quoted on different terms, so line up four things before you decide.

1. The rate per hour, and whether it changes on weekends or holidays.
2. The minimum shift, because a four-hour minimum turns a short visit into a four-hour charge.
3. Whether there is a separate agency fee, an assessment fee, or a surcharge for personal care such as bathing and dressing.
4. Who supervises the caregiver and what happens when the regular aide is sick or on holiday, since a gap in coverage is the most common complaint families raise.

The care cost calculator on this site turns a rate and an hours figure into a monthly and annual total, so you can put two quotes on the same footing before you talk to either provider.

Where these numbers come from

Every hourly figure on this page is a state median published in the CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, ranked median costs by state (fieldwork July through November 2025), and the $35 national rate is the same survey's national median. The monthly columns are arithmetic on those rates at 44 hours a week, and are labelled as derived rather than quoted. No rate here is estimated or rounded to a rounder number. The Medicare home health rules were read from Medicare.gov. This is not financial or medical advice for any individual.