How can we help?

Two things. For families it is a self-service marketplace: you tell us the care you need and the area you are in, and home-care agencies near you contact you with who is available and what it costs.

For home-care agencies it is the software they license to run their own business — scheduling, caregivers, care documents, invoicing and payroll — under their own brand. The Care Royal does not operate a care agency itself and does not employ caregivers.

Searching is free, creating an account is free, and requesting a quote is free. You pay only for care you actually book, at the rate you agree with the caregiver or the agency. There is no fee to look.

No. You can browse categories and search your area without an account. You create one when you want to send a care request, message a caregiver, or keep your schedule and documents in one place.

It depends on your area, the type of care and the schedule you need. After you send a request, an agency contacts you to confirm what is available and when. We do not promise a start date before we know your area, because short-notice cover depends on who is actually free locally.

If you arrange care yourself through the marketplace, there is no contract with us. If you use an agency, the agency sets its own terms and gives them to you in writing before care starts, so you can read them before agreeing to anything.

No. The Care Royal never holds client funds. You pay the caregiver or the agency directly at the rate you agreed. Agencies connect their own payment provider, so money moves between you and them, not through us.

No. Searching, creating an account, requesting a quote and applying as a caregiver are all free. The only thing we charge for is the software subscription an agency pays to run its business on the platform.

We are direct about this. The Care Royal connects families, caregivers and agencies; it does not vouch for anyone. What the platform does is record credentials and their expiry dates and flag them before they lapse, so an agency can see at a glance what is current.

Background checks and hiring decisions are made by the agency you work with, or by you if you hire directly, and the legal requirements differ by state. Ask any caregiver or agency what checks they run, and ask to see the results.

Yes. On the marketplace you search, compare and decide who to contact. If you would rather not do that work, a local agency can match you instead, and you can still say no to a match.

If you arranged the care yourself, you are free to choose someone else. If you are working with an agency, tell the agency and they arrange a different caregiver. Being able to change your mind without starting over is one of the reasons families use an agency.

With an agency, arranging cover is part of what you are paying them for, subject to who is available in your area. If you arranged care yourself, you cover the gap yourself, which is worth knowing before you choose that route.

Yes. The family portal shows the schedule, care notes, documents and messages for the whole household, so relatives are not relying on one person to relay everything.

Your request is transferred to home-care agencies in your area so they can contact you about care. That is what the request is for, and the form says so before you submit it.

Your details are not sold. Agencies pay us for the software they run their business on, not for your information, and we do not pass anything to advertisers or data brokers. You can ask us to delete your request at any time.

Inside the platform, care information is limited to your household and your care team, and that limit is enforced on our servers rather than only hidden in the interface. Each agency's data is isolated from every other agency, so one agency cannot see another's clients. For what happens to a care request you send, see the question above.

No. The Care Royal is not a medical provider and nothing on this site is medical advice. In an emergency call 911. Skilled home health, such as nursing or therapy, is delivered by licensed clinicians through an agency where that is available in your area.

On your own you choose the caregiver, agree the rate and manage the schedule, which costs less and gives you full control. With an agency, they build the schedule, arrange cover when someone is off, keep the care plan up to date and handle the paperwork, which costs more and takes the coordination off you.

If your needs are simple and predictable, such as a few set hours a week, arranging it yourself usually works well. If the care is daily, medically involved, or cannot be missed on a day when someone is sick, an agency is the safer choice.

Yes. It is the same account, so you keep your household details, your documents and your history when you switch.

When you arrange care directly you are the one making the arrangement, and household employment and tax rules vary by state. We are not able to give you legal or tax advice, so confirm your situation with a tax professional. If you would rather not deal with that at all, hiring through an agency means the agency handles the employment side.

Apply once through the caregiver form. Families and agencies in your area can then see your profile, and you choose which services you offer and which hours you are available.

No. Applying is free and keeping your profile is free. We do not charge caregivers to be seen or to be contacted.

Your contact details, the services you offer, the hours you are available and any credentials you hold. An agency may ask for more depending on the role and on the rules in your state, and it will tell you what it needs.

Yes. You set which services you offer and when you are available, and you can change both. You are not obliged to accept work that does not suit you.

You are paid by the family or the agency you work with. The Care Royal does not pay caregivers and does not hold funds. What the platform gives you is a clock-in and clock-out record, your shift history and your pay documents in one place, so there is a record if a payment is ever disputed.

Yes, that is what the software is for. You get client and caregiver portals under your own branding, your own public microsite with an agency code, and your data stays separate from every other agency on the platform. Your clients stay your clients.

Scheduling with conflict warnings and auto-match, recurring bookings, caregiver availability, clock-in and clock-out, credential and expiry tracking, e-signed care documents, a document studio for paystubs, invoices, receipts, letters and care plans, quote and application intake, a public microsite, reviews, reporting, notifications and an audit log.

No, and this is deliberate. You connect your own Stripe account for payments and your own payroll provider, or you use the in-app pay documents. Because you keep your own accounts, your money never passes through us and you are not locked in.

No. It is a software subscription only. We do not take a cut of your billing, we do not hold your funds, and we do not sit between you and your clients.

Yes. Every agency is a separate tenant and the separation is enforced by server-side rules, not by hiding things in the interface. One agency cannot read another agency's clients, caregivers, schedules or documents.

Yes. The client and caregiver portals and your public microsite carry your agency's branding, and families reach it through your own agency code.

You apply, we review the application, and then you set up your agency: your services, your team and your permissions. Owners, managers, staff and clients each get their own level of access, and manager permissions are set toggle by toggle.

We open area by area rather than claiming national coverage we cannot staff. Enter your zip code in the search and we will tell you where things stand where you are.

Tell us your zip code anyway. We will say so honestly rather than take a request we cannot fill, and we will note your area so we can contact you when we open there.

Email [email protected] and a person replies. There is no phone tree, and we do not cold-call you for signing up.

Use the delete account page, linked in the footer of every page. It removes your account and the personal data attached to it, apart from records we are required to keep.