About ParentCareCalc
Last updated: April 2026
Most senior care websites are owned by the people selling senior care. ParentCareCalc isn't. It's a free, independent tool built to help families compare assisted living, in-home care, memory care, and family caregiving costs honestly — including the costs that other calculators leave out.
Why this site exists
Choosing care for an aging parent is one of the most expensive financial decisions a family will ever make, and most families make it under emotional pressure with very little time to compare options. When they search online for help, the top results are almost always operated by referral networks, facility chains, or insurance brokers — businesses whose recommendations are influenced, sometimes heavily, by who pays them.
That isn't necessarily wrong. Referral services connect a lot of families to care that works. But families deserve at least one place to run the numbers without a sales call attached. ParentCareCalc was built to be that place.
Who runs this
ParentCareCalc is operated by a small independent editorial team. The site is not affiliated with any care facility, referral network, insurance company, government agency, or healthcare provider. There is no parent company, no investor, and no commercial partner who has a say in what the calculator recommends.
The team's role is narrow: choose authoritative public data sources, translate them into a tool people can actually use, keep the figures current, and write the supporting reference content for each state. Editorial decisions — which sources to use, how to present the math, what to leave out — are made by the team, not by anyone paying for placement.
How the site is paid for
ParentCareCalc is supported entirely by Google AdSense. Google decides which ads to show based on the visitor and the page; we have no say in which advertisers appear and no relationship with any of them. We also don't accept sponsored content, paid placements, "featured" facility listings, or affiliate payments from senior care providers.
The practical effect: when the calculator suggests that home care is cheaper than assisted living for your situation, no one is paying us to say so. When it suggests the opposite, no one is paying us for that either. The math is the math.
What we don't do
- No lead generation. We don't collect your name, email address, phone number, ZIP code, or any other contact information. Nothing you enter into the calculator leaves your browser.
- No referrals to facilities. We don't sell visitor information to A Place for Mom, Caring.com, local senior living advisors, or any other referral service.
- No "get a free consultation" upsells. The tool is the product. There is no premium tier, paid upgrade, or gated report.
- No medical, legal, or financial advice. ParentCareCalc provides cost reference data and a planning calculator. Decisions about care should be made with input from family, the person receiving care, and qualified professionals where appropriate.
Editorial principles
Every cost figure on the site traces back to a named, dated, public data source — primarily the Genworth Cost of Care Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and AARP's Caregiving in the U.S. study. Our methodology page lists each source and how it's used.
Most calculators show only the bills you'd pay to a facility or agency. We also show the cost of "free" family caregiving — lost wages, lost retirement contributions, and out-of-pocket spending — because for many families that is the largest cost of all.
The calculator presents the comparison; it doesn't push a conclusion. The right choice depends on factors no calculator can measure — the parent's preferences, the caregiver's situation, the level of supervision needed. We try to be useful for the math and quiet on the rest.
Cost figures are refreshed annually when Genworth releases its updated Cost of Care Survey, with smaller revisions when BLS or AARP publish new data. The methodology page documents the current data vintage for every figure.
Limitations to know about
The calculator gives you a defensible estimate, not a quote. State-level medians can hide significant variation — assisted living in San Francisco is not priced like assisted living in Bakersfield, and rural in-home care often costs less than the state median while urban care often costs more. Use the result as a starting point for deeper conversations with facilities and agencies in your specific area.
The "true cost of family caregiving" figures use national averages from the AARP study. Your family's actual lost income depends on your wage, your benefits, your employer's leave policies, and how much care you provide. The calculator gives you an honest order-of-magnitude estimate, not a personal financial projection.
How the site stays current
ParentCareCalc doesn't operate a contact form, support inbox, or account system — part of being a genuinely zero-data-collection tool is not having an inbound channel at all. Instead, the editorial team reviews the site on a regular cadence and updates figures, citations, and state pages as source data changes. Annual updates follow the Genworth release cycle; smaller revisions happen throughout the year as BLS and AARP publish new data.
Related pages
- Methodology — data sources, formulas, and update cadence
- Privacy policy — what we collect (almost nothing) and how ads work
- Calculator — the tool itself