Care.com Reviews: Is the Site Worth it?

Care.com is designed to connect those in need of various care assistance with those who provide it. Read our care.com review from editors and readers.

About Care.com

Care.com claims to provide “better care for your whole family.” The website is designed to connect those in need of various types of  assistance with those who provide it. The website mainly specializes in services such as child care, pet care, and senior care, although many other services are available on the site as well.

March 2013 Search

We first set up a Care account in March 2013 and posted a listing searching for a pet sitter. Upon signing up, we were greeted with another screen asking for more details regarding our needs, with a notification that there were 734 pet sitters near us. A response was guaranteed within 3 days.

After posting our listing for a dog sitter, we were prompted to fill in even more details for our profile, such as gender, birthday, etc. After this step we were asked to choose a subscription plan, which is detailed under the subheading below.

How much does Care.com Cost?

Below were the rates posted in March 2013:

Basic – Free
This included refined searches, limited profiles, and limited job posts.

Premium – $37 for 1 month, $77 for 3 months, or $147 for a year.
Premium membership includes refined searches, full profiles, background checks, contact info, full job posts, and references.

Care.com “conveniently” pre-selected the $37 option for us, but we went against their recommendation and selected the free plan.

Rates as of January 2015

We checked the rates again in January 2015, and there were slight differences, as shown below:

• 1 Month: $35
• 3-Month: $23.30/month ($70 total)
• 12-Month: $11.67/month ($140 total)

Apparently customers are billed the total instead of monthly when choosing the 3-month and 12-month pricing options.

They no longer list the plans as “Free” and “Premium” as they did in 2013. The website now simply says to “upgrade your membership” and offers the prices listed above.

After selecting a plan, we were shown a couple of “featured” pet sitters in the area, which presumably paid for this advertised listing. If you select one of the featured vendors, you can fill out a form to request more information.

The results page shows a photo of your potential sitter, along with a star rating, their years of experience, pay rate, when they last logged in, education, and a short bio. You can favorite or hide the profiles you wish to see more or less often.

Users can also further refine searches to include a smaller or larger search radius, an hourly rate, profile activity on the site, and/or other criteria.

After a few more introductory screens, we were finally able to see the main screen for care.com, as seen below:

This screen provides the option to search for a variety of services such as baby sitters & nannies, child care centers, au pairs, tutors, senior caregivers, pet care, housekeeping, salons, etc.

One catch

After searching for services in our area, we immediately noticed one big catch: If you see someone you want to hire, you must upgrade your site membership in order to contact that person. The only option with a free account is to post a listing and see who responds.

Complaints

The reason we decided to sign up for care.com in March of 2013 is because we received several complaints from readers who were dissatisfied with the service. Such complaints include:

• No responses to listings, despite dozens of potential caregivers in an area
• Zero results for paid promotions
• Being nickle-and-dimed
• Incorrect or incomplete background checks
• Receiving spam emails regarding new job listings
• Caregivers not showing up for jobs
• Difficult to cancel auto-renew membership

Care.com BBB Rating

As of this January of 2015 revision, Care.com has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and has been accredited with the bureau since October 31, 2007.

Care.com has resolved 459 complaints filed with the BBB over the last 3 years, and 205 of these have been in the last 12 months. Many of these complaints seem to be in relation to billing and collection issues, followed by problems with the product or service and advertising/sales issues.

Out of 839 reviews for Care.com on the BBB as of this writing, 566 are positive, 12 neutral, and 261 negative. This is a 4.62 star (out of 5 stars) rating.

Disappearing Info in Old Messages

If you pay for a membership, be sure to copy any communication into a document on your computer before you cancel your subscription. If you go from a paid membership back to a free one, care.com removes any personal or contact info in your inbox, including messages you received while you were a paid member.

Alternatives to Care.com

We found it just as easy to simply Google the name of a pet sitter to get immediate information without having to pay Care.com. In fact, doing a Google search of pet sitters in our area yielded a map with descriptions and user reviews.

Google Trends History

The Google Trends graph below shows interest in Care.com over time. Interest in the website appears to experience a surge every August with a peak surge occurring in August of 2013. Since August of 2013, interest has declined somewhat, yet still appears to ebb and flow.

Bottom Line

We weren’t terribly impressed with care.com. We didn’t receive any responses to our listing, and the inability to contact other members renders the “free” portion of the site useless. Sticking with Google and Yelp for finding services is not only free, but was also superior in search results.

Care.com is probably better suited to some niches than others, perhaps in those areas where Google and Yelp are lacking.

Your Care.com Reviews

Have you used care.com? Give us your reviews in the comments below.

Updated January 23, 2015
Originally published March 2013