Home care software free is a question about fit before it is a question about features: free-tier reality: what running an agency on $0 software actually gets you, and where it ends. This page is written for the owner or administrator choosing what a US home care or home health agency runs on, and it stays deliberately vendor-neutral: the categories, the costs' real drivers and the questions that expose a bad fit, with the paperwork arithmetic free on this site so you can weigh any vendor against your own workload.
What the category actually does
Strip the branding and the category does four jobs: it keeps the client record (assessments, plans, contacts), it builds the roster and matches carers to visits, it captures what happened at the door, and it turns all of that into the paperwork someone else demands: the invoice, the claim, the survey binder. Any product that does those four well can run an agency; anything else it does is comfort.
The buying mistake this trade makes
Agencies buy on the demo's scheduling screen and live with the paperwork for years. The demo never shows the plan overdue for its 60-day review, the visit that failed EVV capture, or the export you need when you leave. Ask every vendor to show those three, in that order; the answers separate systems built for agencies from systems adapted to them.
What it should cost, honestly
Most vendors in this category price by quote, per client or per user, which makes comparison deliberately hard. Work the arithmetic from your own roster instead: the carers who need accounts, the clients whose records you keep, and what an hour of saved admin is worth against your margin. A price you cannot get without a sales call is itself information about the vendor's target customer.
The paperwork is the product
Medicare's conditions of participation require each plan of care to be reviewed and revised no less frequently than once every 60 days from the start of care (42 CFR 484.60). A standard survey follows within 36 months of the last (42 CFR 488.730). Whatever system you choose, the test is whether the plan reviews, the policy trail and the audit evidence fall out of daily use, or whether somebody rebuilds them in a spreadsheet the week before the surveyor arrives.
Questions people ask about home care software free
Do small agencies need this at all, or will spreadsheets do?
A spreadsheet runs a five-client agency until the first missed 60-day plan review or the first EVV rejection, and then it costs more than any subscription. The honest line is not agency size but consequence: once a payer or a surveyor reads your records, the records need a system.
Why do so few vendors publish prices?
Because the category prices by quote: per client, per user, per module. That is not illegal, but it tells you the vendor optimises for negotiated enterprise deals. Handovra publishes one figure ($49 per month for the whole agency) precisely because the trade deserves a number it can plan against.
What should a demo be forced to show?
Three unglamorous things: a care plan coming due for its 60-day review, a visit whose EVV capture failed and how it is fixed, and a full export of your own data. Systems that handle those gracefully handle the rest.