How senior placement services actually get paid
Every one of them says “free to families.” It is true, and it is not the whole sentence. Here is the rest of it.
The arithmetic, in one table
| What happens | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| The home pays a commission benchmarked to the first month's rent — customarily 70–100% across the industry. | A $6,000/month community generates a $4,200–$6,000 fee. A 6-bed board-and-care at $4,000 generates less, and costs the same to serve. |
| Nothing is owed unless your parent actually moves in. | Genuinely free to you. This part is not a trick. |
| A home that has not signed a fee agreement pays nothing. | This is the catch. Most services only show you homes that have signed. The best home for your mother may simply not be in their database. |
| A home paid at Medi‑Cal / ALW rates cannot fund a commission at all. | So a commission-only service cannot serve a Medi‑Cal family. Not because anyone is unkind — because the arithmetic does not close. |
The question worth asking any of us
Ask it out loud. The answer is the entire difference between a directory and an advertisement.
Some services sell position. They disclose it in the fine print.
“Featured”, “Preferred” and “Partner” badges on senior-care sites are frequently purchased, and it is normally disclosed somewhere you were not looking. One national franchise, Senior Care Authority, carries this line at the foot of its individual care-home listings:
“Senior Care Authority may receive compensation from certain partners, and ‘Featured’ listings may reflect paid promotional placement. Inclusion does not imply endorsement; families should conduct their own due diligence.”
That disclosure is legal, it is more honest than saying nothing, and it still means the order of the list you are reading may have been bought. You cannot tell which entries by looking, which is the point of a badge.
What we do instead
| You cannot buy position here | There is no fee, at any price, that moves a home up this site. We rank on a confirmed open bed — because that is the most useful fact a family in a hurry can have, and no amount of money creates one. |
| Every licensed home is listed | All 1112 of them, whether they have ever paid us anything or not. The ones that pay us nothing look exactly like the ones that do. |
| The price is printed | 50% of the first month's rent for the first family we send you, 75% after that — the same published schedule at every home in the county. We are the only service in the category that prints its number at all; the others end at “request a demo”. |
| An owner can buy content, never rank | A home can put its own photo and its own words on its page — free, in exchange for a bed count. It buys them a better page. It does not buy them a better position, and we will say no if asked. |
| Medi‑Cal families cost us money | We are paid nothing on those placements and we make them anyway. If you want to know whether a service can really serve a Medi‑Cal family, that is the only question that matters. |
And the part we charge for, said plainly
Finding you a home is free, and it is free whether the home pays us or not — including every Medi-Cal home in the county. Some families want more than that: someone to come on the tours, read the admission agreement, file the Assisted Living Waiver paperwork, and keep calling after the move. That is a separate, optional service and we charge for it, because no home pays us to do it. You will always be quoted the price before anything starts, and you will never be charged to be shown a home. What that costs.
Tell us what you need. We'll find the room.
Free for families. We already know which homes have an opening — because we call them.