Finding an Elder Care Professional on Care.com vs. Angie's List

Those looking for a quality elder care professional know that there are many options available on the internet for finding a quality candidate. Two of these are Angie's List and Care.com. One of the biggest problems facing potential customers is the enormous price difference between these two web sites. Depending on the special needs of the elderly person who needs care, both of these web sites have different advantages and disadvantages. Some like the deep level of information offered by Care.com about caregivers and others like the types of personal reviews offered by Angie's List.

Care.com allows those looking for professional elder care and babysitting to look through qualified professionals and learn about them. It shows viewers the background information, education level, experience and comments about care providers. This web site allows users to search for people in their area and find a number of professionals with which to set up an interview. Another cool feature that care.com has is the Care On Call feature which sends a new professional in the event that the regular care provider can't make it.

The biggest weakness that care.com has is the price. It costs $39.99 per month to use this service, which is an extremely high subscription fee. Those who want to use this service regularly might want to choose an annual option. This makes it a big expense, but there are different reasons that a customer may choose care.com. There is the option to search for professionals who speak certain languages and who know how to care for special needs persons.

Angie's List is much less expensive at around six dollars per month. The main difference between Angie's List and Care.com is that many different types of professionals can be found on Angie's List such as roofers and electricians in addition to care professionals. One of the major advantages to using this web site is that there are a lot of honest reviews about the service providers which allows the customers to get a really good idea of the level of quality of the provider and how their service works.

In this instance, the main drawback to Angie's List is that they don't specialize in ederly care providers or babysitting. They list providers from many fields and probably don't have the same deep level of information and number of care providers as Care.com does.

Care.com is the best for those looking for elderly care who want the highest quality care provider. They have a lot of information about every professional and the web site only lists care providers. Considering that this web site only offers care providers they have more features directed only toward choosing the right care providers. Angie's List is best for those who don't want to spend a lot and aren't as concerned about knowing things like their background checks and other types of information. Also, customers can use Angie's List to find other types of quality providers as well.