Clearcare alternatives: what to weigh before you move

Most homes looking at Clearcare alternatives are not unhappy with the recording. They are looking at a renewal, an AI charge on top of the licence, or a three-year term they would rather not sign again. Here is what the rest of the market looks like, including where staying put is the right answer.

Everything said about a supplier below comes from their own public material and links to the page it came from. Where a vendor doesn't publish something, we say so rather than guess. Last checked August 2026.

Request a demo Arc vs Clearcare, row by row

Count the AI charge before you compare

Clearcare bills AI on top of the licence, £30 to £80 a month by bed band. Arc includes it in the band price along with unlimited staff, so a seven-to-ten bed home compares £330 against £249.

No term, no setup fee, no renegotiation

Arc is billed monthly and priced the same at every home in a group. Nothing about the price depends on how long you sign for.

Moving is cheaper than it looks

Arc includes migration, onboarding and training in the monthly price. The real cost of switching is staff retraining, not data transfer.

Start here

What Clearcare costs, all in

Worth pinning down before you compare anything, because the licence fee is rarely the whole bill.

Published price
£150–£250 per home / month excluding VAT on a one-year contract, by bed band. Lower on longer terms: £100–£200 on three years. [1]
What the price is charged on
The home, banded by bed count and contract length. [1]
AI included in the price
No. AI is an optional extra charged on top, from £30 to £80 per month by bed band. [2]
Minimum contract
Yes. Pricing is quoted on one, two and three-year terms, with the lowest price on the longest tie-in. [1]
Setup and migration fees
No set-up fee, and a three-month implementation period with no licence fee. [2]
The field

What else UK children's homes are using

The systems that come up most often, with what each publishes about itself. Follow any of them through to a full row-by-row comparison against Arc.

Published price
Not published on the UK site; quote on request. [3]
Who the product is built for
Broad social care: fostering, adoption and residential, across the UK and Republic of Ireland. [4]
Independent security certification
Cyber Essentials Plus. [4]
Track record and availability
Over 600 organisations and 50,000 practitioners. [4]
Published price
Not published. The pricing page describes the model and routes to a demo; no figure appears anywhere on the site. [5]
Who the product is built for
Children's residential care, with supported accommodation priced separately. [6]
Independent security certification
Cyber Essentials, certified for CRIS itself. ISO 27001 is claimed for the AWS infrastructure they sit on, not for CRIS. [7]
Track record and availability
No customer count, home count or years trading published. CRIS Care Technologies Ltd, company no. 17305092, incorporated June 2026. [6]
Published price
£149 / £199 / £249 per home per month ex VAT by bed band, published in full. Annual plans £129 / £179 / £229. [8]
Who the product is built for
Ofsted-regulated children's homes in England, plus registered supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds. [8]
Independent security certification
None held. Cyber Essentials and then ISO 27001 are stated as roadmap items. [9]
Track record and availability
No customer or home count claimed; they state directly that they are early with a small number of homes. Hearth Systems Ltd, company no. 17349265. [8]
Published price
£99 or £199 per home / month (two tiers), excluding VAT. Published. [10]
Who the product is built for
Children's homes and supported accommodation. [10]
Independent security certification
GDPR and NHS Digital DSPT compliance claimed. [11]
Track record and availability
500+ carers claimed. [11]
Published price
From £185 per home / month excluding VAT for children's care homes. [12]
Who the product is built for
Children's care homes, supported accommodation and family assessment centres. [13]
Independent security certification
Cyber Essentials Plus, DSPT compliant. [13]
Track record and availability
100+ care facilities claimed. [13]

Sue Solutions

Arc vs Sue Solutions →
Published price
Not published; the site routes to a demo booking. [14]
Who the product is built for
UK children's residential homes, from new providers to local authorities. [14]
Independent security certification
Not published. [14]
Track record and availability
1,000+ homes claimed. [14]
Published price
£149, £199 or £249 per home / month by registered beds (1–3, 4–6, 7+), published on our pricing page. Two months free if you pay annually.
Who the product is built for
UK children's residential homes only.
Independent security certification
Role-restricted access, an append-only audit trail on every record, and a signed data processing agreement, running on ISO 27001-certified AWS infrastructure in the UK.
Track record and availability
Live now, with onboarding, migration and UK-based support included from day one. Request a demo before 1 January 2027 and your first home is free for its first year.
The honest bit

When staying with Clearcare is the right call

Staying with Clearcare is the right answer more often than a page like this usually admits. They hold ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Cyber Essentials Plus, they have been running for over twenty years, and on a three-year term their one-to-three bed band is £100 a month, which nothing else here beats. If your commissioners require certification and your staff already know the system, that is a strong case to stay.

Where Arc fits

Built for one setting, priced in one number

Arc does UK children's residential homes and nothing else. Regulation 40, 44 and 45, keywork, contact logs and placement plans are first-class parts of the product rather than templates laid over a platform built for several parts of the care sector.

£149, £199 or £249 per home per month by registered beds covers unlimited staff, every feature, AI, onboarding and migration, with no minimum term. And for year one there is nothing to compare: request a demo before 1 January 2027 and your first home is free for twelve months.

See Arc's full pricing →

Questions to ask any supplier you shortlist

  1. Is the price per home, per registered place, or per user?
  2. Which features sit behind a higher tier or an add-on — including AI?
  3. What do onboarding, training and data migration cost?
  4. Is that price conditional on a one, two or three-year term?
  5. Where is our data hosted, and where does any AI processing happen?
Questions

Clearcare alternatives: common questions

What are the main alternatives to Clearcare?

The systems that come up most often in UK children's residential care are listed above, each with what it publishes about itself and a link through to a full row-by-row comparison against Arc. Which suits you depends mostly on whether you run children's homes only or several service types, and whether published pricing matters to you.

How much does Clearcare cost?

Clearcare publishes their price, and the figures are set out at the top of this page with a link to the source. The number worth checking is the whole bill rather than the licence: AI is charged separately, and the lowest rates are quoted on longer contract terms.

Is it hard to move off Clearcare?

The data transfer is usually the easy part. The harder question is the contract, because Clearcare prices on one, two and three-year terms — check where you are in yours before committing elsewhere. Arc includes migration, onboarding and training in the monthly price, so switching costs you staff retraining rather than a project fee.

Sources

  1. [1] https://www.clearcaresolutions.co.uk/price-setup/ “1-3 Bed Home · One Year Contract · £150 · PER MONTH · Excluding VAT” “7-10 Bed Homes” “Three Year Contract”
  2. [2] https://www.clearcaresolutions.co.uk/faqs/ “AI is an optional extra - and there is an additional cost. ... The cost of AI is based on the number of beds in each home. 1-3 Bed Home £30 excluding VAT 4-6 Bed Home £55 excluding VAT 7-10 Bed Home £80 excluding VAT” “No, we no longer charge a set-up fee. ... At Clearcare we give you a three-month implementation period where you will not pay for your license fee.”
  3. [3] https://socialcarenetwork.com/Product/Page?pageType=Charms_Child_Residential_Care
  4. [4] https://socialcarenetwork.com/ “trusted by over 600 organisations and 50,000 practitioners across the UK and Republic of Ireland” “Cyber Essentials Plus certified - the highest level of UK government-backed cyber security accreditation”
  5. [5] https://www.criscare.uk/pricing.html “Pricing is simple and per-home — book a demo and we'll walk you through it.”
  6. [6] https://www.criscare.uk/ “Mobile-first children's residential care software” “© 2026 CRIS Care Technologies Ltd · Company No. 17305092”
  7. [7] https://www.criscare.uk/security.html “Hosted on ISO 27001-certified AWS infrastructure (UK region) / Cyber Essentials certified”
  8. [8] https://carehearth.co.uk/pricing “Per home, per month, excluding VAT. Unlimited staff accounts on every tier. Registered beds / Monthly / Annual plan / 1 to 3 £149 £129 / 4 to 6 £199 £179 / 7 to 10 £249 £229” “Adult social care. Hearth is built around Ofsted and the Children's Homes Regulations. If you are CQC regulated, this is the wrong product.” “Hearth is early and has a small number of homes on it. I would rather write that down than imply otherwise”
  9. [9] https://carehearth.co.uk/security “Cyber Essentials certification, then ISO 27001 on the roadmap after it. We claim no certification we do not hold.”
  10. [10] https://home.lief.care/pricing/ “£99/mo. or £900/yr. (per home) after first 3 months” “Children's Care Home”
  11. [11] https://home.lief.care/ “NHS Digital DSPT Compliant” “Join the 500+ carers in hassle free care”
  12. [12] https://www.ovcare.co.uk/pricing “from £185 per home / per month · excl. VAT”
  13. [13] https://www.ovcare.co.uk/ “Children's Care Homes” “Cyber Essentials Plus Certified” “100+ Care Facilities Using”
  14. [14] https://www.suesolutions.co.uk/ “We work alongside 1,000+ homes across the U.K.” “We work alongside 1,000+ homes across the U.K. And this number is growing”

Supplier information taken from their own public material, last checked August 2026. We re-check every 6 months. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email hello@arccare.co.uk and we'll correct it.

Switching

Moving from Clearcare to Arc

Changing recording system mid-placement is a real risk, so we plan the move around your home rather than the other way round. Onboarding and migration are included in the monthly price.

Review what you hold

We look at your current records together and agree what must come across and what can be archived.

Migrate the record

Young person records, plans and open incidents are moved and checked before anyone relies on them.

Train on shift

Short sessions with the people who will use it, in the home, on real entries.

Run in parallel

A short overlap so nothing is lost, then a clean cut-over on a date you choose.

See Arc in your home.

See Arc against whichever system you are weighing it up with. Request a demo before 1 January 2027 and your first home is free for a year.

No spam. We'll only use this to arrange your demo.

Free first year: one home per company, for demo requests received before 1 January 2027 and accounts opened before 1 June 2027. Full terms.