Arc vs Lief: which fits a children's residential home?

Both Arc and Lief are built for children's homes and both publish their prices, which makes this an unusually straightforward comparison. Lief starts lower. Arc covers more of the regulatory work inside the price, and that gap is where most of the decision sits.

Every claim about Lief on this page is taken from their own public material and linked to the page it came from. Where they don't publish something, we say so rather than guess. Last checked August 2026.

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The short version

Arc goes further on the regulations

Both generate Regulation 45. Arc adds structured Regulation 44 visit records with the monthly due date tracked, and Regulation 40 notifications raised at manager review with a 24-hour clock — neither of which Lief publishes.

Arc builds the handover for you

Lief names shift planning and rota. Arc compiles the handover from what staff logged during the shift, so continuity between shifts falls out of the recording instead of being another job at the end of it.

Lief starts cheaper

Lief publishes £99 and £199 per home per month against Arc's £249. Neither charges a setup fee or ties you in, so it comes down to what each price covers.

from £149 / home / month, all in

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Side by side

Arc and Lief, row by row

Same rows on every comparison we publish, so nothing is chosen to flatter us. Numbers in brackets link to the Lief page each claim came from.

Arc leads on 10 of 18 rows Lief leads on 3, level on 5. Shaded cells show which way each row goes.

Comparison of Arc and Lief across cost, the young person record, the regulations, and data assurance
CAPABILITY	Arc	Lief
COST AND TERMS
Published price	£249 per home / month, published on our pricing page.	LIEF LEADS £99 or £199 per home / month (two tiers), excluding VAT. Published. [1]
What the price is charged on Per-home, per-licence and per-bed models produce very different bills for the same home.	ARC LEADS The home. Staff accounts are unlimited and never change the price, whether you run five staff or twenty-five.	The home. Staff account limits are not stated. [1]
AI included in the price	ARC LEADS Included. Advisory drafts, de-identified before inference, UK-only and audited, at no extra charge.	AI features are promoted heavily, but the pricing page does not say which tier includes them. [1]
Minimum contract	None. Billed monthly, cancel at any time.	None stated. [2]
Setup and migration fees	None. Onboarding, training and help moving your existing records across are in the monthly price.	No setup fee and no deposit. [2]
Price across a group of homes Some vendors discount the per-home rate as you add homes.	£249 per home, combined billing across the group, and the same all-in price at every home — no renegotiation as you grow.	Not published; ask about group terms. [1]
THE RECORD AND THE REGULATIONS
Who the product is built for	ARC LEADS UK children's residential homes only.	Children's homes and supported accommodation. [1]
One record per young person	ARC LEADS One living record: timeline of every event and entry, care plans and goals, keywork, contact, and wishes and feelings.	A young person profile exists and can be exported; how far it works as one continuous record is not described. [2]
Daily recording	Structured daily journals that compile from what staff log during the shift, with mandatory-field prompts.	Smart Daily Log, which pulls related activity in automatically, plus voice-to-text quick logging. [2]
Handover	ARC LEADS Compiled automatically from the shift rather than re-typed at the end of it.	Not published. Shift planning and rota are named; a handover record is not. [3]
Incident tracking	ARC LEADS Incidents stay open until they are formally resolved and signed off, with missing episodes, return home interviews and physical intervention records.	Incident and safeguarding reports. [3]
Safeguarding workspace	ARC LEADS A separate, role-restricted workspace rather than a folder everyone can open.	Safeguarding reporting exists, combined with incidents. Whether it is separately access-restricted is not published. [3]
Regulation 40 notifications	ARC LEADS Raised by a manager at incident review, where the decision belongs, then tracked per recipient with a 24-hour overdue clock and a compiled PDF for the Ofsted submission.	Not published as a product feature; Regulation 40 appears in their blog, not their feature list. [4]
Regulation 44 independent visits	ARC LEADS Structured independent-visit record with the monthly due date tracked.	Not published. Regulation 44 appears only as a credit for who helped design the product, not as a visit record. [2]
Regulation 45 quality of care reports	Compiled from the record already entered, with manager sign-off and a full audit trail.	Yes. Reg 45 named as one of the custom reports that can be generated for a chosen date range. [2]
DATA AND ASSURANCE
Where the data is held	ARC LEADS United Kingdom.	'Encrypted Cloud Servers'; region not stated. [2]
Independent security certification Formal certification held by the supplier.	UK data hosting, role-restricted access and a full audit trail on every record. Arc does not yet hold ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials.	LIEF LEADS GDPR and NHS Digital DSPT compliance claimed. [2]
Homes using it today How long the product has been running and how widely.	Launching in 2026. Join the waitlist before launch and your first home is free for its first year.	LIEF LEADS 500+ carers claimed. [2]

Sources

[1] https://home.lief.care/pricing/ “£99/mo. or £900/yr. (per home) after first 3 months” “£199/mo. or £1800/yr. (per home) after first 3 months” “Children's Care Home”
[2] https://home.lief.care/ “No setup fee, No deposit, No contract” “Export & Download Rota, incidents, YP profile, and more as PDFs by just choosing the sections you need.” “Smart Daily Log™ automatically pulls all incidents, sessions, attendance, and any other activity related into the daily log so you needn't enter it again.” “drafted in collaboration with experienced home managers and Reg 44 independent visitors” “Generate multiple custom reports like weekly summaries, Reg 45, etc. by simply picking a custom date and adding an impactful summary” “Encrypted Cloud Servers” “NHS Digital DSPT Compliant” “Join the 500+ carers in hassle free care”
[3] https://home.lief.care/features/ “Rota automatically connected to shifts, leaves and overtime” “Incident & Safeguarding Reports”
[4] https://home.lief.care/blog/ “Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reporting Under Reg 40”

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

The honest bit

When Lief is the better choice

Lief starts cheaper, and at £99 per home per month materially so. If your home is small and what you mainly want is faster daily recording with voice-to-text, Lief will do that for less. They also have people using the product today, which Arc will not until launch.

Cost

Compare the whole bill, not the headline

Arc is £149, £199 or £249 per home per month, set by the number of beds the home is registered for. That covers unlimited staff accounts, every feature, AI, onboarding and migration, with no minimum term. There is no premium tier and the price does not move as your team grows.

Headline prices in this market are rarely the whole bill. Add-ons, per-licence charges, setup fees and the discount that only applies on a three-year tie-in all change the number. Ask every supplier the same five questions and compare what comes back.

And for year one, the comparison is simpler than any of this: request a demo before 1 January 2027 and your first home costs nothing for twelve months.

See Arc's full pricing →

Questions to ask any supplier

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

Questions

Arc and Lief: common questions

Is Arc or Lief cheaper?

Lief, on the headline price. Lief publishes £99 and £199 per home per month excluding VAT; Arc is £249 per home per month. Both are charged per home rather than per member of staff, and neither charges a setup fee or requires a contract.

Do both handle Regulation 44 and 45?

Both do Regulation 45: Lief generates it as one of its custom reports for a chosen date range, and Arc compiles it from the record with manager sign-off. Regulation 44 is where they differ — Arc keeps a structured independent-visit record with the monthly due date tracked, while Lief's site mentions Reg 44 only as a credit to the independent visitors who helped design the product, not as a feature. Worth asking them to demonstrate it.

Where is the data held?

Arc holds data in the United Kingdom. Lief states 'Encrypted Cloud Servers' and claims GDPR and NHS Digital DSPT compliance, but does not state a hosting region publicly. Ask them to confirm it in writing.

Switching

Moving from Lief 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.