In short: The big UK care home software names — Nourish, Person Centred Software (mCare), Log my Care, Care Control and the Access ecosystem — are capable platforms, but most are built and priced for larger or England-based providers, and nearly all price by quote. For a small, independent, owner-managed home — especially in Wales — Heddfa is designed to be the better fit: one published per-resident price, free unlimited staff, everything included, and CIW built in. Below is an honest, dated comparison.
All competitor details below are as reported by public market guides and vendor materials in July 2026. Pricing in this sector is overwhelmingly quote-based, so treat every competitor figure as indicative and confirm current terms directly with each vendor before making a decision. We name competitors only to inform a genuine comparison, not to disparage — they are established products that many homes are happy with.
The honest summary
| Platform | Typical pricing model (reported, 2026) | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Heddfa | Published: from £10/resident/month, £8.50 (21–40), £7 (41+). Staff free. No setup fee. Rolling monthly. | Small independent homes; Wales-first |
| Nourish | Quote-based, per client. Reported ~£100/month up to 7 clients; ~£2–£3.50 per client/week for larger homes; enterprise above ~1,000 | Mid-size to larger homes and groups |
| Person Centred Software (mCare) | Quote-based, linked to bed count. One public example cited ~£500/month including eMAR | Established/larger providers; England-centric |
| Log my Care | Free frontline tier; eMAR and advanced features on paid plans (quote-based) | Budget-conscious small homes wanting a free start |
| Care Control | All-in-one, “no modular pricing”; figures not publicly listed | Homes wanting one bundled system |
| Access (care ecosystem) | Enterprise, per-bed, integrates rostering/HR/payroll; higher end | Groups needing full back-office integration |
Where the differences actually matter for a small home
1. Published price vs “book a demo”
The single biggest difference: our price is on the website. Most of the sector — Nourish, PCS, Care Control — prices by quote against your bed count, which makes genuine comparison hard and the final number easy to creep. We publish one list: from £10 per resident, dropping to £8.50 then £7 as you grow. No quote required to know what you’ll pay.
2. Free staff vs per-carer / per-device charges
Per-carer and per-device pricing quietly penalises safe staffing and point-of-care recording — the very things you want to encourage. Our staff accounts are unlimited and free, web and mobile, including bank and agency. That’s a structural difference, not a discount.
3. Everything included vs modular add-ons
eMAR, a family portal, reporting and compliance are sometimes sold as separate modules or paid tiers elsewhere. With us they’re in the one price. Log my Care deserves specific credit here for a genuinely free frontline tier — a great way to start — but the eMAR and advanced compliance features that a home actually needs sit on paid plans; compare the complete package, not the entry point.
4. Wales-first vs CQC-by-default
Most national platforms write their compliance features and help content for CQC and England. We’re a South Wales company: Care Inspectorate Wales, RISCA and the Welsh-language active offer are first-class, not a setting. If you’re a Welsh home, that’s the difference between software that fits your regulator and software you adapt to it.
5. Talk to the makers vs an account manager
With the larger vendors you get an account manager and a ticket queue. With us you talk to the people who wrote the code, and the roadmap is shaped by our early adopters. Small is the feature: fixes and changes happen in days, not release cycles.
Where a competitor might suit you better — honestly
We’re not right for everyone. If you’re a large group that needs deep rostering, HR and payroll integration in one ecosystem, Access is built for that. If you want the most widely-deployed product with the biggest reference base, PCS/mCare has enormous reach. If you want to start completely free today and don’t yet need eMAR, Log my Care’s free tier is a sensible first step. We’d rather tell you that than oversell.
Who Heddfa is built for
Small independent care homes, nursing homes and care practices — roughly 5 to 40 beds, owner-managed, no IT department — who want a complete, inspection-ready record at a price they can read off a page, with the whole team included. Especially in Wales. Care technology shouldn’t be a privilege of the big.
Try it against your current system
The fairest comparison is your own. Join the early-adopter programme — six months free, personal onboarding — and run Heddfa alongside what you use now.
Sources & verification note (for the editor, remove before publishing or keep as a footnote): Competitor pricing and positioning summarised from The Access Group care-home software guides, independent comparison guides (e.g. esremedia.co.uk), Capterra UK listings, and vendor websites, accessed July 2026. All competitor pricing in this sector is predominantly quote-based; figures are indicative ranges reported by third parties, not official rate cards. Before publishing, re-check each named competitor’s current published pricing and features and update the date, in line with UK comparative-advertising rules (claims must be accurate, verifiable and not misleading).