About Agewise
An independent way to find senior living in Canada
Agewise is an independent Canadian directory of retirement homes and senior living communities. Every community we hold data for is listed, no operator can pay to rank higher in our search, and we do not take a referral fee or a commission when a family moves in. That is what lets a page here tell you to stay at home, to wait for long-term care, or to choose a community we have no relationship with — the answer costs us nothing either way.
Why we exist
Most families start this search in the worst possible conditions: at speed, after a fall or a diagnosis, with a sibling on the phone and twelve browser tabs open. Almost everything they find is sold to them. The "best retirement homes in" lists are usually paid placements. The friendly free matching services are usually paid by the homes they recommend, which means the shortlist you are handed can reflect who pays a referral fee more than who fits your parent.
None of that is illegal, and much of it is not even hidden — it is just structurally impossible for a company paid on placement to tell you not to place. Agewise is built so that we can. We are not paid more when you choose an expensive community, and we are not paid less when you decide the right answer is to stay home for another year.
What we are not
- We are not a referral agency — we do not take a placement fee or a commission when a family moves into a community.
- We do not publish a paid "top 10" — every community we hold data for is listed, including the ones with no relationship with us at all.
- We do not sell your details — browsing needs no account and no phone number, and nothing reaches an operator without your say-so.
- We are not a rating service — we show public regulatory records and confirmed facts. We do not score communities on opinion, and we never will — a star rating is just an opinion with a number on it.
The full version of the money question — what Agewise does charge for, and the one indirect way paying can matter — is on how we make money.
How the directory is built
Agewise lists more than 1,000 retirement communities across Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Where a public regulatory record exists we show it and link to it — in Ontario that is the register kept by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority under the Retirement Homes Act, 2010, so you can check a home's licence status against the regulator rather than against us.
Search results are ordered by what you told us you need and by what we can actually confirm about a community — not by any commercial relationship. The exact list of inputs is public, and so is the one indirect effect we know about.
Families pay nothing. There is no account to create and no phone number to give up before you can look.
Who is behind it
Agewise is built in Toronto and was founded in 2026 by Anneline Breetzke, CEO and James Shi, Head of Product & AI. The articles on this site are written by named members of the team and signed — you can see who writes Agewise and what each of them covers.
Nobody on the team is a licensed clinician, financial planner or lawyer, and nothing on Agewise is medical, legal or financial advice. Articles that touch money, funding or health say so on the page.
Press and partnership enquiries: hello@agewise.ai. Boilerplate, logos and fast facts are on the media page.