How we make money

Who pays Agewise, and what that money cannot buy

Families never pay Agewise. Operators cannot buy a higher position in our search: nothing about what a community pays is readable by the code that ranks results, and we take no referral fee or commission when a family moves in. Operators can pay for tools to manage their own presence — and there is one indirect way that can matter, which this page explains rather than leaves out.

Who pays

Families pay nothing

The directory is free to browse with no account and no phone number. Avery, our AI advisor, is free. We do not sell your information, and nothing you tell us reaches an operator unless you ask us to send it.

Operators pay for tools, not for position

Claiming a community and keeping its information accurate is free, and always has been. Our revenue comes from operators who subscribe for tools to manage their own presence and talk to the families who reach out to them. It does not come from placement, and it does not come from a cut of a move-in.

That distinction is the whole business model. A company paid per move-in cannot afford to tell you to stay home for another year. We can, because our revenue does not change based on what you decide.

What decides the order of search results

Results are ordered by how well a community matches what you told us you need — care level, location, budget, the amenities you asked for — and by how much of that we can actually confirm about the community. Nothing else.

Payment is not filtered out of that calculation; it is not available to it. The code that ranks results is only permitted to read a fixed, published list of data sources, and no billing or subscription record is on that list. It is not a rule someone has to remember to apply to each new commercial feature — a new one is shut out by default. We keep a machine-readable record of every input that feeds ranking, and an automated test fails the build if the ranking code reads anything outside it.

How recently a community's information was updated is also barred from the ranking calculation. We show you when a profile was last confirmed, because that helps you judge it — but a recently-edited profile does not thereby outrank an older one.

The one indirect way paying can matter

Here is the part most companies would leave out.

Our search reads how much of a community we can actually assess — whether we know its care levels, its suite types, its prices. A community we can assess against your needs is sorted above one we cannot assess at all. That is deliberate: an unrateable listing making no claim about fit should not sit above a community we can genuinely tell you something about.

Some paid operator tools include help keeping that information current — prompts and workflows that nudge an operator to confirm what has changed. So there is a route, through the data rather than through the ranking, by which an operator who pays ends up better described, and a better-described community can be assessed on more things.

What stops that from being placement for sale is that the floor is free. Claiming a community, correcting it, adding care levels and suite information, and replying to families are all free and ungated. Every fact our search reads can be supplied by an operator paying us nothing at all. A paid tier buys help remembering to do it — never permission to do it, and never a shortcut past it.

We would rather write that paragraph than have someone else find it. If the free floor ever stops covering everything ranking reads, this page changes before the product does.

The questions families actually ask

Does Agewise get paid when I choose a retirement home?
No. Agewise takes no referral fee and no commission when a family moves into a community. Our revenue does not change based on which home you choose, or on whether you choose one at all — which is why a page here can tell you to stay at home or to wait for long-term care.
Can a retirement home pay Agewise to rank higher?
No. Nothing about what a community pays is readable by the code that orders search results: that code may only read a fixed, published list of data sources, and no billing or subscription record is on it. Results are ordered by how well a community matches what you said you need and by how much of that we can confirm.
Is there any way paying Agewise can affect where a community appears?
Indirectly, once. Our search sorts communities we can assess above communities we cannot assess at all, and some paid operator tools include help keeping a community's information current — so a paying operator can end up better described. What stops that from being paid placement is that the floor is free: claiming a community, correcting it and supplying every fact our search reads costs nothing. A paid tier buys help remembering to do it, not permission to do it.
Do families pay anything to use Agewise?
No. The directory is free to browse with no account and no phone number required, and Avery, the AI advisor, is free. Agewise does not sell your contact details, and nothing you tell us reaches an operator unless you ask us to send it.
Is every retirement home listed, or only the ones that pay?
Every community Agewise holds data for is listed, including communities with no relationship with Agewise at all. A home cannot pay to be added ahead of others, to be excluded, or to have a competitor removed. Where a public regulatory record exists — such as Ontario's RHRA register — it is shown and linked so you can check the home against the regulator rather than against us.

What we will never do

  • Sell a higher position in search results, a category, or a city.
  • Take a referral fee or a commission when a family moves into a community.
  • Exclude a community from the directory because it has no relationship with us.
  • Let an operator pay to have a competitor moved down or hidden.
  • Sell your contact details, or pass them to an operator without your say-so.
  • Publish a paid review, a paid ranking, or a sponsored “best of” list.

If you think something on Agewise contradicts this page, tell us at hello@agewise.ai. More about who we are is on about Agewise.