What does this Korea caregiver contract calculator compare?
This calculator compares the full household cost of a Korean caregiver agency arrangement with a direct contract with an individual caregiver. It goes beyond the advertised daily amount by separating management, meals, transport, premiums, placement or recruitment charges, contract administration, replacement cover, care interruption, and a policy benefit supported by the relevant evidence.
The tool does not publish a national caregiver price, identify an employer, or classify a worker from a contract label. Use it only after aligning two written offers for the same patient, hospital setting, task scope, hours, and dates. Every starting number is a fictional worked example rather than a Korean market average or a recommendation to hire through either route.
Useful decision points
- Compare a two-week agency quote with a direct arrangement carrying one-time recruitment cost.
- Test whether a lower direct daily payment survives payroll administration and replacement risk.
- Separate bank-account outflow from the economic value of family time lost during a care gap.
- Apply an insurance daily benefit only to days whose contract evidence the insurer accepts.
Identify the agency role before entering its price
A business that introduces a caregiver is not necessarily the party supplying and supervising the care service. A registered paid job-placement business may connect the job seeker and the hiring party, while a service provider may contract to deploy and replace its own personnel. The contract party, payment recipient, instruction channel, replacement promise, refund term, and liability clause determine where a cost or responsibility belongs.
Evidence and hidden-cost checkpoints for three caregiver contract structures| Structure | Documents to verify | Cost often missed |
|---|
| Paid job placement | Registration, fee schedule, actual employment parties, proxy-payment consent | Placement or membership fee and the lack of a replacement promise |
| Agency service | Service party, included items, change, cancellation, replacement and refund terms | Daily management, premium dates and separately billed substitute personnel |
| Direct individual contract | Written tasks, hours, place, pay, termination, absence and substitution terms | Recruitment, payroll, verified employer obligations and uncovered absence |
Avoid double counting. Enter zero for meals, transport, management or premiums already included in a daily quote. Align both offers on the same gross or all-inclusive basis before interpreting the ranking.
Inputs and preferred evidence
Care days and policy amount
Use the planned hospital-care dates and the daily fixed benefit copied from the policy. Do not assume the full stay is recognized.
Evidence: admission plan, policy wording, insurer reply on the caregiver and receipt definition.
Recurring daily cost
Separate the base daily amount from management, meals, transport and any employer cost confirmed for the direct relationship.
Evidence: itemized quote, draft contract, payroll or labor review.
Premiums and fixed contract cost
Enter qualifying night, weekend or other premium days, then record placement, cancellation, recruitment and administration separately.
Evidence: current fee schedule, special terms, introduction agreement and payroll quote.
Replacement and interruption
Record separately paid replacement days as cash. Record a true uncovered day as the family time or emergency-cover economic loss.
Evidence: replacement promise, substitute quote and a realistic family contingency plan.
Insurance-recognized days are option-specific. A policy may require a business receipt, bank transfer, caregiver confirmation, business details, or a defined institutional route. Another policy may accept a direct arrangement only with specific evidence. Until the insurer confirms the applicable wording, use zero recognized days rather than treating a possible payment as certain cash.
How the totals are calculated
Gross and net cash cost
Gross cash cost equals base daily cost times care days, plus recurring daily extras, qualifying-day premiums, fixed contract costs and separately paid replacement care. Estimated policy benefit equals the user-entered daily policy amount times the recognized days for that option. Net cash cost subtracts that estimated benefit from gross cash cost.
Economic total
Interruption economic cost equals expected uncovered days times the user-defined family-time or emergency-cover value. Economic total equals net cash cost plus this interruption amount. Keeping it separate lets the result show whether the cheapest bank-account route is still cheapest after reliability risk is valued.
Break-even day
The crossover divides the fixed-cost difference by the difference in recurring economic cost and rounds up to a whole day. It preserves the current ratios for premium, replacement, interruption and insurance-recognized days. It does not forecast a renewal, price change, health change or new legal obligation, and it reports no crossover outside the one-to-730-day planning range.
Fictional 30-day worked example
The default agency scenario uses KRW 160,000 per day, KRW 10,000 meals per day, four premium days at KRW 20,000, and a KRW 100,000 placement or membership charge. It assumes no separately billed replacement day, no interruption and no recognized insurance day. The direct scenario uses KRW 130,000 daily pay, KRW 10,000 per day of employer cost confirmed by an adviser, KRW 10,000 meals, KRW 5,000 transport, four KRW 20,000 premiums, KRW 300,000 recruitment, KRW 200,000 administration, one KRW 170,000 replacement day and one interruption day valued at KRW 100,000.
Fictional 30-day caregiver agency and direct-contract calculation| Result | Agency | Direct |
|---|
| Net cash cost | KRW 5,280,000 | KRW 5,400,000 |
| Interruption economic cost | KRW 0 | KRW 100,000 |
| Economic total | KRW 5,280,000 | KRW 5,500,000 |
| Recurring economic cost | about KRW 172,667/day | about KRW 166,667/day |
The agency is KRW 220,000 lower on 30-day economic cost, but its recurring amount is higher. Because direct fixed costs are KRW 400,000 higher, the two lines cross at about day 67 under the unchanged assumptions. Changing replacement responsibility or policy-recognized days can move both the ranking and the crossover materially.
Korea legal boundaries checked for 2026
Paid placement registration and fee boundaries
Article 19 of the Employment Security Act provides the domestic paid job-placement registration framework. Ministry of Employment and Labor Notice No. 2017-22, the Notice on Domestic Paid Job-Placement Fees, generally caps the employer-side fee at 30 percent of agreed wages for an employment period under three months, or 30 percent of the first three months of wages when the period is three months or longer. The ordinary worker-side fee is capped at 1 percent of wages. For the notice’s membership model covering caregivers and certain day workers, a monthly management fee can replace the placement fee, capped for each side at 4 percent of the monthly minimum-wage conversion based on 209 hours. The notice also addresses charging only after an employment contract and proxy receipt of caregiver pay with consent.
Those percentages are legal review boundaries, not an automatic discount formula for every agency invoice. The calculator therefore asks for the real written fee and contract type instead of manufacturing a compliant price.
Worker status follows the substance of the relationship
The Supreme Court decision 2024Do14708, delivered February 12, 2026, restated the established multi-factor approach: the label is not decisive, and actual control over work, schedule and place, substitution or business independence, the nature of remuneration, continuity, exclusivity and other facts must be reviewed together. It was not a caregiver-specific judgment, so it is used here only as a classification boundary.
If employment is confirmed, Article 17 of the Labor Standards Act requires written working conditions. Holiday, premium-pay and hour rules can depend on the real arrangement and the five-worker business boundary, while retirement-benefit review can arise after at least one continuous year and an average of 15 or more contractual weekly hours over four weeks. The calculator never decides who the employer is or computes these obligations. Enter only a daily equivalent confirmed for the facts by a qualified adviser.
Domestic-worker statute and medical-task boundary
The Act on the Employment Improvement of Domestic Workers creates a separate system around certified domestic-service providers and user contracts. It does not automatically classify every hospital caregiver or direct individual arrangement. Separately, Article 27 of the Medical Service Act prohibits unlicensed medical practice. A caregiver task list should identify daily-living support and hospital-instructed assistance without expanding into injections, treatment, clinical judgment or other licensed medical activity.
Contract wording never overrides the actual relationship. The agency, family, caregiver, hospital, labor adviser, insurer and relevant authority may need to confirm different parts of the decision. A lower calculated cost is not proof that a structure is lawful, suitable or operationally safe.
Step-by-step workflow
- Collect an agency itemization and a direct-contract draft covering the same patient, dates, hours and tasks.
- Select whether the agency is paid placement, a service provider, or still unknown, and record the direct worker-status review state.
- Enter included daily costs once, then separate qualifying premiums and one-time placement, cancellation, recruitment or administration cost.
- Model separately paid substitute care as cash and a genuinely uncovered day as interruption economic cost.
- Enter only policy-recognized days supported by the contract and evidence the insurer has confirmed.
- Compare net cash and economic rankings, inspect the break-even day, and complete all five written-review checks before contracting.
Scenarios that can reverse the result
Short stay and high setup cost
During a two-week stay, recruitment and payroll setup can outweigh a lower direct daily amount. Read the fixed and recurring components separately rather than extrapolating from day one.
Longer care and legal review points
A daily difference compounds over months, but a longer direct relationship can introduce new employment and retirement-benefit review. Recalculate at renewal rather than extending a short-term output unchanged.
Written replacement guarantee
A service provider that guarantees a no-charge substitute may justify fewer replacement and interruption days. An introducer with no continuing responsibility does not automatically deserve a zero-risk assumption.
Different insurance evidence
If an insurer accepts agency receipts but not the planned direct evidence, recognized days can change the cash ranking. Conversely, an accepted direct contract and transfer record may preserve the benefit. Use a dated written answer where possible.
Frequently asked questions
Is an agency contract always safer and more expensive?
No. A service provider with a genuine replacement promise differs from a business that only introduces an individual. Registration, included charges, change terms, refund rules and operational responsibility must be checked before attaching a price or reliability value to the agency label.
Does a direct contract automatically make the family an employer?
No automatic conclusion is safe. Actual instructions, control over time and place, the ability to substitute, business independence, remuneration, continuity and the full relationship matter. Obtain fact-specific Korean labor advice.
Why does the calculator not add weekly holiday pay or social insurance automatically?
Employer identity, worker status, the establishment, contractual hours, actual schedule and insurance-specific coverage must be established first. A generic percentage can look precise while being legally wrong. The verified employer-cost field exists for a daily equivalent supplied by an adviser.
Is a caregiver-use daily insurance benefit payable for every hospital day?
Not necessarily. The caregiver definition, provider route, receipts, transfer records, cause of admission, waiting period and day limits vary by policy and issue date. The output multiplies only the recognized days entered by the user and is not a claim decision.
Must I value care interruption?
You may use zero to compare cash only. If family leave, urgent transport, a last-minute substitute or another relative’s time will affect the decision, a conservative separate value makes the reliability tradeoff visible without pretending it is an invoice.
Official sources and verification date
Current text was checked through the Korean National Law Information Center OPEN API on August 31, 2026. The Labor Standards Act was ID 001872 and MST 283457; the Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act was ID 009883 and MST 284455; the Employment Security Act was ID 001765 and MST 259231; the Domestic Workers Act was ID 014099 and MST 232959; and the Medical Service Act was ID 001788 and MST 285327. The placement-fee administrative rule was serial 2100000081610. Supreme Court case 2024Do14708 was precedent serial 622649.
This is a Korea contract-cost planning tool, not legal, labor, insurance, tax or medical advice. Current contracts, factual worker-status review, agency registration, fee legality, employer obligations, policy claims and the permitted care scope must be confirmed with the relevant party, authority or qualified professional.
Compare two like-for-like written caregiver offers
Keep the quotes and policy wording beside the calculator, remove included items from separate fields, and save the result as a contract-question checklist. The most useful output is not a universal winner but a transparent explanation of what must stay true for either option to remain lower cost.