Saturday, June 19th
2021 Babysitter Agency Reviews
Urban Sitter
- Cost: $19.95/month
You may have heard of UrbanSitter through Forbes, CBS Working Mother, Business Insider, Parents, CNN, Mashable, or The Wall Street Journal. They were founded in 2010 with the goal to reinvent the process of finding a babysitter by simplifying all the processes associated with browsing candidates, matching schedules, and payments. They have over 150,000 caregivers (babysitters and nannies) on their site available in over 60 cities.
3 steps to find your babysitter
The way UrbanSitter works is similar to many of their competitors:
- First, families can post a job for free describing the type of childcare and availability they need.
- Next, you can schedule jobs and interviews on-demand. You'll receive reminders and contact details for the babysitters you've booked.
- Last, you'll get a notification with the hours, rate, and amount due for a job and you'll pay directly with your credit card.
2 subscription plans to choose from
Signing up to post a job is free at UrbanSitter. Once you've been contacted by a babysitter (sometimes in as little as three minutes), you'll need to buy into a membership to continue conversations and make bookings. If you want access to UrbanSitter month-to-month, the cost is $34.95 and is good for 30 days. For yearly subscription plans, the cost is $19.95/month or an upfront cost of $124.95 for the year. Memberships can be cancelled at any time, although lots of families report issues with cancellation and claim their card was continually charged after they tried to end their membership..
Babysitter fees are extra
The cost for individual babysitters on top of the fees to use the website range from $11 - $16/hour for one child. Babysitters and nannies keep 100% of their earnings when they work for you. Parents can pay with cash or with a credit card on the website.
Fewer babysitters
By inputting your zip code after creating a free login at UrbanSitter, you can browse babysitters near you. We found a few babysitters that ranged from next-door cities to 20 miles away. There were fewer candidates here than we found at higher-rated sites. Each profile shows a name, picture, bio, availability, rates, experience, recent bookings, and background check verification. Basically, you should be able to quickly get details on everything you'd want to know before deciding if they could be a good match for your family or not.
Mixed customer feedback
There is mixed feedback about UrbanSitter's services from parents. Some families claim it simply works great for them while others are upset over bad customer service, inability to cancel memberships, and few candidates to choose from. On top of this, they have an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, which is extremely concerning. We don't think UrbanSitter shows anything that makes them better than their competition, so we recommend looking elsewhere for babysitters.
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Where is the Best Place to Find a Babysitter for Your Children?
These days, kids and parents are busier than ever. Finding a reliable babysitter to fit your schedule is tricky.
The teenager next door might seem like a convenient option for watching your kids, but they might be occupied with school, sports, and their social life, leaving you without the childcare you need. Thankfully there are many services that specialize in helping families find available babysitters in their local area for date nights, errands, work functions, or whatever the occasion may be.
Babysitter Agency FAQ
Continued from above...
These companies allow parents to browse their database of candidates to find a babysitter that matches the needs of the family. Some sitters specialize in working with infants, special needs children, or kids with behavioral issues. Seeing all the local caregivers in one place makes it easy to sort through them and find someone you trust.
Babysitting agencies vary in price, services, and ease of use. Ideally you'll want to find a service that has a professional website and is well-known by families and sitters alike. The more widely-recognized a babysitting agency is, the more likely you are to have plenty of candidates to choose from. As a parent, it's understandable that you will be picky when deciding who to trust in your home with your children, so being able to browse multiple babysitter profiles online is important.
Before using a babysitting agency to find someone to watch your children, we suggest you take the following things into consideration:
- Company Reputation. What rating does the Better Business Bureau give the company? What do customer reviews say about the professionalism and reliability of the services offered?
- Fees. What does it cost to browse and contact babysitters through the company's site? What is the going rate of the babysitters they provide?
- Selection. Are there plenty of sitters to choose from on the site? Is there a range of babysitters based on age, schedule flexibility, and experience levels?
- Background Checks. Are background checks run on all candidates? If not, is there an option to have them done before choosing to hire one of the babysitters?
To help you identify the best babysitter for your children, TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best babysitting agencies available today. We hope this information gives you confidence as you find someone to care for your little ones while you are away!
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