Sittercity Review

Monday, October 25th

2021 Nanny Agency Reviews

Sittercity

• Cost: 1 month for $35, 3 months for $49, or 12 months for $98

Sittercity focuses heavily on childcare for families, but also provides caregiver services for people with special needs, seniors, and even for pets. The business was founded in 2001 by parents who wanted to give other moms and dads the flexibility to work, run errands, or go on dates without worrying about who will watch their children. Sittercity has been featured by media outlets such as Today, Good Morning America, The New York Times, Scary Mommy, and Forbes.

Both Babysitters And Nannies

Sittercity provides both babysitters as well as nannies. A babysitter, as defined by this service, is someone local who can help temporarily with childcare to fit around a family's schedule for date nights and last-minute appointments. A nanny would be used on a more consistent basis and might live-in, work full-time, part-time, or overnight.

Find Your Nanny

The process for using Sittercity is broken down on their website in three simple steps:

1. Post a job for free
2. Sitters apply to your job (responses can come in as little as 2 hours)
3. Start connecting through messaging and interviewing

Membership Can Be Cancelled At Any Time

You'll need to pay for a membership to have your job posted and for all the caregivers to access your contact information and vice-versa. Subscription plans can be purchased for 1 month at $35, 3 months for $49, or 12 months for $98. All memberships are non-refundable, but they can be cancelled at any time.

Browse The Nannies

Before posting a job, you can choose the state you live in and browse cities that have nannies and babysitters available. From there, you can view a list of potential candidates. You'll see their picture, a bio, how much experience they have, specific qualifications, their pay range, and reviews (if they have any) from previous families they have worked for. The website makes it easy to quickly browse candidates and find information you need to gauge initial interest.

Background Checks Available

We would like to see background checks done on all of the nannies and babysitters through Sittercity, but unfortunately that is not how their service works. Families can choose to run checks on any candidates they choose and the date it was run will show up on their profile. If a candidate has had a background run by someone else, you can request to view the background or run another one. The cost for the enhanced background check is $60, a motor vehicle check is $30, the enhanced check with a motor vehicle report is $80, and a basic background check is $15.

Free Resources

There are quite a few free resources that families can take advantage of on the Sittercity website that focus on interesting topics and concerns that parents might have. There are articles that cover making childcare more affordable, a doctor's perspective on home child care, what should be included in a nanny contract, babysitter interview questions, educational games for children during the summer, and many more. These posts might help parents feel more confident and comfortable with the idea of a nanny and how to navigate the dynamic in the best way possible.

Impressive Choice

Overall, we are impressed with Sittercity because their platform is professional and it is easy to browse the available nannies and babysitters near you. There are many candidates who use this platform, so we feel confident that families around the US will have a few options to choose from. Pricing is affordable even if you have to run a few background checks during the process. Their A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau helps seal our confidence in their services. Sittercity has earned our highest rating for nanny agencies.