Sittercity Review for Sitters: Is Using Sittercity Worth It?

Sittercity is an online marketplace that connects families with local babysitters and caregivers. Although on the surface it may seem similar to platforms like Care.com, Sittercity works a little differently. That’s because it acts more like a job board than an employment service.

Sittercity is a facilitator. It gives you, as the caregiver, a place to look for and apply to gigs. However, it’s up to you to market yourself, nail the interview, and finalize the employment details with the parents who want to hire you.

Here’s a breakdown of exactly how Sittercity works:

1. Client creates a job posting. The posting includes specifications about what the job involves and who the ideal candidate is.
2. You apply or get an invite. You can respond to a job listing by sending a message to the poster, or they may contact you directly to express their interest in working with you.
3. You interview with the client. The parent or client will message you to schedule a video or phone interview to talk about their needs and your experience.
4. You meet in person. You meet the parents, and the parents usually assess your interactions with their child or whoever you’d be caring for. You assess whether the job is a good fit and discuss scheduling, pay, potential start date, and next steps.
5. You provide references. The client will likely ask you for references from past parents or employers, either during the interview or in person when they meet you.
6. You hear back. You find out whether you’re hired or the parent has chosen to go with another candidate.

According to one Sittercity worker we spoke to, it takes around 1 day to sign up for Sittercity and about 1–3 weeks to actually find work on Sittercity. You’ll be able to start working on Sittercity faster if you have strong qualifications or experience and clients seek you out themselves.

Types of services

Sittercity is an online platform that’s primarily designed to help you find parents who are looking for child care. However, there are other services you can offer through the platform.

Here are all the different gigs you can sign up for through Sittercity:

• Babysitting: Parents use Sittercity to hire babysitters for part-time assistance after school, during date nights, with transportation, or for last-minute obligations.
• Nannying: Parents who need more long-term and permanent child care hire short-term or live-in nannies. In addition to caring for the child, working as a nanny often involves helping with household activities like cooking and cleaning.
• Senior care: It’s not just children who need caregivers. Some Sittercity users hire caregivers for their older family members. Being a caregiver for older adults may involve rehabilitation assistance, drop-in care, or senior companionship.
• Pet care: In addition to caring for humans, Sittercity workers can offer pet care services like dog walking, training, and grooming. However, it’s worth noting that there are tons of pet sitting apps to choose from if that’s all you want to do.
• Tutoring: If you have experience with tutoring or teaching, you can also work as a tutor on Sittercity. Similar to pet care, however, there are dedicated websites and apps for tutors if this will be your main gig.
• Special needs care: Some families have loved ones with special care needs. They can use Sittercity’s search filters and job requirements to find and connect with caregivers with specialized experience.
• Adventures: If you have a special talent or skill that you’d like to share with the children in your care, you can add on this “adventure” to your regular services. Adventures can be things like cooking classes, swimming lessons, or horseback riding.

Service Selection Page on Sittercity

Supported areas

Sittercity claims to currently be connected with more than 5 million caregivers across the United States. If you’re curious to see what people are charging in your state and city, peruse the local caregiver accounts in the directory.

There isn’t a lot of transparency about how many babysitters or other caregivers there are in certain towns or cities, though. You’ll need to create a parent account in order to see what the competition is like.

However, it’s safe to assume that Sittercity is a lot like other caregiver apps and sites. There will be tons of competition in big cities, which can make it difficult to find gigs at first. Alternatively, there may not be much competition in small or rural towns, but there might also not be much demand either.

Costs and service fees

A basic Sittercity account is completely free for caregivers. However, there are a couple of optional services you can sign up for that come with added fees:

• Background check: You’re not required to get a background check, but getting one will help you get more clients. The cost of a Sittercity background check depends on the type you get, but it will be $20, $24, or $60.
• Featured Sitter status: According to Sittercity, Featured Sitters are four-times more likely to get a job. The cost of a membership is $14.99 per month, and it includes a basic background check every 3 months as well as a free criminal background check.

Eligibility requirements

There are only two requirements you’ll need to meet to become a Sittercity sitter or nanny: You must be at least 18 years old, and you need to be a US citizen.

Background check

The Sittercity third-party background check is optional. You don’t need it in order to create an account or profile on the app. But that doesn’t mean that families won’t ask you to have one done.

With other kinds of gig work, background checks aren’t always necessary. However, because of the nature of caregiving work and the responsibility you’ll be taking on, you’ll find that many Sittercity clients want a caregiver with at least a basic background check.

There are three kinds of background checks you can get:

• Basic criminal ($24)
• Enhanced criminal ($60)
• Motor vehicle records ($20)

You can be proactive and buy the background check so you can add the badge to your profile to show to prospective employers, or you can wait until a family requests the background check. In that case, they’d pay for whichever ones they want.

Background checks are only valid for 90 days, so you’ll have to keep them renewed if you want to maintain the badge on your page. Sittercity background checks usually take 2 days to process.

Sittercity sitters report hourly earnings in the range of $13–$40 per hour. 1 With that said, actual 2023 data from Sittercity suggests that the lower end of this range may be more realistic, with average salaries rounding out at $20.00 per hour for babysitters and $21.50 per hour for nannies.

However, you may make much more or less than this, depending on where you live and what services you provide. Before setting your rates, research what others are charging for comparable services in your area.

Additionally, these other factors can impact how much you make as a Sittercity caregiver:

• Years of experience
• Education
• Live-in or live-out
• Number of children in your care
• Special skills or certifications (e.g., CPR, first aid, or medicine administration)
• Additional responsibilities or services (e.g., pet care, housekeeping, or tutoring)
• Whether the job is a special occasion, on a holiday, or after your regular hours

Depending on the caregiving you do, you might earn more through tips. For example, 54% of Sittercity families always or sometimes tip their nannies. 2

The type of employment you get will also impact your earnings. Full-time nannies and other caregivers are even eligible for regular employment benefits like health insurance and paid time off.

Depending on your duties, you may also be compensated for money you spend while on the job. For instance, 50% of nannies get compensated for travel-related expenses. You could also be reimbursed for your mobile phone.

How you’ll get paid

Sittercity is hands-off when it comes to payment. They don’t manage the relationship or transactions between families and caregivers. All they do is facilitate the connection.

When a Sittercity family decides to hire you, they become your employer. Just like with a regular employer, the two of you need to agree on your pay rate as well as the form of payment. That means there are no restrictions on which payment methods you use (like PayPal, Venmo, direct deposit, cash, etc.) so long as your employer agrees to it.

We spoke to Teresa Cortes, an experienced babysitter who’s been using Sittercity for 2 years. She walked us through the ins and outs of finding work on Sittercity and what you can expect when using the platform.

Job availability is seasonal

“The job competition and availability varies,” Cortes told us. Usually, parents look for a part-time or full-time babysitter or nanny during the summer vacations, new year period, or right before school starts.

However, even though there are more jobs available during these busy periods, there’s also more competition. “That’s when the job saturation increases,” Cortes added, noting that this would probably also be the case for other big cities like Los Angeles, where she’s based. In the months in between, you can expect business to be slower.

In addition to varying according to the time of year, Cortes noted that job availability has increased during the 2 years she’s been working for Sittercity “as more parents are going back into the office.” She’s also noticed more hiring agencies posting listings for nannying positions.

Being a Featured Sitter is worth it when you’re starting out

Cortes tried out being a Featured Sitter, and she says it’s ideal for beginners. “I would recommend it for those who are looking to land a job within a month or are just starting,” she told us. Finding jobs is toughest when you’re new to the platform, so this is when the extra boost from a membership is most worth it.

“The Featured Sitter subscriptions enables the sitter to be among the first ones on search results,” Cortes added. What’s more, as a Featured Sitter, you’ll get a special badge on your profile and a free background check. With a standard account, on the other hand, you have to pay for the background check, and you won’t automatically appear at the top of the search list.

You can earn more than the average rate

Although Sittercity babysitters make an average of around $20 per hour, you could potentially earn a lot more. For example, Cortes charges $35 per hour on Sittercity—nearly double the average rate—though she has plenty of experience and lives in Los Angeles, which is known for its high cost of living.

With that said, Cortes hasn’t found it difficult to find clients while charging that rate. This goes to show that it is possible to rake in much higher earnings on Sittercity than the listed average rates.

How to Set Your Rates on Sittercity

You have to be your own advocate

Because Sittercity is relatively hands-off and leaves employment terms to the caregivers and employers using the platform, they can’t do much to advocate for you or protect your rights. This is one of Cortes’s biggest issues with Sittercity.

You need to keep track of your hours, vet prospective employers, protect yourself from scammers, and handle disagreements on your own. This means that while you do have a lot of freedom as a Sittercity worker, you also have less protection and more responsibility.

“For the most part, the families I have worked with are wonderful; however, I have had my share of families where I needed to advocate for myself,” Cortes added. She also stressed the importance of understanding your state rights as a domestic worker, setting boundaries, and avoiding the trap of spending too much time catching up with the families after your shift.

Sittercity is a great platform to use if you’re comfortable working as an independent contractor and you want a simple way to find new clients without the third-party involvement and restrictions that come with using a traditional babysitting app.

However, even though Sittercity is technically free to use, the need to regularly get new background checks for at least $24 a piece can add up over time ($96 per year to never let your badge expire). Since this is the main cost you’ll face, it’s probably the main factor that influencing whether Sittercity is really worth it for you.

Short-term vs. long-term jobs

There’s a reason Cortes uses Sittercity. “I think Sittercity is worth it considering the expenses,” she confirmed. However, she clarified that she uses the site to find long-term clients and then lets her background check expire once she’s got a job in the bag. She only renews it when she’s ready to start hunting for jobs again.

“I would recommend getting the background check once and building your profile and credibility with reviews,” she said. You really only need to pay when you’re looking for new jobs. This means Sittercity is probably more worthwhile if you’re looking for a stable job than if you’re looking for lots of short-term gigs.

If you’re strategic like Cortes and use Sittercity intermittently as a way to secure long-term, high-paying gigs, then it seems like a sensible, safe, and reliable way to get new babysitting or nannying jobs, especially since it can reduce your job-seeking efforts by also allowing clients to find you.

Sittercity Scheduling Options

Pros and cons of working for Sittercity

Whether you’re looking for short-term gigs or a longer-term commitment as a Sittercity babysitter or nanny, there are some benefits and drawbacks to Sittercity you should consider before signing up.

How Sittercity compares to other babysitting apps

There are plenty of babysitting apps and websites out there—Sittercity isn’t your only option. You could also use any of the following other platforms, which are arguably Sittercity’s lead competitors:

• UrbanSitter
• Bambino
• Care.com
• SeekingSitters
• Babysits
• Swishboom
• Sitter Pro

Which one is best for you depends on what you’re looking for in a babysitting app. You’ll find that some of the companies above use a very different business model than Sittercity’s hands-off approach.

For example, UrbanSitter is a very similar platform that functions like a job board, but they also have an option to process payments for you (which Sittercity doesn’t provide). Bambino, on the other hand, controls every aspect of the process, from connecting caregivers with clients to processing payments.

Another key difference between Sittercity and its competitors is that Sittercity doesn’t require a background check, which most other platforms do. However, other platforms offer other types of jobs that may appeal to you, such as housekeeping, cleaning, or tutoring. Some also help you make money more quickly by streamlining the booking process or offering instant pay options.

Alternative side hustles

If you’re not sold on the idea of becoming a babysitter, there are also plenty of alternatives to explore. For example, you could try pet sitting or caregiving, which are other care-oriented side hustles—or you could go an entirely different route and start up a different type of app-based gig.

How Sittercity Compares to Other App-Based Gigs

If you’re interested in becoming a babysitter or caregiver on Sittercity, here’s how you sign up:

1. Go to the Sittercity website and click Sign Up. Click the link for Sitter.
2. Fill in the sign up form to create your account.
3. Choose what type of caregiver you want to be.
4. Complete the application process.
5. If you’d like to pay for a background check, you’ll have to authorize it at this stage.

Once you’re approved, upload a headshot and start filling in the details of your Sittercity profile. You can do this via the website or the Sittercity iOS app (it’s not on Android).