Nanny / Childcare Placement

The core product is a one-time placement fee, most commonly 15 to 20 percent of the nanny's first-year gross pay, though plenty of agencies charge a flat fee instead, often several thousand dollars. Many add a modest registration or application fee to start a search, which is reasonable when it is credited against the placement fee and a warning sign when it is not. Temporary and backup care placements are usually billed as a daily agency fee on top of the nanny's wages.

The nanny's pay itself goes directly from you to her, since you are the employer. Most professional nannies earn somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars per hour, higher in the biggest metros and for infant specialists or nanny shares. Good agencies are blunt about local market rates before you start, because families anchored to below-market numbers waste everyone's time. The fee buys screening, matching, and the replacement guarantee, so read that guarantee as carefully as the price.

Online marketplaces put a database of caregivers in every parent's pocket, and placement agencies have repositioned around what the marketplaces cannot do: verified vetting, curated matching, and accountability when a hire fails. The families still paying placement fees are buying certainty and time, so agencies have leaned into white-glove service, deeper screening, and stronger guarantees rather than trying to compete on price.

The economics of the nanny herself changed too. Wages jumped during the pandemic-era caregiver shortage and never fell back, and expectations around guaranteed hours, paid time off, and legal payroll have professionalized. That favors agencies, which have always pushed families toward written work agreements and lawful employment, and it feeds a growing sideline in nanny shares, where two families split one professional. Enforcement of household employment rules keeps tightening in many states, so the agency habit of doing this correctly has quietly become one of its strongest selling points.