babysitting service....rates!

[mich1000]

Hi Mums,

I really just wanted to get your feedback please. I have been babysitting for nearly ten years. I now work in a nursery, have qualifications and CRB etc. I decided to set up a "mini agency", which basically consists of me, and a fellow nursery nurse when I cant hack all the bookings. So we have a fb business, page, ads on here and gumtree etc. i have deliberately set the rates lower then ther companies i have seen ( although i can only find 1 or 2 and none in my immediate area).

I set the booking fee at £5, and the rates from £6 an hour. Would you be happy to pay this for babysitting, as the team are checked/qualified etc? Could I go higher? Or lower?

Thank you very much!!

You location could make a difference to how much parents would pay.
Personally as a nanny I find that requests for babysitting have dropped off a lot over the past few years and I can't work out why. Changed price from £10 to £8 and it made no difference.

One thing I have noticed from reading parenting forums, is that when parents refer to the price charged by agencies, they refer to the per-hour cost and don't always include the booking fee, membership fee or mention the minimum time period. Those extras can add up to quite a bit, yet they are not always considered. That's just what I have observed from reading forum posts, so in reality parents may consider it once they total up the bill.

Why are you charging a booking fee?
Why do you say "from £6 an hour"? Why from? Why not just fix the cost?

£5 booking puts me off. Sitters charges £4 and they have quite a lot of people to call to find me a sitter. So I figure I'm paying for that legwork. Wouldn't fancy paying you £5 to make one phone call. Hourly rate of £6 is fine.

I'd be happy with that (outer London). I pay £10/h or £9/h flat fee to my current babysitters (not qualified).

Agree that wouldnt be happy to pay a booking fee. In my area (Surrey/Hampshire), teenagers charge £5 an hour. They are mainly daughters of childminders who have grown up around kids all their life, I get their details from other mums at the school playground. I check their refs myself, don't believe in paying agencies. Experienced babysitters charge £7-8 which works for me and which I do use if I want a long night out and need someone with professional/advanced experience. Good luck, hope you get your business up and running.

I do eve babysitting and charge £8ph for local families (within about 5miles of me), going up to £10+ph for families further away. I dont get much work but would rather get only occasional work for £8+ph than work regularly for £5/6ph if that makes sense. I am in the Midlands.

I am also a parent and would not want to pay a booking fee, if £6ph is not enough for you, I would increase hourly rate slightly rather than charge booking fee.

As a parent, I think £6ph for your experience is fine.

locally we pay an experienced nursery nurse £5-6 an hour (rounded up/down to nearest figure usually) I'd not ben keen on the booking fee part

I am a childminder who does babysitting on the odd evening in the week. I used to charge 6 pound per hour (near Cheltenham), however, I found some parents were only going out for 1.5-2 hours and it wasnt really worth my time for 7 or 12 pounds. So what I do now is I charge 15 pounds for the first hour then 1.50 per hour thereafter. I charge 7 per hour after midnight. At least you know you are getting a minimum of 15 quid when you go out.

I'm in Scotland and i charge £7 per hour and get a fair amount of work, i am a cm.

I tihnk £6 per hour is fine but not sure on the booking fee? Whyis that charged? I may be naive lol

Sitters also charge booking fee and it comes to £10ph anyway(including membership, booking fee and god knows what else fee!) I think Likeminders are cheaper then Sitters. Their booking fee is less and they pay more for their sitters. So I dont think you should stop charging for booking fee. Having said that, good luck with finding professional nannies, nurses, childminders etc. to babysit for that amount. As they can easly get work for £10 anyway.

Booking fee is incase you cancel, I guess? As they do find you a sitter and obviously sitter cant get another booking. So at least she will get something?

Surely all babysitters would be responsible for getting to/back from the job. When I was a teenager, I used to cycle to families homes, often up to 5 miles or so each way.

my reply seems to have disapeared!!

thanks for all your feedback. basically, the reason for the booking fee is at the moment its just the 2 of us, but im hoping that will not be the case forever. the sitters keep there hourly rate, and then i would keep the booking fee. hence at the moment its on "special" and not charged, and will remain so until were bigger.

the only other agency near us charges £12 a yr subscription, £6 booking fee and then the hourly rate. I have set that at £6 for weekdays and £7 for weekends.

i know a lot of people prefer to only leave there children with people they know, but for those who may live with no family or friends nearby, someone who is experienced/qualified/crb checked and who they can meet before may give them a bit more peace of mind.

thank you all so much xx

The families I babysit, always pay for a taxi or give me a lift home. I dont ask them. They say "it's not safe to walk or travel on bus late at night". They all are lovely!

They seemed perfectly happy to let a 17 year old boy cycle home when I was a youth.