Babysitting rates?

[EvaM]

So, I'm an au pair and decided to offer babysitting on my free evenings (in North London, since you ask).

I quoted 30GPB for an evening (worked out as 7.30pm till 10.45pm) and 'mum' seemed surprised at my low rates (paid for cab home and gave me a 10GBP tip).

What would you expect to pay for a babysitter? Is 30 GBP so low it's unprofessionally cheap?

Just for illustration I was looking after 3 fairly self-suficient girls (9,11 and 13). I didn't really do much, just played with the youngest and sent the kids to bed at their respective bed times and then did a 'round' a few times to check everything is ok.

Thanks for your input.

£10 an hour seems like a reasonable rate for a 'professional'

My 17 year old get £6.50 an hour which I think is very reasonable for an untrained (but responsible) teenager. She get £10 an hour after midnight

Do babysitters usually charge per hour then?

Per hour... £8-£10 ph is fine

I work through sitters agency and only get £6.50-7/h and I am qualified and Ofsted registered.

... and nobody refunds my petrol used travelling there and back.

I hate working with agencies. I only work with one exceptionally good tutoring agency (for German lessons) because most of them charge clients astronomical fees whilst passing very little on to the sitter (or tutor...).

Not worth it, even though I see the benefits from the parents pov.

Sitters are well known for their poor rates of pay.

How much do sitters charge the parents btw?

£10 ph IMO

Sitters charge parents £13.85 for 3 months of membership and then £4 for each booking. The parents pay the sitter's fee on the day in cash.

I'm a qualified nanny, ofsted registered and live in the SE I charge £10 per hour up till 1am then double (this is because I hate not getting home till the early hours and it works as a brilliant deterrent ) although I do have one family who get home regularly at 3am!

All the nannies I know charge the same but we all have 10+ years experience, I've seen adverts lately from younger nannies charging £8 per hour. Local teenagers get around £5-6 per hour.

I also know a lot of nannies who have a minimum booking policy of 4 hours as they say its not worth it otherwise (I dont)

I've had a think about it and would appreciate parent's and babysitters to participate in my little unofficial poll.

Would you rather pay (experienced bilingual au pair, first aid certificate...)

a) 9Gbp per hour pre midninght, 15 GBP per hour post midnight

b) 30GBP flat fee pre midnight, 50GBP post midnight (but not over-nighter)

Thanks for your advice so far.

experienced as in: not first au pair job, tutors children, summer camp experience...

If it was a 30£ flat fee pre-midnight I'd want to go from 6:30 (if I had tickets to a show) or 7ish (if not) to about 11-11:30 so that would work out less than 9 per hour. If I had to pay 9 per hour I'd usually book 2-3 hours (so 8pm to 10:30 -11pm).
I think 9-10 per hour is totally reasonable when the children are awake! But I think sitters at 6.50 - 7 per hour (plus fees which up it to about 8 on average for us) is reasonable given that when we have someone from sitters (all good experiences by the way!), they do at MOST 30 minutes of active childcare during the 3-4 hours they are at our house, and otherwise can read/watch movies/work etc. We pay a local teenager about 6 per hour plus a couple quid extra when she's available, but that is rare.
Personally I'd prefer (a) if I needed past midnight because we would never be out later than about 12:15 so 20£ extra for those few minutes would be irrational....

thanks everyone who answered so far.

Would you like to be given a choice then ( of hourly or flat rate) when booking a babysitter, fussy?

I think it would depend. I mean bilingual isn't going to mean much for babysitting unless it's a family where the children speak the other language better. But £9/hour is still cheap.

A flat rate would be handy in many circumstances though so offering the choice isn't a bad plan.

Tbh I think your rates are about right.

Hmmm, I was originally planning to just offer the flat fee.

I feel I have been paid reasonably well and parents don't have to feel like they are on a schedule and don't have to worry about rates going up when stuck in traffic (this is London after all)

I think having a flat rate option would be nice when I don't know exactly when I'll get back, or when we have to leave early to get to a concert or something. That way I'd not be committed to a specific time so if the bus doesn't come/ traffic /whatever it's OK. But the flat rate might work less well for you if it was more hours so less hourly, over all.. And I guess I wouldn't like a flat rate if I was only going out for a couple of hours because it would seem like those hours were super-expensive. So the choice people made would let you know their intentions!