What our numbers are, how confident we are in them, and the several things we are not qualified to tell you.
Read this first. We are not lawyers, accountants, or employment advisers. Nothing on this site or in anything we sell is legal, tax, or employment advice. The rates we publish are researched estimates, not guarantees of what anyone will pay you.
These are United States figures
Every rate in the calculator and in the book is a US figure, in US dollars, built from US data and checked against US state minimum wages. We are a Canadian company, but the product is about the US market and we have not researched Canadian, British or Australian rates. If you sit outside the United States the method still holds, the structure of the modifiers still holds, and the scripts still work. The dollar figures do not. Treat them as a worked example rather than as your number.
Where the rate figures come from
We would rather show our working than ask you to trust us.
The national base rate is built from rates actually paid on completed bookings across thirty US metro areas in 2026. Each metro figure is divided by that region's price parity, which is the federal government's published measure of what a dollar buys in one place versus another. The median of those adjusted figures is $21.99, which we round to $22.00. To produce your local number we run that back the other way for your state and then check it against your state minimum wage as a floor.
The overnight structure is a model rather than a published standard, because no published standard exists. We validate it by checking that it reproduces published flat overnight rates, which it does to within a few dollars.
What is estimated rather than measured
This is the part most sites leave out.
Eleven of the twenty modifiers we apply are our own estimates. There is no published source anywhere that quantifies what a CPR certificate, a childcare qualification, or a last-minute booking is worth in dollars per hour. We have made careful, defensible estimates and we label them as estimates inside the product rather than dressing them up as data.
The per-child percentages and the metro rates are measured. The credential premiums, the short-notice premium and the holiday multiplier are reasoned estimates.
Rates change, and this page is a snapshot
Everything here is 2026 data. Minimum wages change in eighteen US jurisdictions on 1 January 2027, thirteen of them tied to inflation and not yet announced. Florida's rises on 30 September 2026. We re-pull the data before those dates and everyone who has bought from us gets the update, but between refreshes a figure may be out of date.
What we cannot promise
- That a particular family will agree to a particular number.
- That your income will rise by any specific amount, or at all.
- That a rate that is normal in one town is achievable in another.
- That any script will work on any given person. They are the words that work most often, not a guarantee.
Any figures we quote about what someone earned or saved are examples, not typical results.
Employment status and tax
The guide explains, in plain English, the difference between being self-employed and being a household employee, because almost nobody explains it and it changes what you take home. That is general information to help you know what to ask.
It is not tax advice. Whether you are an employee or self-employed, what you owe, what you can deduct, and what a family owes as an employer all depend on where you live, your hours and your circumstances. If you are earning meaningfully from sitting, an hour with an accountant is worth more than anything we can write.
The documents are templates
The Paperwork contains an agreement, a cancellation policy and other forms. They are plain-English templates written to be fair to both sides. They are not drafted by a lawyer, they are not written for any particular state or province, and signing one does not guarantee a court would enforce any part of it. Rules for household and casual work vary by place and by situation. If a lot of money is involved, have someone qualified look at it.
Safety and childcare
Nothing we publish is a safety manual, a first aid guide, or childcare training. We write about money. Take a real first aid course, learn infant CPR, and follow the guidance of people qualified to give it.
Nannies
Our calculator includes a professional nanny tier, but regular nannying is a different legal category from casual babysitting in the United States, with different obligations for the family. The same split exists in Canada and elsewhere under different names and different rules. Where our material applies to nannies we say so, and where it does not we say that too.
Quotes from real people
The quotes we use throughout the site and the book are real, taken from public posts made in the last two years. They are lightly trimmed for length and never reworded. We do not attribute them to named individuals and we do not link to the original posts.
Outside links
Where we link to a government source, a course provider or another site, we are pointing at information we found useful. We do not control those sites and we are not responsible for what they say or do.
Questions
If something here is unclear, or you think a figure is wrong, email ruth@howmuchshouldichargeforbabysitting.com. We would rather be corrected than be confidently wrong in the next edition.