Care.com is the giant of this category, an international marketplace where one account covers babysitting, au pairs, tutoring, pet care, aged care, housekeeping and special needs care. We are an Australian introduction service for exactly one of those: babysitters and nannies. You browse public profiles, message free, and arrange the job between yourselves. What separates them is posture. They connect you and step back, in their own words. We check the two documents that matter for childcare and show you the result.
What a year costs
We cannot price their year for you, and neither can their website: Not published. Their terms require a paid Premium subscription to use some features, and the price appears when you subscribe, not on a public pricing page. What their terms do publish is how the billing behaves once it starts. It renews automatically until you cancel. Their terms say that unless you explicitly decline renewals, a Premium Membership continues indefinitely. If you change your mind later, the refunds row is the one to read first: Their stated policy is no refunds for purchase cancellations, though they may issue one at their discretion, and cancelling your account refunds nothing already paid. So the questions to ask at their checkout are the price, the renewal period, and the cancellation route, because the terms put all three on you.
Here the arithmetic is short. Post an ad, browse every profile, message anyone, read every reply: $0 a month, $0 a year, no card at any step. For babysitters and nannies that is not a launch offer, the site is free for them permanently. Our pricing page says so in full.
For the babysitter or nanny it is closer. Their side: Joining and a profile are free. Their terms let them charge carers for some services and sell credits to exchange information with families. Ours is $0 as well, permanently, and there are no credits, boosts or upgrades for sale to anyone.
What each one checks
Their answer is in their own footer, on every page: None. The footer of their own pages says Care.com does not verify the identity of, or information posted by, care seekers or carers. Do their terms promise any screening? Not by default. Their terms reserve a right, but not an obligation, to run checks, and otherwise say they do not screen, vet or background-check anyone except as the terms describe. Each user declares their own clean record at sign-up. Their own how-it-works steps for families finish with "conduct interviews, check references, and hire the one that works for you". The checking is yours to do, and to their credit their Safety Centre says so too, in an article library on interviewing, references and instincts.
The Working With Children Check makes the gap concrete for Australian childcare: Not mentioned. There is no WWCC field, filter or check on their sign-up, their Safety Centre or their terms. A carer may mention one in their bio, and nothing confirms it. The word "verification" itself does different jobs on the two sites, so read that row twice. Here, One meaning: ID and WWCC checked by us. A profile without the checks says not checked, in plain words. There, Public profiles carry a Verification count. Their public pages do not say what it counts, and the same page's footer says identity is not verified.
Our checks are the reason this site exists. A government ID with a matching selfie, and the WWCC confirmed by a person here with the register in the state that issued it. A profile that has passed both carries a badge with the month. One that has not says "not checked" beside each track, in plain words. Both checks are free for the babysitter, and both are opt-in, because the law genuinely leaves room for unverified private babysitting. What the badge means has the whole procedure.
Where Care.com is better
Size, and it is not close. Their figures: millions of families, and more than one million carers signed up worldwide. Their Australian pages cover every capital and most regional centres, and their childcare directory has carers with ten years of experience in suburbs we have not reached. Our count is in the table above, it is real, and it is much smaller.
Breadth, second. If you want a babysitter, a dog walker and help for an ageing parent, one Care.com account searches all three. We will only ever show you babysitters and nannies.
Profile signals, third. Their public profiles show star ratings and how many times a carer was hired through the site. A hire count is a genuinely useful signal, we do not have one, and it is fair to say their busiest carers wear a track record ours cannot show yet.
Where we are better
Money you can see. Our price is $0 and it is published. Their price appears at their checkout, renews automatically, and their stated policy is no refunds for cancellations. Even without a number, you know which of those terms you would rather sign.
Checks. Nothing on their pages says anyone confirms who a carer is, and their footer says so outright. Here the ID and WWCC are checked by us, free, and shown plainly either way. If the badge matters to you, only one of these sites has one that means something.
Nothing for sale in the results. Some of their profiles carry a paid Premium badge, and their public pages do not explain what it buys. Search here ranks by distance, full stop, and neither placement nor the verified badge is for sale.
Focus. Their flow was built to serve seven kinds of care in seventeen countries, and it shows: their sign-up has no WWCC field and their terms never mention one. Ours was built around Australian childcare, so the one document Australian parents ask about first is the one we check.
If you are a family in Sydney
Look here first, because looking is free on both sites and ours shows you the checks beside each profile. If your suburb has verified babysitters you like, you are done, with nothing subscribed and nothing to cancel. If it does not yet, the page will say so plainly, and their reach is a genuine reason to try them. Just go in with your eyes open: their own pages say nobody has checked anyone, so meet first, ask to sight the WWCC card, and confirm it on the register that issued it before you hire.
If you are a babysitter or nanny
Keep a profile wherever the families are, since a profile is free on both. What we add is the part you cannot do alone: an ID and WWCC check that cost you nothing and show beside your name, a public profile a family can find without an account, and nothing for sale to you: no credits, no boosts, no subscription. There, their terms let them charge carers for some services and sell credits to message families, and what the paid Premium badge buys is not published.
Pick Care.com if
You want the biggest pool and will check people yourself
- You need several kinds of care, or a suburb we have not reached yet
- You want star ratings and hire counts from a big marketplace
- You are happy to interview, check references and sight the WWCC yourself
Pick AusBabysitters if
You want checked profiles and no subscription
- You want the ID and WWCC confirmed by the platform, not left to you
- You would rather a published price of $0 than a price at checkout that auto-renews
- You are a babysitter or nanny who wants checks that cost nothing and show beside your name
