Find A Babysitter has been listing babysitters and nannies since 2005, which makes it one of the oldest sites of its kind in Australia. A parent buys a membership, posts a job, browses the list and writes to whoever they like. We are an introduction service too, and the mechanics are close enough that the differences come down to two things: what the family pays, and who checks the carer. Their FAQ answers the second one in a single word.
What a year costs
A membership there is $229 for 12 months, $129 for 6 months or $79 for 3 months, paid once. Their FAQ sets each against a struck-through price of $249, $149 and $99. The three-month option is the interesting one, because a babysitter search rarely takes a year: $79 buys a quarter, and four of those in a row costs $316, against $229 for buying the twelve months up front. Two six-month memberships come to $258. Nothing renews itself, which is worth saying plainly, since their FAQ promises no monthly debits and no auto-renewal.
What the fee buys is the ability to make contact: Membership only. Their terms say a parent must pay the membership fee to register. Reading the list is free for anyone, on both sites. So the $229 is not for finding carers, it is for writing to them. At the $25 to $40 an hour their own FAQ quotes as the going rate, $229 is somewhere between about six and nine hours of babysitting, paid to the site instead of the sitter.
Here it is $0 at every step. Browse, post a job, read every reply, message anyone listed. For babysitters and nannies that is not a launch offer: the site is free for them permanently. Our pricing page says so in full. On their side of the ledger the carer pays nothing either: $0. Their FAQ says it is free for babysitters and nannies to register.
And neither site takes a cut of the job. Nobody. Their FAQ says you pay the carer directly and they do not process payments, take a commission or charge placement fees, which is the same arrangement we have, for the same reason: no booking button means no fee to hang off one.
What each one checks
Start with identity, because it is the check everything else rests on. None described. Their FAQ says they do not carry out pre-employment screenings, interviews or background checks. Their terms do reserve the right to run identity, credential or reference checks at their discretion, and say documents would be sighted but not stored. Nothing on their pages describes that happening as a matter of course.
The Working With Children Check is the same shape: Not checked by them. A carer ticks a WWCC box on their own profile, and their FAQ says they do not view or store a copy due to privacy laws. On a profile it sits in a list of eight ticked credentials beside a driver's licence and non-smoker, and their FAQ tells parents to ask for the details and do their own verification. That advice is correct. It is also the whole of the checking on that site.
We check the two things a check is for. A government photo ID with a matching selfie, run through Didit, who confirm the document is genuine and that the face in the selfie is the face on it. Then the WWCC number itself, entered by a person here into the state's own checker, in every state but the ACT, which has none we can search. Only a clear result passes. A profile that has passed both carries a badge with the month, a profile part way through says so, and one that has done neither says "Not yet verified" in plain words. Both checks are free for the babysitter and both are opt-in. What the badge means has the whole procedure, including what it does not prove.
If you hire from a site that checks nobody, the checking is yours. Meet first, ask to sight the card, and confirm the number on the register that issued it. That advice sits on every unverified profile here too.
Where Find A Babysitter is better
Size and age, first, and it is not close. Their words: trusted by thousands of families since 2005, and Australia's largest, up-to-date list of babysitters and nannies. No national count is published; their Sydney page listed 458 babysitters on 2026-09-20. Twenty years of carers in six capital cities is a real asset, and on the day we checked their Sydney list ran to pages of profiles. We are months old and most of our list is in Sydney.
Reach, second: Australia-wide since 2005, with pages for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide. If you are in Perth or Adelaide, their list has people on it today and ours may not.
A police check has a home on their profiles, too. A second tick box on the profile. Their FAQ says they do not view or store a copy, and asks parents to request one themselves. Neither site verifies one, but they have asked the question of every carer for years, and plenty have ticked it.
The age floor, last. 18. Their FAQ says their policy is that you must be aged 18 years and over. Their 18 is the stricter line. Ours is 16 on purpose, so a 16-year-old can list with the same checks as anyone else, and the age sits on every profile for a family who wants only adults.
Where we are better
The money, on the family side. The whole search is free here, and the $229 a year of contact costs there is money that could go to the babysitter instead.
The checks. Their FAQ says they carry out no screenings, interviews or background checks, and do not verify what a carer writes. Here the ID and the WWCC are checked by us, free, and shown either way. If a badge is going to mean anything to you, only one of these two sites has one that rests on a register.
Reviews that need contact first. A parent posts a rating, the carer can reply to it, and a parent can remove one. A rating there can be posted by a parent and taken down by that same parent; here a review can only be written by someone who held a conversation on the site, and it works in both directions.
If you are a family
Look here first, because looking is free on both sites and ours shows the checks beside each profile. If your suburb has babysitters you like, you have lost nothing and saved $229. If it does not yet, the page will say so rather than pad the list, and twenty years of carers is a genuine reason to pay their fee. If you do, budget for the checking as well as the membership, because their site has not done any of it.
If you are a babysitter or nanny
Keep a profile on both. Both are free, and the two lists rarely hold the same people. Theirs gives you two decades of families. Ours gives you an ID and WWCC check that costs you nothing and shows beside your name, a public profile a family can find and read without an account, and the certainty that a family who wants to write to you can, without paying $229 first.
Pick Find A Babysitter if
You want the longest list and will do the checking yourself
- You are outside Sydney, or in a suburb where our list is still thin
- You want twenty years of carers in one search
- You are happy to sight the WWCC and confirm it on the register before hiring
Pick AusBabysitters if
You want the checks done and no fee to make contact
- You would rather the $229 went to your babysitter than to a membership
- You want the ID and the WWCC confirmed with the register, not ticked by the carer
- You are a babysitter or nanny who wants families to reach you without paying first
