We Need A Nanny vs AusBabysitters

We Need A Nanny has been a job board since 2006, and the name says how it works: you post the job, nannies apply, and you subscribe to answer them. It covers most of Australia and leans to nannies and au pairs over one-night babysitting. We are an introduction service. You browse public profiles, message a babysitter or nanny free, and arrange the job between yourselves. The two sites agree on more than you might expect, including that the caregiver side should be free. Where they part is what the family pays, and what anyone checks.

What a year costs

On We Need A Nanny a family pays $20 a month plus a one-off $55 joining fee to read and send messages. Posting a job and receiving applications is free. The joining fee is the part to notice: The application lands in your inbox, but reading it needs the subscription. So the moment your ad works is the moment the meter starts. The first month costs $75, three months of interviewing costs $115, and the first year comes to $295, with each year after that at $240. They offer a one-time 30-day money-back guarantee if you email them before the 30th day, which is a fair term for a paid product, and their subscription renews monthly until you cancel.

Here the same search costs nothing at any step. Post the ad, read every reply, message anyone listed, all free, and 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 nanny it is closer to a tie. Their side: $0. A profile, job applications and messages are all free. Ours is $0 as well, permanently. The one thing they sell a caregiver is placement: A Featured Caregiver spot is $20 a month or $120 a year, and puts a profile at the top of search results. We do not sell that or anything like it. Search here ranks by distance, and no fee moves anyone up it.

What each one checks

Identity first: None. Registration asks a name, postcode, email and password, and no ID is requested at any point. Their customer service team does approve every profile before it appears, but that is a review of what the profile says, not of who wrote it. The Working With Children Check is the same story: Not checked by them. It is a search filter a caregiver ticks on their own profile. Their own how-it-works page for parents goes as far as saying every carer is legally required to hold one, which is not quite what the law says. In New South Wales and Victoria a privately arranged babysitter does not need a WWCC, and no filter tells you whether a ticked box is real.

We check the two things a check is for: a government ID with a matching selfie, and the WWCC confirmed by a person here with the register in the state that issued it, not a box anyone ticks. A profile that has passed both carries a badge with the month. A profile 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.

If you hire from a board that checks nothing, the checking is yours to do. Meet first, ask to sight the WWCC card, and confirm it on the register that issued it. That advice is on every unverified profile here too.

Where We Need A Nanny is better

Size, first, and it is not close. They have run for twenty years, their terms cover every state except South Australia and Tasmania, and their own figures quote thousands of active caregivers and over 80,000 families. On the day we checked, their logged-out search offered 9,460 caregivers around Sydney's postcode 2000. Our count is in the table above, it is real, and it is much smaller.

Reach for nannies, second. More families in one place means more jobs in one place, and nanny agencies post their roles there too. A nanny hunting for full-time work will see more ads there than here today.

Focus, third. They are built around the nanny and au pair shape, the ongoing weekday role, and their search reflects it. We list babysitters and nannies together and let the profile say which arrangement someone wants.

Where we are better

Money, on the family side. Reading an application there costs $75 before you have spoken to anyone. Here the whole search is free, and the $295 their first year adds up to stays in your pocket.

Checks. Nothing on their pages says anyone confirms who a caregiver is or whether a ticked WWCC exists. Here both 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.

Ranking you can trust. Their search puts paying Featured profiles first. Ours puts the nearest profiles first, full stop. Nobody can buy their way above anyone else here, and the verified badge is not for sale either.

And replies actually arrive. Because messaging here is free for both sides, a nanny who applies knows the family can read it, and a family who writes to a babysitter knows nothing is sitting behind a paywall on the other end.

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 have lost nothing and saved $75. If it does not yet, the page will say so plainly, and their twenty years of caregivers is a genuine reason to pay their fee. Just do the checking yourself before you hire, because their site will not have done any.

If you are a nanny or babysitter

Keep a profile on both, since both are free. Theirs gives you more job ads today. Ours gives you a public profile a family can find without an account, a WWCC and ID check that cost you nothing and show beside your name, and the certainty that when you apply to a family here, they can read it without paying $75 first. There, your application waits until the family subscribes.