6 Best babysitting apps for reliable childcare in 2024

Because the best babysitting apps will make your life easier

In 2024, we are no longer content to find babysitters on random messaging boards, and we have all but forgotten how to keep cash on hand. But the need for qualified, reliable, and dedicated babysitters remains.

Enter: the babysitting app. As a decade+ old nanny agency, we’ve long kept an eye on what’s out there. Here are our 6 top babysitting apps - big and small., updated with 2024 info to help you get the best childcare for your family.

1. Urban Sitter

Best for: Social Connections and Last-Minute Bookings

Urban Sitter is like the 2024 equivalent of the neighborhood sitter. By tapping into your network of parent friends, kids’ schools, parenting groups, and more, the Urban Sitter app can suggest caregivers who have already worked with someone you know. In this way‚ you can feel a sense of confidence in booking a stranger. The Urban Sitter app also makes it easy to see reviews, book a sitter, and handle payments directly in the app. 

• Subscription Cost: $34.95/month or $99.95/year for premium access, required to message sitters

• Unique Feature: You can see which sitters your friends or other parents in your community have used, making it feel more like a personal recommendation​

• Potential drawback: The free version only lets you browse sitters, not actually message them. The platform is more geared toward babysitting than long-term, full-time nannies.

2. Sittercity

Best for: Flexible Childcare Options

Sittercity is one of the OG babysitter sites, and the app can connect families and sitters in nearly the whole country. The app allows you to screen profiles, communicate with sitters, and review background checks. You also see rates up front.

1. Subscription Cost: premium membership costs $35/month or $98/year​, required to message sitters.

2. Unique Feature: Sittercity’s flexible search options allow families to filter sitters based on their exact needs, including special needs experience. As a large site, many caregivers are on it.

3. Potential drawbacks: The app is basically a mobile version of the regular site. It doesn’t help manage scheduling or handle payments, and there is no personalized screening beyond the background checks and standard, mechanical review. 

3. Bambino

Best for: Community Recommendations

Bambino is another app relying on social connections for added security and peace of mind. With Bambino, both families and sitters connect via their Facebook accounts, and sitters must be recommended by someone in the community to get in at all. The app handles payments, scheduling, reimbursements for extra expenses, and profile reviews. The app categorizes sitters into different tiers—Junior, Standard, and Elite—so you can choose a sitter based on their experience and rating.

1. Subscription Cost: No subscription fees, parents pay a $4.95 fee per sit or can upgrade to a premium membership for additional perks, around $9/month.

2. Unique Feature: Bambino leverages community recommendations and categorizes sitters into tiers based on experience; great if you’re looking to work with younger babysitters i your neighborhood

3. Potential drawbacks: Younger, less experienced sitters; not the site for full-time or long-term nannies. Also, are you still using your Facebook account?

4. Care.com 

Best for: Variety of Care Services

Care.com is another giant in the caregiving field, focusing not only on childcare but also senior care, pet sitting, and housekeeping. As with Sittercity, their app allows you to create a profile, attracting caregivers from your area.

1. Subscription Cost: $38.95/month for premium, or $156 annually​, required to message caregivers

2. Unique Feature: Care.com allows you to run more detailed background checks for additional peace of mind​, and the candidate pool is large

3. Potential Drawbacks: the site takes no responsibility for the matches made and the app doesn’t let you manage payments and other paperwork.

5. Helpr

Best for: Last-Minute and Emergency Care through. Employer Benefits

Helpr is an excellent option for families needing last-minute or emergency babysitting, when offered as a benefit through one’s employer. It boasts an extensive screening process, ensuring that all sitters are background-checked. Helpr is particularly favored by employers for its innovative approach to childcare as a workplace benefit.

• Subscription Cost: No subscription fees; typically the employer pays for the caregiving, up to a certain amount of hours/days depending on your benefits package.

• Unique Feature: Helpr allows families to book last-minute childcare using employee benefits and even lets them upload their own trusted caregivers to the platform​

• Potential Drawback: You must have an eomployer who values corporate back-up care and childcare benefits as a valuable offering to employees

6. Smart Sitting’s Always On

Best for: Personalized Service and Expertly Vetted Sitters

We obviously couldn’t do a roundup like this without including our very own Always On babysitting app. Through Always On, our dedicated team gets to know you and your family and connects you with pre-screened, experienced, engaging candidates who fit your bill and can hit the ground running. As with our long-term matches, we get to know both the families and the sitters personally before we begin our work. 

Through the app, you can book a babysitter, communicate with the sitter directly, and manage your list of preferred babysitters for a tailored roster of child care professionals you love. Smart Sitting handles all the paperwork, payments, and taxes. Couldn’t be easier! Plus, since we’ve been doing this for well over a decade, you can feel confident that the process will be smooth and the sitters will be fantastic. 

1. Subscription Cost: Monthly subscription fe plus sitter rate — Smart Sitting handles all payment and employment details, and the subscription includes personalized matches

2. Unique Feature: Always On provides access to premium sitters who are pre-vetted and highly recommended with tailored matchings, offering a more hands-on approach than larger platforms.

3. Potential Drawbacks: Not available in all regions, and we’re working on that!

Smart Sitting’s babysitting app Always On is easy to use and connects you with your favorite sitters.

 Feeling lost and need guidance?

We get it, searching for childcare can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re sifting through a hundred profiles and forget what you even needed in the first place. If you want to talk to someone about your needs directly, call us or get started via the button below. Our family specialists understand the ins and outs of babysitting, know the network of sitters, and can help guide you through which solution will truly be helpful for your family. Because apps make it easy - but people make it good.

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