Sittercity vs Care.com: Which Is Best?

Sittercity vs Care.com? If you are not sure which of these two online sitter services you should join, then this article is for you.

In this article, I will provide you a point-by-point comparison of Sittercity and Care.com. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to decide and start looking for sitters to help you with your family’s needs.

So which service is best for you? Read on to find out.

Here’s what some parents have to say about this article:

“I’m glad I came across your exhaustive article on Sittercity and Care.com. That was truly very helpful. Keep up the great work!” – Elissa T.

“Wow, it seemed like you really spent some time researching the various online child care services. I really appreciate it.” – Alyssa H.

“Thanks for the excellent information you just shared about the service. I wouldn’t have been able to find a sitter if it wasn’t for your review.” – Katherine J.

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Highlights Of Review

• The key factors which were considered for this review were as follows: market leadership, ease of use of the service, background checking features of the site, availability of qualified sitters, the price of the service, customer feedback, and other features of the services.
• In terms of ease of use of the service, both Care.com and Sittercity have done an excellent job with their search platform. You can really refine your search results and find a good list of candidate profiles to review.
• Regarding background checking, there is a distinct difference in the pricing schedules, with Sittercity having a more reasonable pricing schedule compared to Care.com. Summary pricing of background checks is provided for both.
• When evaluated based on the available qualified sitters, Sittercity had more sitter results for 7 of the 10 metropolitan areas in the sample search areas based on our specific set of search filters.
• In terms of price points, both Care.com and Sittercity have exactly the same price points for their premium membership plans. Basic access is free for both, which is really a great way to test their services. A summary table of price points is provided. Sittercity currently has a limited-time special promo of up to 65% discount on their plans.
• With regards to the quality of sitters, this is a subjective matter and may vary from person to person, depending on a family’s needs, requirements for a sitter, and the type of person that they get along with. Based on customer feedback from moms who have used both services, Sittercity appears to have more positive feedback and better word-of-mouth buzz compared to Care.com. It also appears that there are significantly more complaints about Care.com than Sittercity.
• Important tips are provided with regards to how to best use these services.
• Warnings on certain things that you will have to watch for when using these two services are provided. This is definitely a must-read.
• Lastly, the service I decided to use for my family is revealed.

Sittercity vs. Care.com: How They Started

Meet Alicia and Laura. Both of them are mothers who found sitters to care for their babies using the services of online child care providers. The difference between them is that Alicia found her trusted and caring sitter for her twins on Sittercity while Laura found her dependable and loving sitter for her baby on Care.com.

Alicia and Laura are just two examples of the millions of people who now use Sittercity and Care.com for their childcare needs.

With the increasing popularity of online sitter services, there has been an influx of players in the market. A few are truly market leaders that employ some of the best practices to help you find trusted and reliable child care while a lot of the second-tier services are not even worth seriously looking into.

For this review, we will only be focusing on Sittercity and Care.com.

Before we provide you with a side-by-side comparison of Sittercity and Care.com to help you make an informed decision as to which you should use for your family’s childcare needs, here is a quick backgrounder on these two services.

» Sittercity, the inventor of online caregiving and America’s largest online sitter service, was started by Genevieve Thiers back in 2001 while she was a Boston College student. This online sitter service was modeled by Theirs after successful online dating services wherein those who need babysitters are matched with those willing to provide the service.

From its small initial base of clients in the Boston area, Sittercity has grown tremendously. The company now serves more than 7 million users in cities across the United States. Sittercity’s scope of offerings includes sitters, nannies, pet sitters, and senior care.

Watch the video to learn more about Sittercity.

Sittercity has a network of more than a million caregiver profiles nationwide, and helps families and individuals across America find the perfect in-home care provider quickly, easily, and safely. Sittercity’s care seekers can use the company’s four-step screening process, which includes checking references, reading caregiver reviews, conducting interviews, and utilizing access to background checks.

The company sends out alerts regarding updates on the babysitters that match your criteria as well as promotions on various retail and family services.

» Care.com was founded by mom and entrepreneur Sheila Marcelo back in 2006. Since its launch, Care.com has become one of the largest and fastest-growing sitter and care services in the US. The service provides families an online place to find high-quality caregivers, as well as easily connect, share care-giving experiences, and get advice from the community of parents on the site.

The company addresses a wide range of care needs that each family goes through — child care, special needs care, tutoring and lessons, senior care, pet care, housekeeping, and more.

Watch the video to learn more about Care.com

The service helps families find and select the best care possible based on detailed profiles, background checks, and references for hundreds of thousands of mom-reviewed providers who seek to share their services.

The site also has special needs care services to help address the distinctive care needs of this significant yet often overlooked segment of the population.

Through its Care.com for Recruiters service offering, Care.com also enables companies to find high-quality caregiving employees. Care.com provides the following: a strict screening process, background checks,  and feedback from parents on a person’s performance, personality, character, etc.

Key Factors To Consider When Evaluating An Online Sitter Service

There are a lot of factors that you might have in mind when considering an online sitter service to use. For us, we think that some of the important factors to consider are as follows:

» Proven market leaders. For us, we think that it is important to go with market leaders cause these online sitter services have proven their technology and are the trailblazers in the industry. These market leaders are usually well-funded and have more staying power.

You can therefore be assured that for as long as you need sitters, these online sitter services will continue to be around.

From our perspective, the more choices you have to choose from, the better. Furthermore, the more filtering capabilities a search platform can provide you, the better chance you have of finding a potential quality candidate that fits your needs.

» Ease of use. Since these services are meant to make the search for sitters easy and convenient, you would definitely want to use a service that has a platform that is easy and simple to use. Who needs a complicated platform for search? Not us and we assume, not you.

» Background checking feature. Since you will be entrusting your kids or loved ones to someone that you barely (or do not) know, it is best to go with online sitter services which provide affordable and comprehensive background and security checks to help you assess and choose the best candidates.

This is definitely a very important factor to consider since this concerns the safety of your child, your family, and your home.

» Availability of qualified sitters. The online sitter service should be a good resource to find a good number of available qualified sitters within your area.

From our perspective, the more choices you have to choose from, the better.

Furthermore, the more filtering capabilities a search platform can provide you, the better chance you have of finding a potential quality candidate that fits your needs.

» Price of service. Just like any company that needs to remain in business and offer quality service, subscription fees are to be expected from online sitter services. The only question in our mind is whether the subscription price points are reasonable and affordable.

» Customer feedback. So what do actual users have to say about the service? Were they happy and satisfied with the service? What was the reason they were happy with using the service? Did they provide negative feedback? What did they have to say about their overall experience? Never underestimate the power of user feedback as this can provide you with some great insights about the service.

» Other special features. Does the site offer other special features aside from finding sitters which you might find very useful? Although some online sitter services pretty much have the same main service offerings, there could be some subtle service offerings that might be worth noting which can be very useful to you.

An example of this would be getting discounts from partner stores or an “emergency sitter” feature in case you need a sitter right away.

Which Site Is More User-Friendly?

When it comes to websites, nothing beats a site that is well laid out and easy to navigate and use. The simpler a site is, the better. Below are our thoughts on these sites’ user-friendliness.

» Both Care.com and Sittercity have very similar navigation and search features. Both of the sites are easy to navigate around and are well laid out so you will be able to focus on the task at hand and not be side-tracked by trying to figure out your way around them.

» Posting a job for sitters is easy for both Care.com and Sittercity. Based on our experience, we found this to be very intuitive on both sites. However, there is a difference in the way posting for jobs is done on each of the sites.

For Care.com, you start by writing a description of the type of help you are seeking from a sitter and then complete the forms for schedules, job details, and other sitter criteria that you are looking for.

For Sittercity, it is the other way around. Sittercity would require you to complete the forms regarding the job details first and then provide the job description afterward. Personally, for us, we find Sittercity’s process a lot easier to work with.

Both of the sites are easy to navigate around and are well laid-out so you will be able to focus on the task at hand and not be side-tracked with trying to figure out your way around them.

» Regarding the search feature for both sites, both Care.com and Sittercity have done a great job in developing a really easy and intuitive search platform. All you have to do is specify your criteria for the ideal sitter with a few clicks of the mouse. Within seconds, you can get results, which you can further refine until you have a good list of sitters who qualify for the job.

Below are sample candidate profile pages from Sittercity and Care.com:

Sittercity Example Profile of a Babysitter Candidate

Care.com Example Profile of a Babysitter Candidate

Both Care.com and Sittercity have done an excellent job with their search platform. You can really refine your search results and find a good list of candidate profiles to review.

Which Provides Better Background Checking Options?

The background checking feature is a great option to have for your child and your family’s safety. Classified ads (such as those in Craiglist.com, online forum sites, newspapers, and campus job postings) do not offer you these convenient features.

This means that you really have to go out of your way to do your background checking. And yes, that usually takes a lot of legwork and time.

Both Sittercity and Care.com offer Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) checking and enhanced in-depth background checking on sitters and care providers.

Classified ads (such as those in Craiglist.com, online forum sites, newspapers, and campus job postings) do not offer you these convenient features which means that you really have to go out of your way to do your background checking.

Basic background checking does not come as part of your membership with both services. Care.com no longer offers this option while it will cost you around $15 on Sittercity.

For enhanced background checking as well as Department of Motor Vehicles records checking, you will also have to pay a fee for these additional services.

Below is the Background Check pricing schedule for Care.com.

Care.com Background Check Pricing Schedule

Below is the Background Check pricing schedule for Sittercity.

Sittercity Background Check Pricing Schedule

The bottom line here is that both Sittercity and Care.com offer background checking to help you make sure that the person you are hiring is not a “sitter from hell”.

However, there is a distinct difference in their pricing schedules as we have noted above, with Sittercity seemingly having a more reasonable pricing schedule compared to Care.com.

Care.com’s comprehensive background check package, which is the Investigative Criminal Plus Check, really comes at a very steep price of $300. But then again, this is way more comprehensive than Sittercity’s Enhanced Plus package, which is offered at $80.

Furthermore, Sittercity offers more background check combination bundles with discounts.

Update as of March 2021:

1. Care.com now requires every caregiver to pass a background check before they appear on the site. They call this CareCheck. This change comes at no additional cost to families looking for care. All caregivers then have a CareCheck badge on their profile, which displays the date the CareCheck was run. Care.com still strongly recommends families run checks on their own.)

2. Care.com has also created a Safety Advisory council made up of leaders in child care and safety to provide thoughtful input on product improvements geared toward safety.

Please Note: We just wanted to let you know that background check prices for both Sittercity and Care.com may be subject to change as of this writing. We do not have any control over any pricing changes that Sittercity and Care.com may decide to implement. However, we will do our best to keep up-to-date with the background check pricing schedules.

Which Provides More Choices For Search Results?

The way we see it, having more available potential sitters to choose from gives you a higher probability of finding the quality sitter or sitters you are looking for as you narrow down your list.

To check on these criteria, we did some test searches on both Care.com and Sittercity.

Using the search feature on each of the sites, we placed the following filters for our sitter search: lives within 5 miles, between 26 and 30 years of age, has a college degree, has transportation, non-smoker, and has at least five years of experience sitting for grade school-age kids.

We then did some sample searches on 10 metropolitan areas in the United States to see how they compare. Below are the results:

	Metropolitan Area Zip Code*	Sittercity Search Results	Care.com Search Results
	New York, New York (10024)	260	193
	Chicago, Illinois (60614)	335	189
	Boston, Massachusetts (02116)	245	183
	Brooklyn, New York (11201)	199	158
	Washington D.C. (20016)	120	104
	Seattle, Washington (98115)	66	58
	Los Angeles, California (90049)	52	41
	San Francisco, California (94123)	43	49
	Dallas, Texas (75248)	18	20
	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (19154)	17	26
	*Please note that the search results above are based on specific zip code searches so the results may vary depending on your location.

Based on our test search, we can see that Sittercity has more sitter results for 7 of the 10 metropolitan areas as specified by our search filters.

In this aspect, Sittercity offers more potential sitters to choose from. The more potential sitters you have to choose from, the better the chances that you can find the quality sitter or sitters that you are looking for.

In this aspect, Sittercity offers more potential sitters to choose from. The more potential sitters you have to choose from, the better the chances that you can find the quality sitter or sitters that you are looking for.

When it comes to further search filters though, we found that there is a distinct difference between the two. Sittercity gives you the option to further filter the results to show only those candidates who already have available background checks.

Care.com does not have this filter. The reason this is significant is because if a candidate already has some background checks done on them, you no longer need to request and pay for that extra service thereby saving you time and money.

When it comes to further search filters though, we found that there is a distinct difference between the two. Sittercity gives you the option to further filter the results to show only those candidates who already have available background checks … Care.com does not have this filter.

Keep in mind that both services allow you to further filter your results depending on your needs. For example, you can further filter your results based on Certifications (First Aid, CPR, or Teacher), Special Need Experience, Hourly Rates, Languages Spoken, Other Services Offered, Preferred Locations for Babysitting (home or sitter’s home), Availability (full-time, part-time, after school, overnight, date night, short notice, long-term) and more.

These filtering features allow you to really find babysitters who may better fit your family’s needs.

Find-Out For Yourself Which Provides Better Search Results For Your Area. Just click on the links below:

Which Service Offers Better Price Points?

Care.com and Sittercity have exactly the same premium membership subscription plans. Below is a table of their subscription schedule.

	Subscription Period	Sittercity Fees*	Care.com Fees*
	One-month premium membership	$35 a month (automatic billing every month)	$35 a month (automatic billing every month)
	Three-month premium membership	$70, which comes out to $23.33/month	$70, which comes out to $23.33/month
	One-year premium membership	$140, this is the best deal at $11.67/month	$140, this is the best deal at $11.67/month
	*Please note that the three-month and one-year memberships are billed upfront and not on a monthly basis.

As you can see, both Sittercity and Care.com have 3 types of plans. You can sign up for a monthly membership of $35, go for a three-month membership of $70, or a one-year membership of $140.

So if you prefer a monthly billing of $35, you are more than welcome to do just that with both Sittercity or Care.com. Now if you prefer to save more and don’t mind paying upfront, then the three-month or one-year memberships would definitely be better options.

People always ask whether memberships to these online sitter services are worth it. Yes, we do think it is worth it. These online sitter services make it convenient for you to look for a babysitter (or babysitters) right in the comfort of your home.

Simply turn on your computer, log on to the site, and within just a few keystrokes, you have access to a number of potential sitters and caregivers within or close to your neighborhood that you can shift through and choose from.

You no longer have to bother your family, friends, or neighbors on whether they might know of someone to recommend to take care of your kids.

Please Note: We just wanted to let you know that subscription prices for both Sittercity and Care.com may be subject to change as of this writing. We do not have any control over any pricing changes that Sittercity and Care.com may decide to implement. However, we will do our best to keep up-to-date with the pricing schedules for both of these market-leading babysitter services.

Before you decide to join either one of these online sitter services, do make sure to use any available promo codes so that you can get more savings with your memberships. Promo codes, which often offer deep discounts, definitely make these services much more affordable for parents so we highly recommend that you take advantage of them.

Which Offers More Quality Sitters?

From the standpoint of quality, quality is a subjective matter and may vary from person to person, depending on a family’s needs, requirements for a sitter, and the type of person that they get along with.

From the standpoint of quality, quality is a subjective matter and may vary from person to person, depending on a family’s needs, requirements for a sitter, and the type of person that they get along with.

Hence, this could only be answered by you when you start searching, interviewing, and actually using sitters.

You can do some online searches if you like to find out what other parents are saying about both services. You can also check the comments section of this article for feedback on both services.

However, remember that if you have a larger pool of potential sitters to choose from, you usually will have better chances of finding quality sitters who will suit your family’s needs.

However, remember that if you have a larger pool of potential sitters to choose from, you usually will have better chances of finding quality sitters who will suit your family’s needs.

Which Service Is Better Based On Parental Feedback?

You might like to check the comments section at the end of this article regarding feedback from people who are current and former customers of Sittercity and Care.com. I am sure you will find them very insightful and informative in helping you make a decision as to which service might be suited to your situation.

When it comes to feedback from moms who have used Sittercity and Care.com, it appears that there are more complaints about Care.com than Sittercity.

We have also received numerous feedback from people who tried Care.com. It appears that a lot of them were not happy and have decided to cancel their memberships after signing up with the service.

Yes, it’s true that Sittercity has been more low key when it comes to advertising. However, Sittercity has had better word-of-mouth buzz compared to Care.com, especially in the wake of high profile negative news on Care.com …

It appears that most people perceived Care.com to be a better provider as a result of the company’s more aggressive advertising campaigns, which apparently was successful in creating better brand awareness.

Yes, it’s true that Sittercity has been more low-key when it comes to advertising. However, Sittercity has had better word-of-mouth buzz compared to Care.com, especially in the wake of high profile negative news on Care.com such as this report on the Wall Street Journal and this article.

Again, we recommend that you read through the comments section at the end of this article as people have been providing their feedback and experiences on both services.

Which Service Is Best For You And Your Family?

If you are thinking of using an online sitter service to help you with your sitter needs, you should seriously consider using either Care.com and Sittercity. As we have mentioned above, these two are what we believe are the top choices in the increasingly popular online sitter service market.

Our analysis above shows that both Care.com and Sittercity deliver almost very similar features regarding ease of use and site functionalities, background checks, sitter search functions, and community feedback functionalities to its members.

The ultimate responsibility is yours to make when it comes to interviewing and deciding on the right person to take care of your precious little ones or your family.

Care.com and Sittercity even have exactly the same membership price points.

Some of the differences that we found between the two pertain to the number of filtered search results and the background check pricing schedule.

Care.com’s basic background checking is no longer available and their enhanced background checks appear to be more pricey compared to Sittercity. Sittercity has basic background checking and also has more options for background checking packages, which are priced reasonably.

Also take note that on Sittercity, if a potential sitter that you find interesting already has a background check done on them (which can be seen in their sitter profile), then you do not have to pay for one. Care.com does not offer this feature.

More often than not, sitters on Sittercity have a background check done on themselves to save potential clients like you from having to pay for one. Of course, these background checks are done by third-party service providers so the sitters have no way of influencing the results of these background checks at all.

With regard to potential sitter search results, we found out that Sittercity provides more search results than Care.com for the metropolitan areas we tested.

However, we would like to caution you that this result could potentially be different in your area. Hence we suggest that you test things out in your area as you may have filtering requirements that are completely different from our tests.

Based on what we have seen with Care.com and Sittercity, these two sites have a lot to offer parents who are looking for trusted and well-qualified sitters and care providers. Both sites make it easy and convenient to search for specific types of care providers that you are looking for.

Whether you are looking for someone to care for your child or other members of your family, chances are that you will find them on both Care.com and Sittercity.

Please do understand that Care.com and Sittercity only provide you with the platform to facilitate the search and screening process for potential sitters or caregivers. You need to have a set of requirements or credentials in mind to help you narrow down the screening process to find your ideal sitter.

The ultimate responsibility is yours to make when it comes to interviewing and deciding on the right person to take care of your precious little ones or your family.

With regards to subscription cancellation for these services, keep in mind that Sittercity and Care.com are no different from other companies that you use that offer services for water, electricity, gas, garbage collection, newspapers, magazines, etc. When you need to cancel their services, all you do is pick up the phone and call them or go online via their support contact page, right?

It’s the same for Sittercity or Care.com. It is your responsibility to contact them and inform them that you no longer need their services. In fact, they make cancellation easy but you have to let them know and not assume that they will do this automatically for you.

With regards to subscription cancellation for these services, keep in mind that Sittercity and Care.com are no different from other companies that you use that offer services for water, electricity, gas, garbage collection, newspapers, magazines, etc. When you need to cancel their services, all you do is pick up the phone and call them or go online via their support contact page, right? It’s the same for Sittercity or Care.com.

Going back to the question as to which of the two you should use, this really depends on what suits your needs and priorities. If you prefer more search results and prefer reasonable pricing options for background checking, then Sittercity might be the best option for you.

Here Are Our Final Thoughts

So just like buying a car, you might like to do a test drive.

If you are not sure which service you think will fit your needs based on the information that we have provided, we suggest that you give both Care.com and Sittercity a try.

Take advantage of the FREE Basic Membership so that you can get to use the site and screen for potential sitters right within your area. You can visit their sites and both sites will allow you to do live searches for sitters right within your area.

Again, we highly suggest that you do the free trial. By doing actual searches on their sites, you will have a better feel of what these sites can do for you and more importantly, which site will best suit your needs.

Find-Out For Yourself Which Provides Better Search Results For Your Area. Just click on the links below:

The free basic membership allows you to view sitter profiles, sort, and filter for sitters based on your requirements and needs, view sitter messages, and post limited jobs. It’s really a great way to test drive the service prior to having a paid membership so we highly suggest that you take advantage of this.

The free basic membership allows you to view sitter profiles, sort and filter for sitters based on your requirements and needs, views sitter messages, and post limited jobs. It’s really a great way to test drive the service prior to having a paid membership so we highly suggest that you take advantage of this.

As for us, we ended up using Sittercity after doing a test drive of our own. When we did the free basic access for both Sittercity and Care.com, we found out that we had more sitters to choose from within the city we live in with Sittercity.

As we have mentioned previously, the more available applicants you have to choose from, the higher the chances you have of finding sitters who have the qualities and requirements that you are looking for. As it turned out, that was the case for us.

If you would like to learn more about our experience with Sittercity, you can read more about it here.

This is one of the main reasons why we suggest that you give both of these online sitter services a test drive cause the search results may vary from city to city. Who knows, you also might be able to find your ideal sitter even within a limited pool of available sitters. So again, we suggest that you give both Sittercity and Care.com a test drive.

Only by doing actual searches within your city will you be able to decide which of the two services will best suit your family’s child care needs.

Only by doing actual searches within your city will you be able to decide which of the two services will best suit your family’s child care needs.

Another reason why we decided to go with Sittercity was that we found out during our free access that a lot of the sitters within our area also had their background checks already done so that was truly helpful. That means we did not have to pay for background checks if the potential sitter already had one available.

The bottom line is … we are happy with the service. 🙂

Again, you can read more about our experience with Sittercity here.

So give both services a test drive and see for yourself which service suits your family’s needs the best.

We hope that you found this article informative and helpful in your decision as to which service you should go with.

Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate. Click here for details.

After comparing Sittercity vs Care.com, which do you think suits you best? Have you used either one of these online sitter services? Feel free to share with us your experience.