Babysitting Rate Calculator

Two children, Saturday night, four hours: $99.24 at the posted rate, and $131.45 at the rate families actually pay when they book, because the posted rate is what sitters ask and the booked rate is what families pay, and the $6.43 an hour between them is the negotiation, the platform, and the difference between asking and booking, and the family that budgets on the posted rate and the sitter that charges the booked rate are both right, because they are measuring different things. The national posted starting rate is $19.81 an hour for one child, per Care.com in February 2026, and the national booked rate is $26.24 an hour, per UrbanSitter in January 2026, and the listed rate is $23 an hour, per Sittercity in May 2026, and the three numbers disagree because they measure three different things, and the calculator below prices the posted rate, which is the asking rate, and shows the booked rate beside it, which is the paying rate, so the parent knows what to offer and the sitter knows what to ask, and the two can meet in the middle, which is where most sitting jobs are actually priced.

Sources: Care.com posted starting rates, February 2026 (national $19.81 an hour, February 12; nine cities, February 4; overnight hourly rates, February 4). UrbanSitter 2026 booking data, January 2026 (booked $26.24 one child, $29.87 two, $32.33 three; San Francisco $29.63). Sittercity listed rate $23 an hour, May 2026. Parent resource figures: Care.com national $20.57 (October 2026) and Care.com 2026 Cost of Care Report $21.88 an hour (2025 rates). Rural/small-town $15.00 is the midpoint of the $12 to $18 range. Model: rate equals the city base plus $3.00 an hour for each child after the first, plus the experience adjustment (entry minus $4.00, some experience $0, experienced plus $5.00, professional plus $10.00), plus $2.00 an hour for evenings, times 1.15 for weekends and holidays, plus $3.00 an hour for extra duties; overnight adds a $50 flat for the sleeping stretch instead of an hourly evening premium. The booked rate is the posted rate times 26.24 divided by 19.81, which is 1.32. The weekly figure is the hourly rate times the hours per week; the monthly figure is the weekly figure times 52 divided by 12; the annual figure is the weekly figure times 52. This is a planning estimate, not a wage determination: casual babysitters are exempt from the federal minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and some states apply their own rules, so check your state labor department.

Step 1 — The sitting job

The city is the largest single input, because the posted rate runs from $15.00 an hour in a rural town to $22.98 in Brooklyn, and the $7.98 between them is 40 percent of the national rate, and the city is the cost of living, not the sitter. The children are the second input, because each child after the first adds $3.00 an hour, which is the middle of the $2 to $5 range the guides suggest, and which matches UrbanSitter’s booked data, where the second child adds $3.63 and the third adds $2.46. The experience is the third, because an entry-level teen charges $12 to $16 an hour and a professional with an early childhood education background charges $30 to $45, and the $15.81 an hour this calculator gives a teen at the national average sits at the top of the teen band, and the $29.81 it gives a professional sits just under the professional band, which is the honest place for both, because the teen band is the asking band and the professional band is the booked band, and the calculator prices the asking rate. The evening adds $2.00 an hour, because evenings are the hours everyone wants, and the weekend multiplies by 1.15, because the guides put the weekend and holiday premium at 15 to 50 percent, and 15 percent is the low end, and the low end is the fair starting point. The overnight does not add an hourly premium at all: it adds a $50 flat for the sleeping stretch, because the sitter is available while the children sleep, not working, and the flat prices the availability, not the wakefulness.

The ledger

THE GOING RATE

Two children, some experience, evening, at the United States average posted rate of $19.81 an hour: the recommended rate is $24.81 an hour, which is $19.81 plus $3.00 for the second child plus $2.00 for the evening, and four hours tonight costs $99.24, and the booked rate is $32.86 an hour, which is the posted rate times 1.32, and four hours at the booked rate costs $131.45, and twenty hours a week costs $496.20 a week, $2,150.20 a month, and $25,802.40 a year, and one four-hour date night a week costs $5,160.48 a year, or $430.04 a month, and the sitter is cheaper than full-time daycare below 10.18 hours a week, and more expensive above it, because full-time center daycare costs $13,128 a year, and ten hours a week of sitting costs $12,901.20 a year, which is just under it, and twenty hours a week costs $25,802.40, which is 1.97 times it.

The same sitting job, in every city

The same job in each city, two children, some experience, evening, four hours, priced at the city’s posted starting rate from Care.com, February 2026. Brooklyn is $111.92 for the night and Phoenix is $99.08, and the $12.84 between them is the cost of living, not the sitter, and the rural town is $80.00, and the $31.92 between Brooklyn and the rural town is 40 percent of the night, which is why the first question in any rate conversation is where the sitting happens, and the second is how many children, and the third is the experience, because the city sets the base and the rest sets the adjustments. The booked column is the same night at the booked rate, which is the posted rate times 1.32, and the booked night in Brooklyn is $148.25, and in the rural town it is $105.97, and the gap between the posted night and the booked night is the gap between asking and paying, and the family that budgets on the posted column and the sitter that charges the booked column are both right, because they are measuring different things, and the negotiation is the space between the two columns.

Overnight rates, by city

Care.com’s posted overnight hourly rates, February 4, 2026, and what a ten-hour night costs at each one. Brooklyn is $23.57 an hour and $235.70 for ten hours, Phoenix is $19.09 an hour and $190.90, and Phoenix is the curiosity in the table, because its overnight rate of $19.09 is lower than its daytime rate of $19.77, which is the sleeping hours priced in: the overnight rate is an average over the waking hours and the sleeping hours, and the sleeping hours are cheaper, and the average falls below the daytime rate, which is the honest arithmetic of a night where the children sleep for most of it. The calculator’s overnight model is the cleaner version of the same idea: the hourly rate for the awake hours, plus a $50 flat for the sleeping stretch, so a two-child overnight at the national average is $22.81 an hour for four awake hours plus $50, which is $141.24 for the night, and the flat is the price of being there while the children sleep, not the price of working while they sleep.

Overnight hourly rates are Care.com posted starting rates, February 4, 2026. They are averages over the waking and sleeping hours of the night, which is why Phoenix’s overnight rate sits below its daytime rate. The ten-hour night is the hourly rate times ten, for comparison only: most overnight jobs are priced as awake hours at the hourly rate plus a $50 to $100 flat for the sleeping stretch, which is the model this calculator uses.

The number to carry out of this page is the posted rate, because the posted rate is the asking rate, and the asking rate is the starting point of the conversation, and the booked rate is the other end of it, and the fair price is usually in between, and the family that offers the posted rate and the sitter that asks the booked rate will meet in the middle, which is where most sitting jobs are priced, and which is the going rate, and the going rate for two children on a Saturday evening at the national average is $24.81 an hour, and the night is $99.24, and the year of one date night a week is $5,160.48, and the year of twenty hours a week is $25,802.40, and the sitter is cheaper than daycare below 10.18 hours a week, and the cheapest sitter is the one who comes back, because reliability is priced into the rate, and the rate that keeps the sitter coming back is the rate that is fair, and the fair rate is the one this page computes.