Think You Pay a Lot For Your Babysitter? See What the Rest of the Country Spends

A mother and her adopted son smiling, laughing and cuddling on the front porch in buffalo new york in november
UrbanSitter
Getty Images/ Shaw Photography Co.
UrbanSitter
Getty Images/ Shaw Photography Co.

If you thought finding and interviewing a babysitter or nanny was the hardest part of the sitter experience, it's not — finding the money to pay them can be way harder!

The babysitting network Urbansitter released its 2019 National Childcare Rate Survey, and the average rates for babysitters might make you pause. In 2017, it conducted this survey and found that families were paying $16.89 an hour for sitters. This year, it's significantly more.

The national average is $16.75 per hour for one child and $19.26 per hour for two kids. The most expensive city? Gulp — San Francisco, at $18.75 per hour for one child and $21.30 per hour for two kids. Las Vegas has the lowest babysitter rates at $11.63 per hour for one child and $14.71 per hour for two kids, so if you haven't settled down, you might want to seriously consider a move to the great state of Nevada.

UrbanSitter
Getty Images/ Shaw Photography Co.

To put those rates into perspective, UrbanSitter reminded us that the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. Based on that number, the average sitter can charge up to 231 percent more per hour!