What a Placement Guarantee Really Means, and Why Its Length Matters

A guarantee is a promise about confidence. Here is how to read one.

When an agency offers a guarantee, it is making a statement about how much it trusts its own work. Learning to read that statement, what the guarantee actually covers and how long it lasts, tells you a great deal about the firm behind it.

Start with what kind of guarantee it is. Most are replacement guarantees, not refunds: if a placement does not work out within the covered window, the agency conducts a new search to replace the candidate, without charging another placement fee. This is the standard and, for most families, the more valuable form, because what you wanted was never your money back; it was the right person. A few firms offer partial refunds instead, but a replacement keeps the agency working on your behalf rather than simply walking away.

Then read the length, because this is where agencies differ most, and where the signal is strongest. Many offer thirty, sixty, or ninety days. A guarantee that expires in a month tells you how long the agency is willing to stand behind its match, which is to say, not very long. A guarantee measured in a full year is a different statement entirely: it says the firm is confident the placement will genuinely last, and it keeps the agency's interests aligned with yours well past the first weeks. The length of a guarantee is one of the cleanest proxies for the quality of an agency's vetting and matching.

Understand the conditions, too, so there are no surprises. A guarantee typically requires that a signed work agreement and the placement fee were in place before the start date, covers one replacement, applies to a like-for-like role of the same scope, and generally applies to full-time placements. These are reasonable terms, but you should know them going in.

The deeper point is that a guarantee is a backstop, not the plan. A long guarantee matters less because you expect to use it and more because of what it reveals: an agency that vets rigorously, matches carefully, and accepts only a small fraction of applicants rarely needs the guarantee at all, which is precisely why it can afford to offer a long one. When you compare agencies, compare guarantees, and ask yourself what each length is really telling you. That conviction is the heart of how Nannies + more…® works.