Who Pays What: Salaries, Fees, and the Financial Side of Hiring

A plain explanation of how the money works when you hire through an agency, so there are no surprises.

The financial side of hiring through an agency is straightforward once it is laid out, but families new to it understandably have questions: who pays the professional, what does the agency charge, and when. Here is the plain version, with the principle that nothing should ever be a surprise.

The professional's salary is paid by you, the family, directly to them. The agency does not pay the professional or sit between you and their wages; you are the employer, and you pay your employee, exactly as you would any household employee, with the wage, benefits, and proper payroll and taxes that entails. We do not set the professional's salary either, it is driven by their experience, qualifications, and the demands of the role, and agreed between you and them, with our guidance on what is fair and market-appropriate.

The agency's compensation is separate, and it generally comes in two parts. First, there is typically a modest fee to begin a search, sometimes called a search or application fee, paid when you engage us to commence the work. It reflects the real effort of opening and conducting a search, recruiting, screening, and presenting candidates, and it is generally due at the outset. Second, there is the placement fee, the agency's main fee, which is due when you hire a professional we have introduced. It is calculated as a percentage of the professional's compensation package, and it is what the guarantee attaches to. We explain our specific fee structure clearly and in full before you engage us, so you know exactly what to expect before anything is agreed.

Two points families appreciate knowing. The candidate never pays a fee, the professionals we place are not charged; our fee is the family's, which keeps our incentives aligned with serving you and the professional well. And the placement fee includes our guarantee, so that if a full-time placement does not work out for performance-based reasons within the covered year, we conduct a replacement search without a further placement fee. You are paying for an outcome that is stood behind, not merely an introduction.

Then there are the ordinary costs of being an employer, which are yours and separate from the agency's fees: the salary itself, benefits, and the employer taxes and any insurance that household employment carries. These are part of the true cost of hiring, and we always encourage families to budget all-in and to use a payroll professional to handle the tax side correctly; we can point you to a trusted partner for that.

That is the whole of it: you pay the professional directly, you pay the agency a fee to search and a fee to place (with the guarantee included), the candidate pays nothing, and the employer costs of taxes and benefits are yours. We walk every family through the specifics before they commit, because clarity about the money is part of a relationship built on trust. That conviction is the heart of how Nannies + more…® works.

Note: employer tax and insurance obligations vary by jurisdiction. This is general information, not tax or legal advice; confirm specifics with a qualified professional.