What Does a Nanny Placement Actually Cost? (Placement Fee + Real Nanny Wages Explained)

A nanny placement has two numbers, and families almost always ask about the smaller one first.

The **placement fee** is what you pay Puffin Services: **$500** for a placement under three months, **$1,000** for three months or longer. You pay **$200** to start and the balance when we place your nanny.

The **salary** is what you pay your nanny: **$45,000 to $52,000 a year** for a full-time long-term nanny, as a starting range, rising with experience and with what the role demands.

The fee is one-time. The salary is every year, and it is roughly fifty times larger. Our own Terms put it plainly: *the placement fee never includes the nanny's wages.*

What the placement fee actually buys

It is a search, not a subscription:

Your family profile is reviewed within **one business day**, and matches arrive within **7–10 business days**. If we cannot present suitable candidates within 30 days of a paid inquiry, you can take a full refund. Once candidates have been presented, the fee is non-refundable — the search it pays for has been done. Every placement also includes one complimentary re-match within 30 days.

The number that actually shapes your budget

**Full-time, long-term: $45,000–$52,000 a year to start.** That is a starting band, not a ceiling. A nanny with a decade of newborn experience, a second language you need, or a driver's licence and a willingness to do school runs will cost more, and should.

**Hourly caregivers: $25–$30 an hour to start**, again rising from there.

Two things families miss when they budget:

**You are the employer.** You set the salary, run payroll, remit CPP and EI, and hold the employment obligations. Puffin's optional payroll and hours-tracking add-on is $99/month and can be cancelled for the following month at any time — but it assists with the work, it does not transfer the obligation.

**The gross salary is not the total cost.** Employer-side remittances, vacation pay, and statutory holidays sit on top. Budget above the band, not at it.

Placement versus booking hourly

If you need a dedicated person embedded in your family's routine, placement is the right shape, and the arithmetic favours it at volume: a full-time nanny at $50,000 works out well under agency hourly rates across a year.

If you need care some evenings, a few afternoons a week, or once, placement is the wrong tool. There is no search, no salary, and no employment relationship — hourly childcare starts at $32/hr with a three-hour minimum, and you are not anybody's employer.

The dividing line is roughly whether you need someone *every* week. Below that, hourly. Above it, placement starts paying for itself.

A realistic first-year picture

Long-term placement fee: **$1,000** — **$200** to start, the balance on placement.

Nanny salary at the bottom of the band: **$45,000**, plus employer costs.

Optional payroll support: **$99/month**, if you want it.

Which means the fee is roughly 2% of year one — and the decision worth agonising over is the salary, the fit, and the person, not the fee.