What Does a Nanny Placement Actually Cost? (Placement Fee + Real Nanny Wages Explained)
The placement fee is $500 or $1,000. The nanny's salary — $45,000 to $52,000 a year to start — is separate, and it is the number that actually shapes your budget. Here is how the two fit together.
Nanny Placement is coming soon. We are not taking placements or deposits yet, so this guide describes how the service will work. Tell us about your family and we will be in touch as soon as it opens — and if you need care now, hourly nanny care can be booked online today.
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. Nanny wages in BC sets the band out by the month and week, against the cost of hourly care.
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.
Part-time, paid by the hour (under 30 hours a week): $25–$30 an hour to start, again rising from there. That is more per hour than the full-time band works out to — about $21.63–$25.00 an hour at 40 hours a week — so compare like with like: a part-time figure against a part-time figure.
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 a babysitter some evenings, care a few afternoons a week, or help 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.
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