The difference isn't price. It's who ends up being the employer.
A marketplace listing looks cheaper because the vetting, the payroll, and the WorkSafeBC registration are still on your list — just not on the invoice. Both models are legitimate. They hand you very different amounts of work.
What each model actually gives you
Structural differences only — how each model is set up, not a judgment about anyone running one.
| Agency (Puffin) | Marketplace | |
|---|---|---|
| Who employs the caregiver | Puffin, for hourly care. Your family, for a placed nanny. | Your family, in every case. |
| Who runs the vetting | We do — police vulnerable sector check, references, certifications. | You do, or you skip it. |
| WorkSafeBC coverage | Carried by Puffin for our hourly caregivers. | Your responsibility as the employer. |
| Liability insurance | Commercial general liability, held by us. | Whatever your home policy happens to cover. |
| If the caregiver cancels | We re-staff it, or you owe nothing and the hold is released. | You start looking again. |
| One-off or occasional bookings | Book by the hour, 3-hour minimum, no ongoing commitment. | Built around finding an ongoing hire. |
| What you pay for | The vetting, the coverage, and the coordination. | Access to listings. |
What “do your own vetting” involves
These tasks don't disappear when nobody bills you for them. They move onto your evenings. The honest comparison isn't agency fee versus zero — it's agency fee versus the hours below, plus the risk of getting one of them wrong.
Placement is a one-time fee: $500 for short-term (up to 3 months), $1,000 for long-term. That covers the search, the checks, and 2–3 matched candidates, with one free re-match inside 30 days.
- —Writing the posting and screening the replies
- —Phone screens, then in-person interviews
- —Calling references and actually reaching them
- —Arranging a criminal record check and waiting on it
- —Verifying first aid and any claimed certifications
- —Registering as an employer and running payroll
- —Finding cover when they are sick or give notice
The part most families don't think about until it matters
If you hire someone directly, you are their employer. That is not a technicality — it determines who registers with WorkSafeBC, who remits payroll deductions, and who carries the exposure if that person is hurt in your home.
For Puffin's hourly care, the caregiver is our employee. WorkSafeBC coverage and commercial general liability sit with us. For nanny placement, the family employs the nanny directly — that is what placement is — so those obligations are yours, and we say so plainly rather than letting the word “agency” imply otherwise.
Our optional payroll and hours-tracking add-on is $99/month if you'd rather not run that yourself.
When a marketplace is the better choice
If you have time to screen properly, you want to control every step, and you are hiring for an ongoing role rather than a Saturday evening — a marketplace will cost you less and give you a wider pool. Plenty of families do this well.
An agency earns its fee when you don't have those hours, when you need care occasionally rather than permanently, or when you would rather the employer obligations sat with someone else. If that isn't you, the honest answer is that you don't need us.
If you only need care occasionally
This is the gap a marketplace can't really fill: it is built to help you find a person, not to cover a Thursday. Hourly childcare starts at $32/hr with a 3-hour minimum, postpartum support is $38/hr, and senior support runs $38–$42/hr. No retainer, no ongoing commitment.
Want the long version? Read Nanny Agency vs. Nanny Marketplace, or Childcare Marketplaces vs. a Full-Service Agency, which starts with what marketplaces genuinely do better and says plainly which families should choose one.
One employer through every stage
Most families need care more than once, and rarely the same kind twice: help in a newborn's first weeks, after-school hours a few years on, and later a parent who should not be alone all day. With a marketplace, each of those is a fresh search, and every time you hire directly the employer's side comes back to you — the checks, the WorkSafeBC registration, the payroll. With Puffin the arrangement you learned the first time holds at every stage: the caregiver is our employee, cleared before a first shift, and the price comes off one published list.
The only employed-caregiver, flat-rate lifecycle care company in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley.
By that we mean three things together: every hourly caregiver is a Puffin employee; one published price list, the same for every family — no quotes, no membership, and no per-child fee for in-home childcare; and care from a newborn’s first weeks, through childhood, to care for ageing parents — with in-home respite for autistic children arranged directly, and pediatric therapy in development.
Questions families actually ask
Yes — Puffin Services' hourly caregivers each have a clear police vulnerable sector check before their first shift and are directly employed by Puffin, not contractors. Pediatric specialists, once that service opens, will hold the same check and work under registered clinician supervision. Nanny Placement, which is coming soon, will work differently: Puffin will handle the vetting and placement, and the nanny will become your family's employee once placed.
Per hour, yes — a privately hired nanny almost always quotes less than an agency rate. Puffin Services charges more because the criminal record check, WorkSafeBC registration, commercial liability insurance, payroll, and remittances are already done and already paid for. Hiring directly does not remove those costs; it moves them, along with the employer obligations, onto the family.
No. Background checks are part of how we onboard caregivers, not something a family arranges or is billed for — every caregiver has a clear police vulnerable sector check before their first shift, alongside reference verification and ongoing certification checks. A family hiring a nanny privately arranges that check themselves and waits out the processing time before care can safely start.
Not for a Puffin Services caregiver. Our caregivers are our employees, we are registered with WorkSafeBC, and we pay the premiums, so a workplace injury during a shift sits with our coverage rather than with the family. A privately hired nanny is a different situation — the family is generally the employer, and WorkSafeBC coverage becomes their responsibility. Confirm your own position with WorkSafeBC before hiring anyone directly.
It decides who carries the employment obligations. Puffin Services caregivers are employees, so we handle wages, payroll remittances, WorkSafeBC registration and premiums, and liability insurance, and the family is never the employer of record. An independent contractor arrangement puts those obligations on whoever engages the nanny, and misclassifying an employee as a contractor is a real risk families take on unknowingly.
Yes. Puffin Services carries commercial general liability insurance covering every shift, and because hourly caregivers are our employees we are registered with WorkSafeBC and pay the premiums. Neither is billed separately — both are priced into the hourly rate.
Tell us and we will match someone else next time. Puffin Services would rather hear that a fit was wrong than have a family quietly stop booking. Nanny Placement, which is coming soon, will include one complimentary re-match within 30 days, because the stakes are higher.
WorkSafeBC administers workers’ compensation in British Columbia — wage replacement and medical costs for a worker injured doing their job. It is separate from your home insurance and from liability insurance, and having one does not give you the others. For Puffin’s hourly care the caregiver is a Puffin employee, so this sits with Puffin rather than with your household. Whether coverage is required for a nanny you employ directly depends on the arrangement, and WorkSafeBC is the authority — worth asking them before you hire rather than after.
For an hourly Puffin booking, the caregiver is Puffin’s employee, so reporting, wage replacement and medical costs run through Puffin as the employer of record rather than through your household. Finding a replacement is also Puffin’s responsibility. Where a family employs a nanny directly — including, once placement opens, a nanny placed through Puffin, who becomes your employee once placed — those obligations belong to the family, which is worth settling before a placement rather than after.
Not for hourly care. Childcare, postpartum, senior support and event nannies are delivered by Puffin employees, so Puffin handles payroll, deductions and remittances and you are never the employer of record. Nanny Placement, which is coming soon, will be the exception: a placed nanny will become your family’s employee, so payroll will be yours. That difference is deliberate — a placement will be a one-time search and vetting service, not an ongoing employment relationship.
A police vulnerable sector check — the check designed for work with children and vulnerable adults, not a general criminal record check. Every caregiver has a clear one before their first shift: requested for Puffin at their local police or RCMP detachment, or one they already hold from a previous role working with children. A family is never billed for it.
Because employment status decides who carries the risk. Puffin’s hourly caregivers are employees, so Puffin runs payroll, carries the insurance and is the employer of record. In a contractor or marketplace arrangement those obligations usually land on the family, whether or not anyone said so at the time — and status is determined by how the work is actually structured, not by what the arrangement is called.
Tell us and we match you with someone else — for hourly care there is no penalty for saying a caregiver was not the right fit, and no obligation to explain beyond what you want to share. For Nanny Placement, once it opens, the search will continue until your family selects a candidate; the fee will cover the search rather than a specific person.
Ask for the specifics and compare them against any other provider: which check (a police vulnerable sector check or a general criminal record check), whether references were actually contacted, who the employer of record is, and who carries workers’ compensation coverage. Those four answers are more informative than any adjective, and a provider who cannot answer them quickly has told you something.
First-time in-home bookings include photo ID verification for the household, reviewed by an administrator before a caregiver is dispatched. Caregivers go alone into homes they have not visited, and a vetting process that runs in only one direction protects only one party. It takes a few minutes and is not repeated on later bookings.