What to choose? Payment by the hour or a flat-rate?

You have finally found the ideal babysitter, that's already a good thing. Now you're hesitating about the rates and costs you will pay him or her.
Which is better, paying by the hour or a flat-fee? 

Hourly payment for the sitter.

 In Canada casual babysitters are not considered domestic workers therefore you are not legally obligated to pay your sitter the minimum wage in your province. It is up to you and your sitter to negotiate a reasonable hourly rate.

Some other things to take into consideration are the so-called "responsible presence" hours, for which you may choose to pay the sitter less as well as other benefits she might receive (food, transportation costs, etc).
All of these elements, which are detailed on our page about paying the babysitter, can further complicate the calculations ! Thus, depending on the type of babysitting parents choose to pay by the hour or instead a flat-rate.

Most often babysitter are paid by the hour except in special cases, as explained below.

Flat-rate payment.

In other cases, parents prefer to consider a comprehensive rate. This is the case for example in two types of situations:

• Full week of vacation.
  The ideal would be to provide, in advance, a schedule that includes:
  - The number of hours actually worked per day
  - The number of hours of charge,
  - Hours of rest.
  You can also take into account various benefits in kind: housing, food, ski pass prices, etc. This brings you to a final overall rate for the week. We advise you to negotiate with the babysitter before departure. This prevents you from living with a stopwatch in hand throughout the week! The babysitter will know in advance what parents expect of her and the amount of savings involved.
  
• Overnight babysitting.
  When hiring a young babysitter, it is customary to offer him to spend the night at home if you will be arriving late at night. This has the double advantage of her avoid going home too late to allow her to sleep at the time she wishes, and on your side to be able to party all night without any concern for schedule. In this case only, you can consider that even if you come back at 1am, 3am or 6am, the babysitter will be asleep anyway (with an intercom connected to the children's room of course) and that these hours don't change much for her. You can establish a rate in advance for the evening.