Nanny share cost

What It Means

Nanny share cost is what each family pays when two families, or sometimes more, hire one nanny to care for their children together. The nanny's pay is split between the families, so each one usually pays less than it would for a nanny of its own, and the nanny's combined pay can come to more than one family alone would pay. Care.com's nanny share guide puts each family's cost at about two-thirds of a solo nanny.

How People Say It at Work

• "We're splitting a nanny with the family next door."
• "The share saves us almost $300 a week."
• "Whose house is the nanny at this week?"

The Breakdown

Dated figures, with their source

Worked example. Two families hire one nanny and agree to split the pay evenly (example numbers). The nanny earns $1,160 a week, and each family pays $580, about $290 a week less than the $870 a nanny of their own would cost at Care.com's average.

What moves the number. Care.com names the number of children in the share, where you live and the nanny's experience. How the families divide the pay moves it too. It can be halves, or it can follow the number of children each family brings, so settle the method before the first week.

Good to Know

Nanny payNanny salaryWhat a family pays a nanny, usually quoted by the hour or week. Care.com's 2026 report puts the US average at $21.75 an hour for one child. See more can bring tax duties with it. IRS Publication 926 (2026) is where a family works out whether it has a household employeeHousehold employeeA worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it. See more, and for 2026 social security and Medicare taxes apply once a household pays a worker $3,000 or more in cash wages, with 7.65% owed by the employer and 7.65% withheld from the worker. How that applies when two families share one nanny is a question for a tax professional or a household payroll service before the first paycheck. Put the split, the schedule and whose home hosts in a written agreement signed by both families and the nanny.

Related Terms and Categories

• Nanny salary

  What a family pays a nanny, usually quoted by the hour or week. Care.com's 2026 report puts the US average at $21.75 an hour for one child.

• Nanny tax

  The federal employment taxes a family owes when it pays a nanny or other household employee enough cash wages in a year, reported on Schedule H.

• Household employee

  A worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it.

• Daycare cost

  What families pay a child care center or home daycare, which Care.com's 2026 Cost of Care Report puts at $332 a week on average.

• Babysitter rates

  What families pay a babysitter, usually by the hour. Care.com's 2026 Cost of Care Report puts the average posted rate at $19.81 an hour nationally.

Pay, rates and costs