The Average Babysitting Rates in Texas

Age

• An adult babysitter has more experience caring for children in most cases than a teenager, and typically has a more well-developed sense of responsibility and maturity. These qualifications mean that an adult babysitter should receive more money than a teenaged babysitter. Teenagers should be paid fair wages and not taken advantage of, but they also do not have the same level of knowledge and experience many adult sitters do.

Number of Children

• Caring for one child can be considered the base hourly rate for a babysitter. Many babysitters charge more for caring for more than one child. Typically, you can expect to pay a dollar or two more per hour for each additional child the sitter has to care for. In addition, if you expect the sitter to do housework other than cleaning up after herself and the children, you should expect to pay more.

Urban Areas

• If you live in an urban or suburban area of Texas, costs of living are typically higher than living in rural areas. As a result, the amount of money you can expect to pay a sitter will increase proportionately. Rural areas usually have lower babysitting rates than areas such as Dallas, Houston or San Antonio.

Examples

• The rate calculator at SitterCity.com provides rate suggestions for depending on your zip code and the number of children involved. It also factors in the age of the babysitter (18 to 21 or over 22) and how many years of experience he has. For example, the suburban area of Magnolia (zip code 77355), north of Houston, has a going rate of $10.25 for one child for a babysitter between 18 and 21 with five or more years of experience. In San Antonio (zip code 78222), a babysitter over 22 with up to one year of experience should be paid about $10 per hour for one child.

  Care.com̵7;s babysitting rate calculator gives $12.50 per hour for a babysitter in Magnolia with six to nine years of experience caring for one child; it does not factor in age. For San Antonio, the Care.com calculator advises a rate of $10 per hour, the same as SitterCity.com, for a sitter with up to one year of experience caring for one child.

Other Information

• If you need a sitter overnight, you can expect to be charged a flat rate once the children are asleep, usually between $25 and $50. If you need a sitter to care for an infant or toddler, the hourly pay rate may also be a dollar or two more per hour than the sitter would charge for older children.