About The Household Employer
The Household Employer is an independent research publication about the practical side of hiring and employing people in your home: nannies, housekeepers, household managers, babysitters, and in-home caregivers. Find, vet, hire, pay, and manage — the full lifecycle, written from the employer side of the table.
What we are
We’re written from the perspective of a CPA who employs household help. That shapes everything on this site: the obsession with getting the tax treatment right, the worked math instead of hand-waving, the preference for primary sources (IRS publications, state labor department pages) over blog summaries. The employer-side perspective is real — the person behind this site employs a nanny and has lived the payroll filings, the work agreement negotiations, and the 6 a.m. “she’s sick” texts.
What we are not: a journalistic product-testing operation. We don’t test nannies, agencies, or background-check services — that would be an absurd claim, and we don’t make it. We research primary sources, compare verified terms, show our math, and label analysis as analysis. See our editorial methodology for exactly how we work.
Why this site exists
Household employment sits in a strange information gap. It’s one of the most common complex financial arrangements families enter — a nanny often costs more than a car, every year — but the guidance is scattered across mommy blogs, payroll-company marketing, and legal sites written for HR departments. The questions families actually ask are concrete: what does she really cost all-in, what goes in the work agreement, is the platform background check enough, how do I fire her without it being awful? Those questions deserve answers with numbers, scripts, and checklists — not vibes.
We also noticed that most “guides” in this space are either selling you a payroll service or recycling the same surface-level tips. We don’t sell payroll services. We explain the employer taxes so you understand what the payroll service is doing, compare the legal-document services on verified commission terms, and tell you plainly which recommendations earn us money and which don’t.
How the site makes money
Through affiliate links — clearly labeled, disclosed on every page that uses them, and explained in full in our affiliate disclosure. The short version: some links (marked /go/) may earn us a commission if you purchase, at no extra cost to you. Recommendations are not for sale; several of our strongest recommendations earn us nothing, and we say so on the page.
Independence
No sponsors, no sponsored content, no advertisers, no fake authors or personas. The brand is the byline. If we get something wrong, we correct it and note significant corrections on the affected page.
Contact
For corrections, methodology questions, or anything else: use the contact information on file for thehouseholdemployer.com. We read everything.