Is a Nanny Share Right for Your Family? An Honest NYC Take
If you have been researching childcare in New York City, the nanny share comes up constantly. It shows up in parent group chats, on the playground, and in places like the New York Times. The pitch is appealing: split one nanny between two families and cut your costs.
We will be honest with you, because that is how we work. After matching families across Brooklyn, Manhattan, and beyond since 2013, we usually do not recommend nanny shares. Here is the real reasoning, so you can decide for yourself.
The savings are smaller than people think
This is the part the share pitch glosses over. In New York City, the going rate for a single private nanny is roughly $35 to $40 an hour, and that nanny is already caring for one or two children in a single family.
So when families imagine a share saving them a fortune, the math rarely delivers. A shared nanny commands a higher hourly rate because the job is harder, and once you split that higher rate between two households, the per family savings are often modest. You are trading a meaningful amount of simplicity and control for a discount that is smaller than it looks on paper.
The risk and reward do not balance
A nanny share is, in practice, a small business partnership between two families, with a caregiver in the middle. That introduces risk on every side, and not much reward to offset it.
For the families, you are now aligning on schedules, sick day policies, vacations, screen time, food, discipline, pay, and what happens when one household moves or has a second baby. When one family drops out, the other is suddenly covering the full cost or scrambling for a replacement. Small disagreements turn into weekly negotiations.
For the nanny, the job is genuinely harder. She is caring for children from two families, often at different ages and stages, and answering to two sets of parents with two sets of expectations. That is a recipe for burnout, and it is one reason many of the best nannies simply will not take a share.
When you weigh a modest cost savings against scheduling fragility, divided expectations, higher turnover risk, and added legal and logistical complexity, the trade usually does not make sense for either party.
What the rise and fall of Cozykin tells us
Consider Cozykin. For a few years it was one of the most visible nanny-share companies in the country, Montessori-inspired and venture-backed, operating in both Boston and New York. In May 2019 it raised six million dollars. That October, just months later, it abruptly shut down, telling families and nannies it was closing for financial reasons, leaving caregivers without work and parents scrambling to arrange care. Its assets were acquired by a larger education company the following year.
We watched that story closely, and to us the lesson is about the math. Former nannies reported pay in the range of seventeen dollars an hour, which reviewers said did not come close to matching the cost of living. That is the bind in a nutshell. A skilled caregiver in a major city can earn far more caring for a single family, so a share has to pay a real premium to attract and keep good people. Pay enough to do that, and the savings that made the share appealing to families start to disappear. Pay less, and you cannot hold on to great nannies. The market sets caregiver pay, and the nanny-share model is constantly fighting against it. That is a hard thing to build a family arrangement on, and as Cozykin showed, a hard thing to build a business on too.
When a share can still work
We are not against shares in every case. A share can be a reasonable choice when two families already know and trust each other, share nearly identical values and schedules, communicate exceptionally well, and have found a nanny who genuinely thrives in that setup. If that describes you, a share can work, and we are happy to help you structure it properly so everyone is protected.
But that is the exception, not the rule. For most families, the combination of fragility and only modest savings is not worth it.
What we usually recommend instead
For most families weighing a share, a private nanny is the better answer. You keep full control of your schedule, your routines, and your child's care, you avoid the partnership risk entirely, and the cost difference is often smaller than expected once you account for the share premium.
If budget is the real concern, there are better levers than a share: adjusting hours to match your actual needs, considering a part time arrangement, or being strategic about responsibilities and scheduling. We can walk you through all of it.
The bottom line is simple. A nanny share looks like a money saver, but in NYC the numbers and the risk rarely justify it. Before you commit to anything, let's talk through what your family actually needs. Often there is a cleaner, calmer option that costs about the same.
Brooklyn Manny and Nanny places professional, thoroughly vetted caregivers for families in New York and nationwide. Helping families since 2013.
