Otter is a great service the sitters… Otter is a great service the sitters they sent were great and they spoke to me about the rigorous screening process they had to go through to get onboarded to Otter.

Very easy to work with Very easy to work with. System is set up to help you book sitting jobs according to your schedule which makes it easy as a stay at home mom.

nice way of filling in gaps in childcare There is a lot that I like about Otter as a parent. The payment system is very convenient. It's nice that I don't have to deal with getting cash or writing out a check to someone like in a normal babysitting transaction. The other thing that I appreciate about this platform is that there are no monthly fees. I remember finding someone on care.com that looked like a good fit for my family but I didn't want to pay the costly membership. What has prevented me from using Otter on several occasions is the mileage fee. For someone to come to my home, it would cost an extra $50. I think this makes sense given many sitters are students who use Lyft/Uber. However, Otter has several sitters who own their own cars and might not necessarily live that far away. I recently booked someone just to find out that they only lived one town over from me. Maybe the mileage fee should be individualized to specific sitters? I don't know what the solution to that conundrum is, but at the moment that gas fee is a lot higher than what I pay to sitters (non otters) who attend Stanford. I think one downside to Otter is the game theory element of it all. Some sitters understandably want to work gigs that pay the most money, so they might not accept a booking made by a parent right away in the hopes that something better comes along. As a result, it might take a while to hear back on a potential booking. Generally speaking if I text a sitter outside of Otter they are a yes or a no pretty quickly. Otter is a great way to fill in the gaps for me. I am spoiled by in-laws who watch my kids for free. I also use teachers from my children's preschool to help out on the weekends. But in the instances that the grandparents or regular sitters are not available, Otter is a solid alternative.

Rates need to improve/ be consistent I sometimes don’t understand the payouts and rates for Otter. Some offers are for $50 an hour due to transit fees or last minute, while others are $22 for long hours and a lot of children. I feel like this makes it so sitters incentivize the bigger payouts so they don’t accept the lower ones anymore or ones in advance that don’t get any bonuses. Also, I’m not sure how the process works for families, but a lot of the families use the platform and then ask sitters to come back for a solid rate (more than what otter offers normally), so maybe some improvements need to be made on that end too.

easy and convenient It’s very easy and convenient to search sitters. Good communication with sitters and parents.No annual fee is perfect for parents that something came out!