Bubble for Sitters

Their customer service literally tried to gaslight me and making me feel as if I was wrong and said I lied for my review when they straight up lied to me to keep me working for them just so they could take money from our hard working earnings as sitters. And now they are dismissive and rude ignoring my messages. They tried to get my comment removed when they still haven’t even paid me since the 16th I’m still waiting. Their customer service even tried to accuse me of not being a good childcare worker as if I haven’t been with them 3 years and only had 5 star reviews and parents asking me to come back. They don’t care about anyone sitters or parents just the money they get of you literally don’t work for them is not worth it. The parent that didn’t pay me for my time hasn’t been banned or anything but if sitter do anything like that we do. They said they have put precautions in place with the parent but I can still see her post, but my account is getting suspended!! When I am the victim. Absolute joke

I’ve been using bubble for a long time ( since 2017) but have only ever used it on an adhoc basis due to the nature of my full time job. It used to be fantastic however with the fee increase going up to 25% it’s often not worth doing a sit unless it’s long one. I understand that the fee goes down with repeat sits however if you are unable to have lots of families because you can’t commit to regular sits you end up losing out quite a bit. Also the super sitter badge requires quite a lot of sits in a specific time frame so can be hard to mainta

It’s a very useful and pratic app, I just don’t agree with the 30% they charge sitter, most of all after a long sitting it’s quite unfair to get 30% of someone job everytime! I might prefer to pay an annual subscription instead of that.

Amazing concept appreciate how much easier it is with cashless payments and being able to see previous reviews from other sitters. But with a big but..I feel like the fee’s hikes for both sitters and parents is now reflecting in the quantity of jobs on the app. I’ve been on the app for at least 5 years and would have no issue finding a weekend evening babysitting. Now you just see the odd job come up, I feel having seeing the app over the last few years it can only be blamed on the extra fees for parents to book a babysitter, why there are hardly any families using it in comparison to a few years ago.

As a childcarer, I love using Bubble to find extra work. I love that it’s flexible and I can find jobs that fit in with my schedule. The app is really easy to use and allows you to showcase your experience to potential families.

Not worth putting so much time on creating a profile. I have done few sits and just one parent reached me to do a second sit. Most of the parents don’t do it so you end up paying 25% of your salary for nothing really. Also, it’s very hard to get sits if you try to charge more to compensate the fees. So at the end you are just losing time on an app that doesn’t provide anything. Also, the insurance is quite bad, only protects the parents. If something happens to you the insurance doesn’t cover it.

Avoid this agency that puts nannies in contact with parents.. No security for sitters. The parents who access this platform are dubious, lying, and intimidating and above all you will not see the colour of your pay. It's been 4 months that they owe me money from an unpaid sitting. The people who manage this platform are unable to find the parent concerned and above all they will keep your personal data and your profile even after no longer working with them. Be very careful not to fall into their traps.

I’ve been on Bubble since the platform first launched in the Home Counties in 2017, I was one of the first sitters in my area. The idea of the service is fantastic but the realities of it don’t work as well as it should. Each sit is timed within the app and all payment is also handled this way as well, meaning there is no panic about working out exact pay and scrambling for cash or change. My issues come from a few different things. Firstly, if a sitter cancels a sit after being booked then it affects their rating, however if a parent cancels there is no repercussions other than a paying a fee, I feel it’s unfair to treat the parties differently. Second, after applying for a sit it can sometimes be days or even weeks before a sit is accepted or declined, meaning the sitter is hanging on waiting and potentially misses out on booking other sits because there is no time limit for the parents. Third, the platform fees they now charge sitters is astronomical. On a first sit they take 25% of the total payment, reduced to 6% for all future sits with that same family. Whilst it is comforting to have the insurance and coverage in case of an accident or incident during the sit, due to the sheer number of sitters now on the platform parent have more options to choose from meaning it’s now almost impossible to get repeat sits, therefore I’m being charged 25% every sit which is a lot of my money being taken and limits me to only applying to longer sits. When I first started the platform fee per sit was 3.5%. I don't know what fee parent pay per sit but its not hard to imagine how much money Bubble is now taking in…it’s not surprising to hear that families and sitters are now booking sits privately off the app due to the massive hike in fees. The claim is that this will incentivise rebooking with same family/sitter, but the parents are always going to go with the cheapest sitter. Rebooking are very hard to come across.. Fourth, you cannot read your reviews. It would be nice to know what the parents have to say about you, but all you can see is you review percentage rating. Fifth, the helpdesk can take hours to respond sometimes. I recently had a sit where I could not locate the property as the address listed wasn’t clear, and the parent wasn’t answering the phone when I tried to call. When I messaged the helpdesk to ask how long I should wait to see if I can reach the parent it took 6 hours for them to respond. Thankfully I did eventually reach the parent and find the c

After signing up and receiving their references, the app failed to onboard me. I had to go out of my way to email and chase up why my profile was not live. The customer support has been rude so far, incredibly patronising and the platform fees are ridiculous. You’re better off trying something else.

Today I was shocked by the fee bubble took from my sit. 25%. 20 pound of my sit was gone because of that. That’s almost 2 hours of my seven hour shift taken off me. It never used to be like this. Feels grossly unfair and it’s not worth it