Find trusted care through people you already trust.
REC'D BY helps families discover babysitters, pet sitters, and house sitters through personal recommendations from friends, family, and their extended village—then brings the people, schedules, and details that help keep your household running together in one place.
Good people, recommended by your people.
Saturday
Date night 🍷
Matching sitters
The idea behind REC'D BY
“Do you know someone good?”
It's the question we ask the people we trust all the time.
Do you know a good babysitter? A pet sitter? Someone who can stay at the house while we're away?
The best recommendations often don't come from scrolling through endless profiles or anonymous reviews from strangers. They come from a friend saying:
“I have someone. We love her.”
REC'D BY brings those recommendations together. Instead of starting with strangers on the internet, you start with your people — and the good people they already know.
Your village
Your people know good people.
Maybe your best friend has an amazing date-night sitter. Her sister knows someone wonderful with infants. Another parent has someone they trust with the kids, the dog, and the house while they're away.
Those recommendations already exist. They're just scattered across group texts, old conversations, screenshots, and contact lists — or sitting in someone's phone waiting for you to ask.
REC'D BY gives them a place to live.
Connect with friends and family, see the people they recommend, and expand your options through your extended village.
How it works
Find them. Save them. Schedule them.
Three simple steps, and REC'D BY handles the back-and-forth for you.
Find them
Connect with the friends and family you actually know and see who they recommend — babysitters, pet sitters, house sitters. Browse the details that help you choose: ratings, availability, rates, service areas, certifications, and training. Because who recommended someone matters.
Save them
Add the people you already love to My Sitters — babysitters, pet sitters, house sitters, even family — and save anyone you'd like to consider to Potential Sitters for later. Your whole care team in one place, a little like a CRM for your household.
Schedule them
Pick when you need help and see who's free — from your My Sitters or the Potential Sitters you've saved. Then send one request to a single sitter or several at once, and you decide how it gets filled:
First to accept
The first to accept gets the job; everyone else sees it's filled.
You choose
Let people say they're interested, then pick who you want.
Already figured it out?
Assign the person you've arranged with — the booking and details still live here.
One-time, recurring, or multi-day — date night, every Tuesday after school, two weeks in Cabo. Every booking is tracked from pending to past, with reminders and calendar invites. A lot less “just checking if you saw my last text.”
Your household care team
Everything a busy family needs to find, book, and manage care
Finding someone great is only half the work. REC'D BY brings the people, schedules, and details that keep your household running into one place.
Your village
Connect with friends and family, see who they recommend, and expand your options through your extended village — so the next time you need someone good, you have somewhere better to start.
Your people
Keep the people you trust in My Sitters, discover people recommended through your village, and save people to consider as Potential Sitters. Family can be part of your care team, too.
Your calendar
Keep care in one place — from a few hours on Friday night to recurring after-school help or an extended trip. See pending, confirmed, canceled, and past care without piecing together text messages.
Your household
Keep useful information about your children, pets, home, routines, and care preferences organized. Your household can include multiple parents, so it doesn't all live with one person.
Your care details
Give the person helping your family the information they need for that specific booking — connected to the job, rather than permanently living in an old text thread.
Your recommendations
Had a great experience? Recommend them. Your recommendation may be exactly what gives a friend the confidence to reach out. Good people, recommended by your people.
Care, wherever your family goes
Home isn't the only place you need help.
Maybe the kids are staying at Grandma's. Maybe you're spending the summer at your vacation home. Maybe your family is traveling and you'd love a few hours of help while you're there.
REC'D BY lets bookings happen at different locations, so the right care details go with the right job — and your village can travel with you.
The care changes. Your system doesn't have to.
Why REC'D BY is different
We're not trying to show you the most people. We're helping you find the right people.
There are plenty of places to find strangers willing to babysit. Create an account, enter your ZIP code, scroll, read five-star reviews from people you've never met, and somehow decide whether you'd feel comfortable handing that person your house key — or leaving them with your child.
REC'D BY starts somewhere different. With someone you already trust. Your friends. Your family. Their friends. And the people they've actually chosen to recommend.
An online rating can be helpful. But hearing:
“We use her. We love her. I trust her with my kids.”
means something different. That's why we're REC'D BY.
Maya K.
Certifications & training
For your sitters
The right details, right when they're needed.
Your sitters don't need an account or another app to download. They get a private link where they can set their availability, accept or decline requests, and keep their bookings straight.
On the day, the details unlock — your address and door code, the kids' meals, bedtimes, and allergies, the dog's walk and potty schedule, the Wi-Fi, and how to reach you. Everything they need for the job, connected right to it instead of buried in an old text thread. Afterward, that access expires.
Everything they need for tonight. Nothing about your family they don't.
Are you a sitter? See what REC'D BY offers you →
Tonight · Saturday
7:00 – 11:00 PM
Kids
Emma · age 6
Dinner 6:00 · bed 8:00 · peanut allergy
Liam · age 3
Bed 7:30 · no dairy
Pets
Biscuit
Dog · walk 7:00, potty before bed
Location
- Address
- 14 Maple Street
- Door code
- 4-7-2-2
- Wi-Fi
- MorganHome
- Reach us
- (555) 012-3456
Trust + privacy
Share recommendations. Not your whole life.
Your village works because people can recognize the real families behind the recommendations — but that doesn't mean everyone needs access to everything.
Friends
Direct friends see the basics they likely already know — your household name, the parents on the account, and your kids' and pets' names and ages. Not your address, security info, routines, or private notes.
Friends of friends
Your extended connections see only the parents on your account — nothing about your children, pets, home, or address.
Your care team
Sitters get only what a specific booking requires, and that access expires afterward.
Connection shouldn't require oversharing.
Visit the Trust Center →More than babysitting
Because your household takes a village, too.
It's the pet sitter you trust with your dog. The house sitter you trust with your keys. The house cleaner your friend has used for years. And all the other people who make everyday life a little easier.
REC'D BY brings babysitting, pet sitting, and house sitting together today — and we're building toward an even simpler way to find and manage more of the trusted people who help your household run.
Once you find someone great, you shouldn't have to find them twice.
Free & membership
The best part is free. And always will be.
Connecting with friends and seeing the babysitters, pet sitters, and house sitters they recommend is free — no subscription required. A membership unlocks messaging, booking, recurring scheduling, your extended village, and more — for $6.99/mo or $39.99/yr (save 50%), with no per-booking fees.
| What's included | Free $0 | Membership $6.99/mo or $39.99/yr (Save 50%) |
|---|---|---|
| Connect with the friends and family you know | ✓ | ✓ |
| See the sitters they recommend — and their full profiles | ✓ | ✓ |
| Build your roster — save to My Sitters & Potential Sitters | ✓ | ✓ |
| Message & book the sitters you find | — | ✓ |
| Detailed day-of care instructions for your sitter | — | ✓ |
| Your extended village — care through friends of friends | — | ✓ |
| Recurring & multi-day scheduling | — | ✓ |
| More household contacts & care-team management | — | ✓ |
| Background-check features | — | Soon |
| New tools as REC'D BY grows | — | ✓ |
No per-booking fees, ever — and caregiver accounts are always free.
An accessible household membership that lets us sustainably run, secure, and improve REC'D BY — without turning every useful feature into an expensive upgrade.
Join now through January 1, 2027 — first year of membership free.
After your complimentary first year, membership continues at $6.99/mo or $39.99/yr — save 50% with annual billing.
Keeping the lights on
Like what we're building?
Building, hosting, securing, and improving an app costs real money. Optional donations help keep the free core free and fund ongoing development — no membership required.
Support REC'D BY →Pay your way
Keep the booking together. Choose how you pay.
Want everything handled in one place? Eligible care payments and tips can be made through REC'D BY for applicable transaction and convenience fees.
Prefer to pay your caregiver directly? That's fine, too. REC'D BY can provide quick access to supported external payment options so you and your caregiver can handle payment directly, without REC'D BY processing or taking part in the transaction.
Organizing care shouldn't mean telling you how you have to pay for it.
About REC'D BY
It started during nap time.
As a new mom, I kept asking my friends the same question: “Do you know someone good?” A babysitter, a pet sitter, a pediatrician, a house cleaner. I didn't want another marketplace of strangers — I wanted to know who my friends actually used. Because few choices are more personal than who you invite into your home — and especially who you trust to care for your children.
Those recommendations already existed. They were just scattered across group texts, old conversations, contact lists, and screenshots. I looked for something that brought them together, couldn't find it, and — somewhat unexpectedly — started building it during nap times.
It started with babysitting, but the problem was bigger than babysitting. My vision for REC'D BY is one place to discover, recommend, organize, and manage the trusted people who help your household run. Because when you find someone great, the first thing you want to do is tell a friend.
— Nicole
Founder + Mom, REC'D BY
A little about me
Nicole · Founder + Mom
Before REC'D BY, my career lived at the intersection of business, design, technology, and marketing. I've worked in software and project management, creative and brand leadership, and eventually served as a Chief Marketing Officer leading a multidisciplinary marketing team.
Then I became a mom, stepped away from corporate life, and found a very different problem I wanted to solve. That's where REC'D BY began.
Questions, answered
A few of the most common ones — the full list lives on our FAQ page.
What is REC'D BY?+
REC'D BY helps families find and manage trusted care through personal recommendations from friends, family, and their extended village. Find babysitters, pet sitters, and house sitters recommended by people you know, build your care team, organize household information, and coordinate care in one place. Think of it as part trusted recommendation resource, part care-team CRM, and part family care calendar.
Is REC'D BY a caregiver marketplace?+
No. REC'D BY isn't built around caregivers advertising themselves to an open marketplace. It starts with recommendations from real people and the connections between them. The goal isn't the largest possible list of people — it's a more meaningful place to start.
Do caregivers need an account?+
Caregivers never need a parent account. REC'D BY provides a care-specific experience that lets sitters respond to requests, keep their availability current, stay on top of booking confirmations, and access the information they need. Sitter and care accounts are always free.
What can my friends see about my family?+
Direct friends can see your household name, household account members, and basic information you provide about your children and pets, such as names, ages, and gender. They cannot see sensitive household information such as your address, security information, private care instructions, or detailed household notes. Friends of friends can see only the parent/account-owner members of your household. See our Trust Center for more detail.
Does REC'D BY background check caregivers?+
Personal recommendations are at the heart of REC'D BY, but a recommendation isn't a replacement for your family's own screening and hiring decisions. Background-check functionality is coming soon as part of REC'D BY's expanded membership experience. Visit our Trust Center for more about recommendations, verification, background checks, and family responsibility.
Is REC'D BY free?+
The core REC'D BY experience will always be free — including connecting with direct friends and seeing the babysitters, pet sitters, and house sitters they recommend. Messaging and booking those sitters is part of an optional household membership ($6.99/mo or $39.99/yr — save 50%), which also unlocks friends-of-friends recommendations, your extended Village, recurring scheduling, day-of care details, expanded household and care-team tools, and more — with background checks coming soon. Caregiver accounts are always free, and REC'D BY charges no per-booking fees — if you choose to pay a sitter by card through REC'D BY, only the card processor's fee applies.
What is the Founding Village?+
Families who join REC'D BY now through January 1, 2027 receive their first year of expanded membership free. After that, membership is $6.99/mo or $39.99/yr — save 50% with annual billing.
Get the app
Wherever your family already is.
Use REC'D BY right in your browser today — and take it with you on iPhone and Android soon. Your village, your roster, and your calendar stay in sync across all of them.
Your roster
My Sitters
Your next great sitter might already be in your village.
Bring together the people you trust, the people they recommend, and the care that keeps your household running.
Good people, recommended by your people.