In an Australian house sit you usually pay the sitter nothing. The sitter stays in your home free for the dates you agree, cares for your pets and the house, and the accommodation is the whole of what they receive, which is why the arrangement is called an exchange rather than a job. You do pay when you book a paid pet sitter, and that is a different arrangement wearing almost identical words.
That is why the question is answered so badly. Two markets run side by side in Australia under one vocabulary, and most pages answering it describe only one of them. Work out which of four arrangements you are in and the answer stops moving.
Australians meet four arrangements, and only one of them means paying the sitter
| Arrangement | Where your pet stays | What you pay for the care | What the sitter receives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-monetary house sit, the exchange model | In your home, with the sitter living there | Nothing. No fee in either direction | Free accommodation in your home for the agreed dates |
| Paid in-home pet sitting or overnight care | In your home | A nightly or per-visit rate set by the sitter, plus the platform's booking fee | Their rate, less the platform's commission |
| A friend, neighbour or family member | In your home, or in theirs | Usually nothing | Goodwill, a thank-you, or the favour returned later |
| Boarding, a cattery, or care at a sitter's own home | Away from your home | A nightly rate set by the business or the sitter | Their rate, less any platform commission |
Sitterly runs only the first row. Nobody pays anybody for the sit, there is no commission on a booking, and the platform is free for homeowners permanently and free for sitters through the current growth phase, with a flat-fee subscription planned. The mechanics are on how Sitterly works and the full price is on our pricing page. Rows three and four are here because Australians weigh all four before deciding, not because Sitterly offers them.
In the exchange model, the accommodation is the payment
A sitter in an exchange arrangement is not working for free. They receive somewhere to live, in a suburb they chose, for dates they chose, without rent. House sitting can be a housing arrangement rather than a travel one: bridging a gap between rentals, covering the months between selling and buying, or saving while between homes. Where that is the case, the accommodation is worth considerably more to the sitter than a nightly fee would be.
The RSPCA's guidance on leaving a cat while you are away lists a house or pet sitter staying at your home as one of the three main options, alongside a trusted person and a boarding facility. The RSPCA describes that option as ideal for cats who prefer minimal changes to their environment and routine.
The exchange only holds while the two sides stay proportionate. One easy-going cat in a comfortable home is an attractive trade. The same home with four animals, twice-daily medication, a pool and a large block to mow is a much bigger ask, and sitters read it that way. If your sit is demanding, the honest options are to reduce the work, describe it accurately and accept it will take longer to fill, or arrange paid care. Describing a demanding sit as an easy one is the most reliable way to have it end badly.
Is unpaid sitting just free labour?
A fair question, and asked more often as living costs rise. Whether a particular arrangement amounts to work is not something a house-sitting blog should rule on. The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes general guidance on unpaid work arrangements and is the right place to take it. What decides whether an exchange feels fair is simpler and entirely inside your control: whether the workload matches the accommodation, and whether both people knew the workload before anyone said yes.
Money still moves during an exchange sit, it just does not move between you
No fee passes between the two of you, but the sit is not costless. The splits below are the ones we would suggest agreeing. None is a rule, which is why they need agreeing rather than assuming.
- Pet food, medication, litter and treats: the homeowner, left in the house with instructions.
- Veterinary treatment: the homeowner, with written authority and a spending limit agreed before you leave.
- Electricity, gas, water and internet: usually the homeowner, on the basis that the house would be drawing power anyway.
- The sitter's own groceries and their own travel: the sitter.
- Petrol for trips you asked for, such as a vet visit or a specific beach: usually the homeowner.
Our guide to who pays for what on an Australian house sit covers the awkward ones, including the air conditioning question that surfaces every summer from Darwin to Adelaide.
Four situations where money genuinely does change hands in an exchange sit
- Work beyond pet care. A large block mowed weekly, a pool serviced, a tradesperson supervised. Paying for that separately is reasonable, and so is leaving it out of the sit.
- A sit running for months rather than weeks. Long stays are where utility contributions get raised, usually by the sitter.
- Intensive medical care. Twice-daily injections, or a post-surgical dog needing help with stairs, is nursing. Some homeowners pay for it rather than ask for it free.
- Travel you request. A long drive to a specific vet is a cost the sitter did not sign up for.
Whatever you land on, write it down before the sit rather than after. Our house-sitting agreement guide has a section for exactly this.
Say it in the first message
One sentence removes almost every dispute in this category. To confirm, this is a non-monetary house sit, so there is no fee either way, I cover the pets' costs and the household bills, and you cover your own groceries. Send it before the meet and greet, not after it.
Paying changes what the arrangement is, not only what it costs
Buy a service in Australia and the Australian Consumer Law gives you consumer guarantees, including that the service is carried out with due care and skill and within a reasonable time. The ACCC sets out what those guarantees cover. A non-monetary exchange is not a purchase, so those guarantees are not in play. The difference cuts both ways: no fee, and no commercial recourse either. This is general information rather than legal advice, and a dispute over paid care belongs with the ACCC or your state or territory consumer affairs office.
An exchange is not automatically outside the tax system
The ATO's stated position is that barter and trade exchanges are subject to the same income tax and GST treatment as normal cash or credit transactions. That guidance is written for people carrying on a business, and whether any of it reaches a private house sit depends on facts an article cannot know. If you sit often, or you are paid for sits, the ATO page on income you must declare is the place to start and a registered tax agent is the place to finish. Our house sitting and tax guide covers the general shape. None of this is tax advice.
The platforms charge memberships, commissions, or both
Every figure below was read from a live page on 22 August 2026. Treat it as a dated snapshot, not a current price list.
| Platform | Model | What the homeowner pays | What the sitter pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sitterly | Exchange, no money for the sit | Free, permanently | Free during the current growth phase, flat-fee subscription planned |
| Aussie House Sitters | Exchange | $49 one-off, lifetime | $89 for 12 months, renewing on a published ladder at $84, $79, then $74 |
| Mindahome | Exchange | Free, or $35 one-off for Premium | $69 for 12 months |
| TrustedHousesitters | Exchange | A$119, A$199 or A$239 a year, plus a per-sit booking fee on the two lower tiers | A$109, A$149 or A$229 a year |
| Mad Paws | Paid bookings | A booking fee, amount not published | 20% commission, or 15% for sitters who joined before 29 June 2017 |
| Pawshake | Paid bookings | A member service fee, amount not published | 19% of every booking |
| PetCloud | Paid bookings | A booking fee capped at $40 | Commission not published |
Four of those platforms make the owner-side fee hard or impossible to find before you commit. TrustedHousesitters charges a per-sit booking fee on its Basic and Standard tiers, and on 22 August 2026 its Australian pricing page rendered that amount from an unresolved template variable, so no dollar figure appeared at all. Mad Paws and Pawshake disclose their owner-side fee only inside the booking flow. PetCloud's $40 cap appears in one blog FAQ and on none of its pricing pages.
Happy House Sitters also runs an exchange model here. Its prices are not in the table because its robots file blocks automated readers including ours, and we would rather leave a row out than publish a figure we could not read at the source. Check its pricing page in a browser yourself.
The nightly rates published online are mostly templates, not market rates
If you are pricing paid care, be careful where you take a number from. On 22 August 2026, PetCloud's services and prices page listed house sitting from $30 to $50 a night while at least six other live pages on the same domain gave different figures for the same service. TrustedHousesitters publishes, inside the FAQ structured data on its Australian locality pages, that average pet sitting is $1.79 per hour, $71.67 per week for 40 hours or $232.92 per month for 130 hours, and those figures appear identically on its City of Sydney page, its Boroondara page in suburban Melbourne and its Balonne Shire page in rural south-west Queensland. A number identical to the cent from inner Sydney to south-west Queensland is a template, not a rate.
Sitters on the paid platforms set their own rates, so the honest answer to how much to pay a house sitter is that Australia has no standard rate. The only meaningful range is the one asked by the sitters near you. Our guide to what pet care actually costs in Australia puts the options side by side.
What this article deliberately does not cover
Two questions sit right next to this one and both need a specialist answer. Whether a long stay gives a sitter any occupancy or tenancy status is a matter of state and territory residential tenancy law, and belongs with your state fair trading or consumer affairs office. Visa questions for sitters arriving from overseas belong with the Department of Home Affairs.
Common questions about paying a house sitter
- Is house sitting free in Australia?
- For the homeowner, a non-monetary house sit costs nothing for the care itself. Some platforms charge a membership to list or to apply, and the homeowner still covers the pet's food, medication and vet care, plus the household bills that would be running anyway. For the sitter, the accommodation is the whole of what they receive, so no fee passes in either direction.
- Do house sitters get paid in Australia?
- In the exchange model, no. In the paid model, yes, at a rate the sitter sets, with a platform commission taken out of it. The same person can do both in different months, which is one reason the answers online contradict each other so confidently.
- How much should I pay a house sitter?
- If the arrangement is non-monetary, nothing. If you are hiring paid care, Australia has no standard rate and none of the paid platforms we checked on 22 August 2026 published a rate card, so compare the rates of individual sitters near you rather than a national average.
- Should I leave a thank-you gift or a tip?
- It is not expected in an exchange sit, and it is no substitute for describing the workload honestly. If you want to leave something, stock the pantry and leave a note, and say what you are doing so it is not mistaken for payment.
Post your dates, your pets and an honest description of the workload, then see who applies. Listing is free for homeowners, permanently, and no money changes hands for the sit. Post a listing, or look through the sits already open first.
