Domestic help through an agency or employ someone yourself?

Anyone who regularly needs help in the household faces a choice: engage an agency or employ someone yourself. The agency is convenient, your own helper is cheaper and closer. Which route fits better depends on what matters more to you, and there is a third way that removes the main argument against each. The comparison is set out here.

What is the difference between an agency and employing someone yourself?

They are two fundamentally different roles. With an agency you book a service. The agency sends a worker, is her employer, and takes care of everything legal. You pay an invoice and have nothing to do with registration, pay, and insurance.

If you employ someone yourself, by contrast, you are the employer. You choose the person, agree the wage, and register the job, usually as a mini-job. In return you decide yourself who comes to you, and you pay no surcharge for a placement.

What does each route cost?

The agency is considerably more expensive per hour, because more is included in the price. A rough comparison for a cleaner:

• Agency: often 25 to 40 € per hour. That includes the worker's wage, social contributions, insurance, travel, material, and the agency's profit margin.
• Employing yourself: the hourly wage plus your employer contributions. According to the quitt Report, a cleaner earns 16.86 € per hour on average, plus around 14.6 % contributions, which comes to around 19.30 € per hour.

The agency's surcharge pays for the convenience. How the costs are made up with direct employment is in the post What does a cleaner cost?.

Who takes care of registration, illness, and liability?

With an agency, the agency handles all of it. If the worker is off ill, the agency sends a replacement, and registration, continued pay, and insurance are their business. That is the real advantage of this model: zero effort and a reliable replacement.

If you employ someone yourself, these tasks are yours: you register, keep paying the wage in case of illness, and arrange the accident cover. That sounds like a lot but is manageable, and this is exactly where quitt comes in, more on that below. What applies in case of illness and for insurance is in the post Insuring a domestic helper.

Do I get the tax rebate in both cases?

Yes. The tax benefit under § 35a EStG applies to both routes, just through different pots. If you engage an agency, it counts as a household-related service: 20 % of the costs, up to 4,000 € a year. More on this in the article Household-related services.

If you employ a mini-job yourself, the rebate applies for household-related employment: also 20 %, here up to 510 € a year. In both cases the condition is payment by bank transfer.

What fits whom?

A short decision guide:

• Agency: if you need help at short notice, only occasionally, or flexibly, want no effort, and value a guaranteed replacement when someone is off. You pay more per hour for that and do not always know who is coming.
• Employing yourself: if you want the same trusted person regularly, watch the price, and value a personal relationship. In return you take on the employer role.

How to find a suitable helper in the first place is in the post Finding domestic help.

What does quitt take care of for me?

quitt is the third way, which resolves the main argument against direct employment: the effort. quitt is not an agency and does not place cleaners. quitt is an app-based service that takes over the administration when you employ someone yourself.

You choose your helper and enter the key details, quitt takes over registration, payroll, contributions, and insurance. So you have the cheaper price and the trusted person as with direct employment, but as little effort as with an agency. You stay the employer and decide whom you hire and what you pay.

Found a helper? Start the registration and quitt takes over the rest. You can see what the service costs on the pricing page.