Related Pages: About Household Services, Hints for Posting, Subscribe as a Household Service
Subscribing as a Household Service Provider | Posting & Reviews on BPN |
Who can subscribe as a Household Service?
Community members who provide in-home services including:
- Cooks and Home Chefs
- Garden Services - Garden Maintenance (not landscape design)
- Home Assistants - Household Assistant, Personal Assistant, or Mother's Helper
- House Sitters
- House Cleaners
- Organizers
- Pet Services such as Dog Walkers and Pet Sitters
- Repairs & Odd Jobs - Handyman
Individuals and businesses in the SF Bay Area that provide the above services can purchase one of the below Household Service subscriptions.
Subscription fees & benefits
For current fees, see Subscription Fees for Community Subscribers
Household service providers have these subscription options:
Full-Time Student. If you are in school full time at a high school, middle school, or college, you can subscribe for no cost and post on BPN as an individual offering household help. See Subscribing as a Full-Time Student for more information.
Individual household service provider: This low-cost subscription is intended for individuals who provide household services without assistance. Your Household Services subscription allows you to:
- Have an account on BPN for one year.
- Post to "Household Services Available" which appears in the weekly Childcare & Household Service newsletter.
- Read posts in "Parents Seeking Household Services" and send messages to parents who post.
Note! The individual household services subscription cannot be used by household service businesses with any staff. Please instead see the business subscriptions in the next section.
- Household Service small business This subscription is for you if you are an individual seeking more visibilty, or not a one person operation (working with up to two assistants). Note: if you are a licensed contractor or landscape designer, you qualify as a Business. See the next section.
- Household Service Business This subscription is for: 1) Household service businesses with a team greater than three. To subscribe, purchase a business subscription.
How do I subscribe?
- To subscribe as an individual household service click here.
- To subscribe as a small household service business choose the "small" subscription on this page.
- To subscribe as a business, purchase a business subscription.
- To subscribe as a full-time student click here.
We use Paypal for all BPN subscriptions. If you don't already have a Paypal account you'll have the opportunity to create an account with your credit or debit card or your bank account. Your subscription will automatically renew at the same time every year, but you can cancel auto-renewal if you wish. For more info see Paying for a BPN Subscription.
How do I upgrade my individual subscription to a household service business?
If you are already subscribed as an individual household service, login to your account on BPN and purchase a business subscription as described above. When we receive your new subscription, we'll make you a profile page and send you instructions. If you have more than 6 months remaining on your existing subscription, we'll refund the balance to your Paypal account. Contact us if you have questions.
About the Household Services Listing
The Household Services Listing lets parents browse household services by category. When you post to the listing, you will be able to indicate the service you provide and the areas that you can travel to. Your post will remain published for 30 days.
If you offer more than one household service, create unique posts for each of the services offered.
You can remove your post from the listing at any time by going to your account page (click "my account" at the top of any page). Click your post to change the Status to "Unpublished." If you need to edit or update your post, unpublish it first, and then submit a new post. BPN allows only one post per category per subscriber each 30 days.
How do I post?
Once you have subscribed, login to your account and click Post a Message in the top menu. Click the button for "Household Services" to post to the Household service Listing. If you have subscribed as a household service business, you can also post an "Announcement."
How long will my post stay active?
- Household Service Listing (both individuals and businesses): Your post will remain on the BPN website for 30 days. You can unpublish your post at any time if you do not have current openings, or if you want to revise your original post.
- Announcements (businesses only): Post an announcement under "Services for Families." Your post remains active on the BPN website for 30 days unless you unpublish it sooner. Recent posts (received during the past week) are included in the weekly newsletter that is mailed to all subscribers.
See "Subscribing as a Household Service" for details about individual vs. business subscriptions.
How often can I post?
- Household Service Listing (both individuals and businesses): You can have an active post in the Household Service Listing, and it remains on the website for 30 days. You can remove your post at any time by unpublishing it on your account page. If you want to revise your post, unpublish it first and then post a new one.
- Announcements (businesses only): You can post every 30 days. For details, see About Announcements & Events.
See above for details about individual vs. business subscriptions.
How can I edit or update my post in the Listing?
First unpublish your old post, and then post a new one. See How to Edit or Unpublish a Post.
Will my post be included in the newsletter?
- Household Service Listing (both individuals and businesses): Household service posts are sent out weekly in the Childcare & Household Services Newsletter. The newsletter is sent out each Sunday.
- Announcements & Events (businesses only): The weekly Announcements newsletter includes recent announcements (received during the past week), as well as events for the upcoming week. The Announcements & Events newsletter is sent out each Friday.
See above for details about individual vs. business subscriptions.
How can parents recommend me?
BPN subscribers can post reviews of household service providers in three ways:
- Parents can post a recommendation in the Household Service Listing. These are published on the site for 30 days and go out in the following week's Childcare & Household Service Newsletter.
- When another parent asks for household service recommendations in Parent Q&A, parents can respond with a review. These reviews will then be publicly available on a relevant page such as "Meal Delivery & Personal Chefs."
- If a Household service provider has a profile page, parents can post reviews directly to the provider's profile page. Here is an example: https://www.berkeleyparentsnetwork.org/recommend/org/lotus-cleaning-services.
In order to have a profile page, you must be subscribed as a business, not as an individual. See "Subscribing as a Household Service" for details about individual vs. business subscriptions.
I am a parent who is offering household services
You do need to purchase the household services subscription even though you are a parent (or grandparent). Your parent subscription is free, but you can't use it to offer paid services of any kind to other subscribers, per BPN's policy about Advertising and Self-Promotion. The only way to offer paid services such as childcare on BPN is to purchase a community subscription. Click here to purchase a nanny or household services subscription.
NOTE: If you use your free parent account to contact other subscribers to offer paid childcare or household services, and you have not purchased a nanny or household subscription, your parent account will be disabled until we receive a paid subscription from you. BPN relies on paid subscriptions to cover our operating costs so we can keep subscriptions free for parents. It's also not fair to the hundreds of nanny & household subscribers who have paid to post, if people can subscribe for free as a parent and then look for a household job by messaging people privately. Therefore when we do discover that private messages offering household services have been sent from a parent account, we disable the account and we don't activate it again until we get a paid subscription from that account.
Do I need to subscribe if I only want to read postings from parents looking for a household service?
Yes. You will need to subscribe as a provider in one of the above categories if you want to view postings from parents who are looking for household services
Can I use my account to post about friends and family members who offer household services?
No. Your account is only to post about your own services. Your friends and family members should purchase their own subscription. Your subscription will be terminated if you use it to post about other people.