What a house manager really costs.
A household deciding whether to hire help deserves the real number, not the brochure number. This page puts the Bureau of Labor Statistics' May 2025 wage data beside the ranges the domestic-staffing agencies publish themselves, then adds back what the brochures leave out: payroll taxes, insurance, the placement fee, and the paid days you do not receive.
The salary is where the cost starts, not where it ends.
Three things are reliably missing from a staffing agency's salary page. First, the employer's share of payroll taxes and the insurance most states require once you employ someone in your home: in 2026 that is 7.65 percent for Social Security and Medicare before unemployment insurance and workers' compensation are counted. Second, the agency's own placement fee, which the agencies we cite put between 15 and 25 percent of the first year's pay. Third, the paid holidays, vacation and sick days that are customary for a professional hire and that reduce the hours you actually receive.
Put together, a house manager the agencies price at $130,000 costs closer to $170,000 in the first year and about $145,000 a year after that. The calculator below lets you set the role, the metro and the hours, shows every line, and lets you change any assumption you disagree with. Beneath it we set the same work, done differently, beside its own price.
Choose the role, the metro and the hours. Every line is shown.
Employer-cost assumptions, all editable
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$149 a month is the published Personal membership. AI usage is billed separately. Fully hosted onboarding is $299 with no equipment; in-home White Glove setup and equipment are quoted per home. See the full pricing. A Chief does not stand in your kitchen; the section further down says plainly where a human still wins.Two honest yardsticks, and why they differ.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not survey "house managers" as an occupation, so for each role we use the nearest published occupation and say which one. Those medians describe the whole labour market, most of it outside private homes, and they run well below what the domestic-staffing agencies publish for the same title. The agency figures come from the agencies' own 2026 salary guides and are self-reported by firms that earn a percentage of the salary. Both are shown; neither is adjusted except where we say so.
When you pick a metro, the agency midpoint is scaled by the ratio of that metro's BLS median to the national median for the proxy occupation, so a Boston or San Francisco figure rises and a Sarasota figure falls. The factor is shown beside the result.
| Role | Published figure | Who published it |
|---|---|---|
| House manager | P25 $85,000 · P50 $130,000 · P75 $170,000 | Talent Gurus, Household Staff Salary Guide 2026 |
| Household manager, New York | $110,000 to $180,000 | Seaside Staffing Company |
| Household manager | $80,000 to $120,000 part-time or mid-level; $120,000 to $180,000+ estate-level | Household Staffing International, 2026 |
| House manager, Atlanta | $40 to $50 an hour | The Hazel Agency, 2025 |
| Personal assistant | P25 $100,000 · P50 $150,000 · P75 $235,000 | Talent Gurus, 2026 (ultra-high-net-worth households) |
| Estate manager, single property | P25 $145,000 · P50 $185,000 · P75 $260,000 | Talent Gurus, 2026 |
| Estate manager | $150,000 to $400,000 | British American Household Staffing |
| Chief of staff, family office | P25 $175,000 · P50 $260,000 · P75 $345,000 | Talent Gurus, Family Office Salary Guide 2026 |
| Placement fee | 20% of first-year pay with a 3-month guarantee, 22% for 6 months, 25% for 12; $10,000 minimum | Seaside Staffing Company |
| Placement fee | 18% of expected annual gross, full or part time; $800 minimum | Executive Households |
| Placement fee | About 15% of annual salary | The Hazel Agency, Atlanta |
Most households never hire the manager. They buy the pieces.
A bookkeeper for the accounts, an hour of a lawyer's time to read the contract, an assistant for the correspondence and the bookings, a payroll service if there is a nanny. Each is sensible on its own, and together they are a quiet standing cost. PrivateChief's Household Office does that work inside the same membership: it keeps the books, holds the tax file in order for your accountant, reads the agreement before you sign it, handles the letters and the scheduling, and arranges the errands. It does not file your tax return and it does not represent you in court, and it says so when asked.
Tick what you buy today. The prices are the providers' own published figures, with the assistant's hours at the BLS national median for executive assistants.
We will be straight about what a Chief is not.
A house manager is in the house. She meets the plumber, walks the property after a storm, notices the leak before it is a ceiling, and manages the people who clean and cook. No software does that, and a household that needs a physical presence should hire one and pay properly for it. Nor is a Chief a substitute for the professionals whose signature carries legal weight: your accountant files the return and your attorney appears for you.
What a Chief does is the other half of the job, the half that fills a manager's desk rather than their day: the calendar, the correspondence, the vendors' quotes and invoices, the family's logistics, the paperwork, the reminders, the books, and the house's own systems. For many households that half is the whole of what they were going to hire for, at a price that does not carry a payroll.
A managed Personal Chief, fully hosted with nothing to install or running on a private appliance in your home. The hosted option begins as a personal assistant through the apps; the in-home option adds the physical household, including compatible home controls and local operation. There is no annual commitment or cancellation fee.
Every figure traces to a published source.
Government data first, the agencies' own pages for what the agencies charge, and the providers' own price lists for the piecemeal comparison. Nothing here comes from a vendor's press release. Where we made an assumption, it is labelled as one and you can change it.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates, cross-industry, retrieved 2026-09-04 through the BLS Public Data API. Occupation profiles: 37-1011 First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers (our proxy for a house manager), 43-6014 Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive (personal assistant), 11-9141 Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers (estate manager), 43-6011 Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (chief of staff, and the assistant hours in the piecemeal comparison), and 43-3031 Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks.
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 926 (2026), Household Employer's Tax Guide: Social Security 6.2 percent each for employee and employer on wages up to $184,500; Medicare 1.45 percent each with no wage limit; the $3,000 cash-wage threshold; FUTA 6.0 percent on the first $7,000 with a credit of up to 5.4 percent, a net 0.6 percent.
- California Employment Development Department, Rates and Withholding: new employers are assigned a 3.4 percent unemployment-insurance rate for two to three years on a taxable wage limit of $7,000 per employee, used here as the stand-in state rate. Your state's rate and wage base will differ.
- GTM Payroll Services, Workers' Compensation Requirements for Household Employers: the state-by-state table, including Massachusetts at 16 or more hours a week, New York at 40, Connecticut at 26, and New Jersey and New Hampshire for all household employers. Premiums are quoted by state and broker; the $750 default is our assumption.
- KFF, 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey: average annual premium $9,325 for single coverage, average worker contribution $1,440, leaving $7,885 as the default employer share.
- Talent Gurus, Household Staff Salary Guide 2026 and Family Office Salary Guide 2026, updated March 2026: the percentile figures for house manager, personal assistant, estate manager and chief of staff used as the agency basis.
- Seaside Staffing Company, Household Managers in New York City: $110,000 to $180,000; placement fee of 20, 22 or 25 percent by guarantee period, $10,000 minimum; paid time off, health insurance, federal holidays and sick pay described as typical.
- Household Staffing International, How to Hire the Right Household Manager in 2026: $80,000 to $120,000 for part-time or mid-level roles; $120,000 to $180,000 and above for estate-level work.
- British American Household Staffing, Hiring an Estate Manager: "Estate Manager salaries range from $150,000 to 400,000 a year."
- Executive Households, Domestic Staffing Services: fee of 18 percent of expected annual gross income, full or part time, $800 minimum.
- The Hazel Agency, The Cost of Hiring Domestic Household Help in Atlanta: 2025 Guide: house managers at $40 to $50 an hour; a placement fee of about 15 percent; payroll taxes, paid time off, a possible health-insurance stipend and an annual bonus listed as the employer's costs beyond wages.
- Bench, Pricing: Bookkeeping Grow from $199 a month, Core from $399, Core + Tax from $599, as listed at the time of writing.
- Clio, Legal Statistics, citing the Legal Trends Report: an average hourly billable rate of $349 for lawyers as of January 2025.
- Care.com HomePay, household payroll service: Plus plan at $75 a month as listed in 2026. GTM Payroll Services publishes a comparable service.
