House Sitters America is, hands down, my favorite house sitting website.   Why?   They don’t waste your time or your money.

In short, House Sitters America is my top pick for anyone house sitting in the United States, because:

• search function is the best I’ve seen across dozens of sites
• layout is smart and quick
• count of opportunities available is authentic
• homeowner friendly platform increases opportunities for sitters

Read on for cost and to understand  what other house sitting websites are  missing:

House Sitters America Review:
What it Costs

Memberships Are Fair & Affordable

$30 a year to  access the most well designed U.S. house sitting website isn’t bad at all.  Especially if you follow the advice of every house sitting review out there and  equate the  cost of membership with  a night of accommodation.

Some house sitting websites use a  greedy monthly membership angle, but not House Sitters America.  Their pricing demonstrates a  focus on meeting a need, not a bottom line.

House Sitters America Review:
How they Save You Time #1

Best Search Function on the Market

I can’t even begin to count the hours I’ve spent on other housesitting websites clicking through to ads that weren’t a fit for me at all.  House Sitters America allows you to narrow things down by every factor on offer — from dates to regions, type of house to amenities, and more.  On other platforms, I have to read up to 25 ads before I find a match.  On House Sitters America, I can tighten my search so that each ad I see is a fit for me.

House Sitters America Review:
How they Save You Time #2

Best Sorting Function

House Sitters America is  the only platform I’ve seen that makes it possible to cross reference your availability  dates with recently posted ads.  Why this matters: it’s not worth your time to apply to an ad for your perfect dates if it was posted months ago.  While some other house sitting websites let you sort by one of those variables at a time, others don’t allow to sort your results at all.  Shockingly inconvenient.  House Sitters America for the win!

House Sitters America Review:
How they Save You Time #3

Best Ad Previews

House Sitters America  provides  critical data about the sit without having to click through to the ad.  I waste so much time on other housesitting websites calculating sit length and paging through  ads that aren’t a fit.   The  convenience they provide is gold to me.

House Sitters America Review:
How they Save You Time #4

Visually Clean and Effective

In my opinion, House Sitters America has the best design in the industry.  House Sitters America’s design principles echo those of Facebook, and they are just as successful in making a ton of options and information quick and easy to access and navigate.  All other platforms are either stuck in the 1990’s or have tried to leverage  the white-space dominant fad sensible  for narrower  concepts.

Other Things I Love

House Sitters America Review:
Other Things I love #1

Honesty & Integrity

House Sitters America doesn’t fudge  the number of available house sits.  How can a house sitting website over-inflate their numbers?  By encouraging homeowners to post nebulous dates.   When looking for a date-specific house sit, nothing is more frustrating than digging through homeowner ads for “someday.”   While House Sitters America  does’t make it impossible for homeowners to do this ¹which would discourage homeowners from signing up, which would be bad for housesitters in the long run, they respect the paying members of the platform ²housesitters! by encouraging practices that give us what we’re paying for.

House Sitters America Review:
Other Things I love #2

Homeowner  Friendly

At first you might think  it’s  unfair that homeowners don’t pay (I did!), but it’s just supply and demand.  There are more house sitters than homeowners.   A platform that appeals to the higher-demand resource (homes to be sat) is going to be better for you because they’ll attract more homeowners.  House Sitters America makes it easier than any site I’ve seen for homeowners to post an ad, which means more house sitting jobs for you!  Homeowners  don’t have to create an account and get a confirmation email to have access to a dashboard.  The ad goes up with just one click, so House Sitters America easily attracts the homeowners I see posting on multiple sites.

House Sitters America Review:
Other Things I love #3

Lower Competition

House sitters who don’t do their homework will probably first land in the jaws of a house sitting website I don’t love.  That’s lucky for you, though!  Combined with the fact that House Sitters America makes it so easy for homeowners to join, you’ll have the pick of the litter when signing up with them.

House Sitters America Review:
Other Things I love #4

Encourage Vs. Forced Responsiveness

Unresponsive people are an annoyance in life.  Some house sitting websites  do nothing about this.  My least-favorite  site includes “read receipts,” forcing both homeowners and house sitters into unnecessary  communication while they  wait on extraneous circumstances.  House Sitters America  sets up the accountability compromise perfectly.   A  rating system exposes unresponsive users, encourages everyone to be prompt with replies, but allows a bit of wiggle room necessary to most job/interview processes.

House Sitters America Review:
Other Things I love #5

They’re Nice

In the house sitting website industry, I’ve seen some pretty awful strong-arm tactics.  It’s the digital equivalent of the used-car salesman stereotype.  I can practically feel one site  ruthlessly squeezing every penny possible out of their platform.  House Sitters America does none of these things.   It’s obvious their #1 priority is doing an amazing job of connecting homeowners and house sitters.

Why Haven’t I Heard About House Sitters America?

Here’s why I think you may not be  familiar with House Sitters America already:

• They’re regional –  The first sites you come across when you’re figuring out how to get into house sitting are generally the international sites.  House Sitters America’s creators customize their platform for each country they serve.
• They don’t have an affiliate program –  Affiliate programs are an incentive for bloggers to talk about a product.   Many house sitting website review pages could also be titled “Links to house sitting websites who will pay me if you sign up.”
• They’re  a fresher face on  the U.S. scene.  As with any website, building a presence takes time.
• They’re busy –  If the quality of their website is any indication, I suspect they’ve focused primarily  on engineering a fantastic platform and user experience.  The marketing fire seems more recently ignited.

I’ve used a half dozen house sitting websites around the world and researched at least double that.  If you want more house sitting website reviews,  The Best (and Worst) House Sitting Websites summarizes everything I know.

And your fellow slow travel, money-saving, life enthusiasts want to know – What’s your experience with House Sitters America?!  Pay it forward by leaving a  comment!

Happy Traveling! ♣

The cost of producing this review has been covered by a business keen to  support our slow-travel, budget-conscious community of life enthusiasts. (House Sitters America, of course.)  The opinions here are 100% mine.   I paid for my House Sitters America membership, have been using  the site for months, and became a fan independently.  I don’t get a kickback if you decide to sign up with them after reading my praise – just the joy of helping fellow travelers!   Want to read more about production costs on Half the Clothes?