The short answer
Hourly rates, minimum bookings, late-night surcharges and short-notice surcharges, stated plainly on a page anyone can reach without registering. Four numbers and their triggers. That is what a parent came for, and a site that makes them work for it loses the booking to one that does not.
Why hiding the rate costs you the job
The reasoning behind a registration wall is that a parent who signs up is a warmer lead. In practice the opposite happens. The parent who was ready to book on Saturday will not fill in a form to find out a number, so they leave. The parent who was only browsing will fill in anything, because they are not committing to anything.
You end up with a list of browsers and a diary with a hole in it.
Rates are also the first thing parents compare, and comparison happens whether you take part or not. If your number is invisible, you are compared on assumption, and assumptions are always worse than the truth.
The four things the page has to say
The hourly rate. With whatever variable applies. Some services charge one rate regardless; others step it by number of children. Say which, and show it as a small table rather than a paragraph if there is more than one number.
The minimum. Usually three or four hours, charged whether or not the parent uses them. This is the number parents miss most often, so it belongs beside the hourly rate in the same size type, written as a worked line rather than a rule.
The late-night surcharge. The clock time it starts, whether it is an uplift on the hourly rate or a flat addition, and whether it applies to the whole booking or only the hours after the trigger.
The short-notice surcharge. The window it applies to, and the amount. Short notice is a large share of this business, so treat it as a stated price rather than as an apology.
The things worth adding underneath
An agency or booking fee if you charge one, separated from the sitter's hourly rate so the parent can see where their money goes. Public holiday and New Year's Eve rates, which parents expect to be different. What happens when an extra child is added on the night. Travel or taxi contributions after a certain hour, with the boundary stated.
Then how payment works: online at booking, deposit and settle after, or paid to the sitter directly. Whether gratuities are expected, which parents genuinely do not know and are quietly anxious about.
Then the cancellation terms, in the same words that appear in the booking flow.
One worked example beats the whole table
Under the numbers, put one short example built from your own rates. A typical Saturday evening, five hours, two children, one hour after the late-night trigger, with the arithmetic shown line by line and a total at the bottom.
It is the highest-value block on the page, because it turns a table into a number, and a number is the thing the parent actually wanted.
Keep the page and the booking tool in agreement
Whatever the page says, the booking system has to enforce. Whether you run Acuity, Bookeo or a custom form, the minimum has to exist as a minimum duration or base charge, and the surcharges have to exist as options or add-ons the flow can apply.
Where you are not certain a platform supports a particular rule natively, confirm it with the vendor before designing the page around it. A rule the software cannot apply becomes a manual correction every week and an argument every month.
Build it so you can change it
Rates move. Build the table as editable records rather than an image or a hard-coded block, so a rate can be changed in two minutes without ringing anyone.
Put a review date on it. If your page still shows last year's late-night rate, every quote you give by phone contradicts your own site, and parents notice.
Where the rates page belongs
One tap from the header, linked from the home page, linked from the last-minute page, and summarised on the booking page itself so the parent does not have to leave the flow to check.
Put a short line about vetting directly beside the rates. A parent looking at a number is at exactly the moment they ask what they are paying for, and the answer is the checks, the references and the first aid.
Where this sits
Rates, minimums and surcharges stated plainly, kept editable, and mirrored in the booking tool are standard on a babysitting service website as we build it, and the same clarity about fees runs through our other childcare and family websites. Our own packages are on pricing. Parents rarely object to the rate. They object to hunting for it.