On the work · 6 min read
What a household manager actually costs in Australia.
The manager's pay, the hours you agree, and the fees around them. A clear look at the cost of household support, with three examples of how it might fit into a week.
Skip to contentQuietly Kept 
The cover essay
The Journal
Notes on a kept household.
A notebook on household management, written from the desk of Quietly Kept.
The cover essayMore from the Journal
Every piece, newest first.
- On the workWhat a household manager is, and who it's actually for.
The wealthy have kept a version of this role for generations. Plainly: what a household manager does, how it differs from a cleaner or a nanny, what it costs, and why it is no longer only for them.
- Letters homeA letter from Anna, six months in.
A letter from a working mother to a friend, written on a Wednesday evening six months into engaging a household manager. Texture, not testimony.
- On the workNot the cleaner, not the nanny, the one who keeps it.
A cleaner cleans. A nanny minds the children. The role a working mother often actually needs is a third thing, and it does not yet have a clean word in English.
- The platformWhy we didn't build a chore app.
Chore apps are built for a household organising itself. The platform we have built is for something different: a household and a manager, working together. The two are not the same product.
- On the workFive things to settle before a manager's first morning.
Five small decisions worth making before a household manager's first morning. The ones that, made deliberately, save a fortnight of small friction afterwards.
“We write about our work, but never about a household by name.”
All pieces are written or commissioned by Quietly Kept · Households are anonymised, with permission, before publication · Photographs are illustrative