There should be no fees for the nanny. But the person who emailed you left that info out even when you asked ? To me that's a red flag that they really don't care about your needs and won't take a second to answer your simple question.

If they try and get money from you, run.

I've never used an agency. Their lack of transparency about fees would concern me in your case, OP.
Can you google the agency to see reviews? Maybe look on yelp?

I've almost always secured my positions through an agency, although I do utilize the online search sites as well.

Agencies are like families- there are good ones, medicore ones and terrible ones. If you are having trouble finding exactly what you want on your own, then I would say it's time to try something new, so registering with an agency is an excellent idea.

I stopped working with agencies to get positions because I was finding that families use both agencies and online. The chance of meeting these families that use both platforms was very high and I had a better chance getting the position if they found me online. Employers know most all nannies use online and agencies to find work and can save allot of money duing the work themselves. If a family inferviews nannies from both agency and online and they are tied they will most likley chose the one that they will not have to pay a fee for. Agencies are not what they use to be and often to not add value to their high price so nannies represented are the ones that can loose out on a good position.

I've been a nanny for over ten years, and I've always just found families on sittercity (or through personal recommendations from clients); I've never used an agency before. I've been looking for a good nanny job for a couple of months now, and I've been coming up (mostly) empty. I think it is partially because I'm being picky about who I work for (and the terms), and partially because of the time of year (thanksgiving and Xmas might not be the best time), but mostly because of my location (not in DC). Anyways, I keep seeing a certain nanny agency pop up on care.com. If their posts are accurate, they seem to have the best paying jobs in town on lock down. I sent an email with my qualifications, experience, education, certifications, etc, and got an email back from their coordinator who wants to set up a meeting. She asked me to bring references, a form allowing them to do background checks, discussed when and where to meet, etc. I responded with a couple questions of my own, saying "yes, that is fine, lets meet at this time on January 7th.." And also asked if there were any fees or costs associated with working with their agency that I should be prepared to pay. When she responded, she confirmed the date and time of our meeting, answered my other questions, but did not say anything at all about the fees, which has me a bit worried.

Do any nannies here have experience working with agencies? Was it a positive experience? Were there many fees or costs associated with working through them? Any other advice in that regard would be appreciated... Thanks.