Hiring household staff in Dallas through an agency costs 15–25% of the position's first-year salary as a one-time placement fee — $12,000–$20,000 on an $80,000 executive housekeeper, before her salary. The firms below are the ones with real traction in this market: the Park Cities and Preston Hollow estate corridors, the ranch properties an hour out, and the steady inflow of relocating families arriving with coastal expectations and coastal staff budgets.
How agencies charge, what guarantees actually cover, and the seven questions to ask any firm are in our national household staffing agency guide — read it first if this is your first private-service hire. This page is the Dallas layer: which firms have depth here, what staff earn in North Texas, and how to evaluate an agency in a market that has grown faster than its candidate bench.
Dallas's strongest household staffing options in 2026 are Pavillion Agency, British American Household Staffing, Mom's Best Friend, Agency Maison, Household Staffing International, and Heartland Estate Staffing. Expect a placement fee of 15–25% of first-year salary; none publishes Dallas pricing, so anchor on HSI's published tri-state schedule (15% standard, 20% senior). Full-time private housekeepers run $25–$35/hour, estate managers $85,000–$250,000 nationally with Dallas at the middle of the band — and Texas takes no state income tax out of any of it. The market's constraint is supply: demand from relocation inflow has outrun the local bench of estate-trained candidates.
How Household Staffing Works Differently in Dallas
The geography is concentrated. Most formal-household demand sits in a short arc — Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Bluffview, Turtle Creek — plus the newer estate build-outs in Westlake and Southlake toward Fort Worth. Agencies that serve "Dallas" from a national roster tend to know the first list; the Texas-based firms know the second too, and the distinction shows up in candidate commutes and retention.
The second fact is relocation inflow. Corporate headquarters moves have brought a steady stream of families from Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay Area who already ran staffed households and want to rebuild them here. That demand has grown faster than the local supply of estate-trained candidates — Dallas has deep housekeeping and childcare benches but a thinner layer of formal estate managers and trained butlers — so senior searches often draw on candidates willing to relocate, which lengthens timelines and raises the value of an agency with a national reach.
Third: the math is friendlier than the coasts. Salaries run 10–25% below New York for the same role, there is no state income tax, and workers' compensation is not required for household employees in Texas — three line items that all move in your favor.
The Best Household Staffing Agencies in Dallas
These are the firms that come up over and over in Dallas searches, with what each is genuinely known for. Several also place nannies; this guide evaluates them on household staffing only — for childcare placement, see our separate guide to Dallas nanny agencies, because screening a child-facing hire is a different exercise.
Pavillion Agency
The New York institution, now with a dedicated Dallas line. Placing staff since 1962 and billing itself as the country's largest household staffing agency, Pavillion brings its full roster — private chefs, butlers, estate managers, housekeepers, baby nurses — to Dallas, along with services most firms skip: payroll processing, benefits consultation, and in-home staff training. The experience is institutional rather than boutique; the bench is unmatched. Fees are unpublished.
British American Household Staffing
The formal-service specialist. BAHS covers Dallas, Fort Worth, and the rest of Texas from a 13-location network (New York, Los Angeles, London, Dubai among them), placing the full formal stack — estate managers, butlers, domestic couples, lady's maids — alongside housekeepers and private chefs. Every candidate carries at least five years of private-household experience, which matters in a market where estate-trained resumes are the scarce commodity. Fees are unpublished.
Mom's Best Friend
The Texas incumbent. Founded in Austin in 1994 by Kathy Dupuy and household-staffing since 2004, with a Dallas–Fort Worth office that has run for over two decades, MBF places housekeepers, estate managers, personal assistants, and household managers with the process maturity of a firm that has done thousands of Texas placements. It is also one of the state's biggest nanny agencies — we evaluate that side in the Dallas nanny agency guide. Fees are unpublished.
Agency Maison
The Texas boutique. Based in the Austin area with Dallas coverage aimed squarely at the estate corridor — Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Bluffview, Turtle Creek, Uptown — Maison works a tighter role set (executive housekeepers, personal and executive assistants, house and estate managers) for what it describes as ultra-high-net-worth households. Small book, high touch; the fit when you want the principal of the firm on your search. Fees are unpublished.
Household Staffing International
The transparency anchor. In business since 1976, HSI runs a dedicated Dallas service covering everything from housekeepers and domestic couples to estate managers, private security, and aircraft personnel. Its Dallas pricing is quoted individually, but HSI is the only firm in this guide that publishes a fee schedule anywhere — 15% of first-year salary for standard roles, 20% for senior ones, in its New York tri-state market — and that number is your negotiating anchor with every firm on this page.
Heartland Estate Staffing
The multi-property specialist. Montana-headquartered with active placement in Dallas, Houston, and a handful of other wealth markets, Heartland's role list runs past eighteen positions and skews toward estates — managers who oversee multiple properties, staff hierarchies, and capital projects. A logical call when the Dallas house is one of several homes the same team will touch. Fees are unpublished.
What Household Staff Earn in Dallas
Salaries drive fees, so calibrate on the salary market first. 2026 benchmarks, with Dallas typically 10–25% below the coastal top of each band:
| Role | Dallas range (2026) |
|---|---|
| Housekeeper (full-time, private home) | $25–$35/hr at the estate level; less for standard residential roles |
| Executive housekeeper | $85,000–$115,000 |
| House manager | $86,000 national average; $110,000–$150,000 senior Dallas roles |
| Estate manager | $85,000–$250,000 national band; Dallas typically mid-band |
| Nanny | $15–$21/hr citywide base; $22–$32/hr experienced full-time in the Park Cities |
Then load the number: employer FICA at 7.65%, federal unemployment tax, a payroll service, and benefits push true cost roughly 25% above headline salary — a $120,000 house manager costs about $150,000 all-in. Texas keeps the stack simple: no state income tax to withhold, and no workers' compensation mandate for household employers, though many estate households carry coverage voluntarily. The mechanics are identical whether the employee is a housekeeper or a nanny; our household employer tax guide covers them, and our Dallas nanny cost guide maps the childcare side of the market.
Two worked scenarios at the 15–20% fee anchor. A Preston Hollow family hiring one full-time housekeeper at $28/hr (~$58,000 a year) pays a placement fee of roughly $8,700–$11,600 — first-year total near $73,000 loaded. A Highland Park household building out an estate manager at $150,000 plus an executive housekeeper at $100,000 pays $37,500–$50,000 in fees across the two placements, which is exactly the scale at which Pavillion's bundled payroll, benefits consultation, and staff-training services stop being a footnote and start being part of the comparison.
The pattern in relocating households: families arrive pricing Dallas staff off their Los Angeles payroll and over-offer by 20% — then discover the problem was never budget but bench, and the search still takes eight weeks. Calibrate to the local table above and spend the surplus on retention instead.
See what a coordinated search looks like. The research is the easy part. In two minutes, watch how a Beverly coordinator runs the rest — agencies, screening, and contracts — so you don't have to.
Watch: Meet Beverly · 2 min →How to Evaluate a Dallas Household Staffing Agency
Run the national guide's seven questions first — fee timing, guarantee scope, rejection rates, verification methods. Then add three Dallas-specific ones:
- Where does the bench actually live? A candidate commuting from Frisco to Highland Park sits in traffic ninety minutes a day, and that placement quietly fails in month eight. Ask where the last three placed candidates lived relative to the households they joined.
- How many placements has the firm made in this metro in the last year? National firms list Dallas readily; fewer staff it deeply. A concrete recent-placement count — and two local client references — separates the two in one phone call.
- For senior estate roles: what is the relocation plan? If the honest answer to a Dallas estate-manager search is a national candidate pool, you want the agency to say so up front — and to explain who pays relocation and how the guarantee handles a candidate whose move does not stick.
And on fees: with no firm publishing Dallas pricing, quotes float. Anchor at 15–20%, get trial-day terms in writing, and ask what happens to the fee if the role is filled from your own referral mid-search.
Beverly vs. a Dallas Household Staffing Agency
Beverly is not a staffing agency — it is the family's hiring coordinator, running one search across multiple agencies, job channels, and your own network at once, with the same screening standard applied to every candidate regardless of source. In Dallas that matters because the market splits between national firms with thin local benches and Texas firms with deep local ones; difficult roles get filled by working both at the same time, and that coordination is a part-time job Beverly takes off your plate.
The fit is strongest for childcare-centric roles — nannies, nanny-housekeepers, family assistants — where the search spans the staffing firms above and Dallas's dedicated nanny agencies. For a purely non-childcare estate role, a specialist above is the right call. For what each hybrid role actually covers, see our guide to household staff roles.
The Bottom Line for Dallas Families
Match the firm to the household. Formal estate in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow: start with BAHS or Pavillion. A housekeeper or house manager for a busy family home: Mom's Best Friend, with HSI's published schedule as your price anchor. Boutique, principal-led search: Agency Maison. Multiple properties under one team: Heartland.
Whichever you call first, remember the market's shape: your salary dollar goes further here than on the coasts, but the estate-trained bench is thinner — so the agency's real value is sourcing reach, and the fee should buy exactly that. Get two quotes, compare the guarantees line by line, and negotiate like the well-informed employer you now are.
See how Beverly actually works
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