Daycare: Pricing Per Child When Your Costs Are Per Day

A daycare commits its costs before a single child arrives. Staff are rostered, space is rented, food is bought. Parents, meanwhile, pay per child and sometimes per day attended. Getting the price right means reconciling those two shapes.

Your cost is a day, not a child

Work out what a single operating day costs: staff wages for that day, rent apportioned daily, food, utilities, consumables and cleaning. That figure barely moves whether twelve children attend or eighteen.

Then divide by realistic occupancy

Take your daily cost and divide it by the number of children you genuinely expect on an average day — not your licensed capacity. Most daycares run below capacity for much of the year, and pricing against a full room is the single most common error in the trade.

The gap between capacity and average attendance is where the margin lives or dies.

Ratios set a hard step

Staff-to-child ratios mean cost does not rise smoothly. One extra child can be nearly free, or it can require another member of staff and change the economics of the whole room. Know exactly where your steps fall, because the child that crosses a threshold is the expensive one.

Part-time places need their own maths

A child attending three days a week does not cost three-fifths of a full-time place, because the space is often held regardless. Price part-time places from what they actually free up, not as a simple fraction.

The quiet costs

Absent children who still occupy a funded place. Late collections that push staff into overtime. Food prepared for a headcount that did not arrive. Fees paid late while wages are paid on time.

What to track

Attendance by child by day, fees due against fees received, and staff hours actually worked. Those three, together, tell you your true cost per attending child — and that is the only number a price can honestly be built on.