How Do You Know How Much to Charge?

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

We'd like to match our rates to those of the other daycares in the county, if their rate is more than our's. But how do you find out how much to charge for your daycare? I know it's on the internet somewhere ... but where?

[Michael]

You know, in my opinion that could be price fixing because it is in the area where you do business. I may be wrong on this but Tom Copeland got me thinking in this thread. https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14420

Maybe its fine since you are not discussing it with other daycare in the area.

[daysofelijah]

Our local Childcare Resource & Referral polls/surveys all local daycares in our area and posts the average rates in each city yearly on it's website. Very helpful as I just change my rates to the average rates every year.

http://www.resourcesforchildcare.org/pdf/rates/2010%20Anoka.pdf

Maybe your local resource and referral would have that info available? You could call and see or look online.

[Childminder]

I did a google search for this once and ended up finding the information through my state gov website. I think our area was $153 average. Just call the daycares in your area and ask what they charge. Everyone does and as long as you don't sit in a secret room and decide to all change the same it's not price fixing.

[AmandasFCC]

I called our local childcare resource & referral and got the average local price from them. Plus I called a couple of the home daycares in town to get an idea of where they were at.

[Abigail]

At a free child care course in North Dakota, they gave us a sheet according to our zip code to what was the minimum, average, and maximum rates were for each age group. You could tell though that someone had to be going straight-across-the-board for their prices because some were all the same for the max or else they would have been different. Ex. the max was $160/week for the infant, but also $160/weekly for preschool....that meant they kept the same rate for all ages possibly making the "max" average wayyy off? It doesn't affect me because I'm not going to open my daycare charging the max anyways!

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

You know, in my opinion that could be price fixing because it is in the area where you do business. I may be wrong on this but Tom Copeland got me thinking in this thread. https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14420

Maybe its fine since you are not discussing it with other daycare in the area.

That's why I'm not calling area daycares and acting as a parent or even as a provider to find out the area rates... I just wanted a website or something that would have that info as public information. We'd like to make sure we're charging a fair price if we raised our rates, or wouldn't put ourselves out of business Without information on area rates, how would a new daycare provider know what to charge? The rates differ so much with towns even right next to each other!

[MommyMuffin]

I am new too and I looked online for the average rates and I priced myself 5 - 10 even $20 below the average rate.
Basically I put myself as low as I could afford to because I really want to do daycare and I have to quit my job and still make money for bills.
I started advertising and have found that the people I talk to looking for care in the area....my prices are too high!! There are providers in my area charging 1.50 an hour...I simply cannot compete with that. I dont know what to do?
How are you doing with advertising you rates Preschool/daycare teacher?