Increase Tuition and Paid Vacations

[FLC]

Hello!!! I am new to this forum (this is also my first post). Anyways, I have a question about prices.

So I have recently been told that my prices are to low and my business will soon not make me a profit do to us moving to a bigger house (we just had a baby so we needed more space) and hiring people to help (it use to just be me).

So I want to do two things. One, I want to raise tuition 20% per child. Two, as of now parents do not pay if I am closed. I want to change that so that if I am closed they pay half. Over the holidays I took a big hit because parents did not pay me while I was closed for the holiday. I do not plan on closing that often.

So my questions is am I trying to increase tuition to much? How do I go about increasing tuition? If I want parents to pay half if we close for the holiday how should I tell them? How much of a notice should I give?

[Thriftylady]

The amount you can charge varies greatly by where you live first off.

Secondly, a big rate increase may scare current families off, so be prepared for that.

No last and most important! How long were you closed on the holidays? Most of us charge for holidays so say family pays $75 for the week, and Christmas hits during that week, you still charge $75 for the week. Now if my families take a weeks vacation I charge them half rate IF they notify me two weeks ahead of time and I limit that to two weeks a year.

[Snowmom]

My advice to you:
1. Do your research on providers rates in your area. Look up average rates on your local childcare resource website (average rates should be listed by county). See where you sit with the average first.
2. Come up with the changes you want to make to your program and list them out. Determine WHEN you want to implement them and write up a newsletter that outlines these changes. Determine when you want to notify your existing families (personally I wouldn't give more than one month notice) and post/hand out the notice.
You may get people who need to leave you for financial reasons, you may not.


I personally don't think it's unreasonable to require payment 365 days per year. But it's all about what you want to include in your policies, how you write them and what your customer base is accepting of.

The 20% increase sounds like a lot, but again, it depends on what your area average is and how low you are compared to that.

[rosieteddy]

I would definitely start charging for holidays. Hopefully you have a contract.Follow what the guidelines are.Two weeks notice for changes is common.I recontacted in Jan,even if there were not a lot of changes.You could put together a letter explaining changes.In my area it is common to have paid vacations/holidays.If parents take additional time full payment is still due. I would give summer vacation dates so they could coordinate weeks if they wanted.I don't know what your rates are but you may want to just go up $10.00 or so a week . Charge more for new clients and if siblings come along.That amount could be seen as cost of living.

[thrivingchildcarecom]

This is something that most providers struggle with.
Tom Copeland had some very interesting advice to simply revise your contract to include an annual price increase. Check that out here http://tomcopelandblog.com/how-to-raise-your-rates-2

As far as closing for vacation, some years ago I made that change too. I simply issued a memo announcing a "policy change" which was also an amendment to the contract. Since its the beginning of the year that is plenty of notice. Check out this book from Redleafpress.org http://www.redleafpress.org/cw_Searc...+care+contract.

Hope that helps,
Adrienne