How much to charge for daycare is the question underneath every other growth decision you make, and there is no single right number to copy.
The rate that works is built, not borrowed: a floor from your cost per child, a ceiling from local rate data, and a price per room by age.
For scale: Child Care Aware of America's 2025 price report put the national average annual price of child care at $13,184, up from $13,128 in 2024, blended across 47 states, all ages, and both centers and homes.
It is a description of the market, not a rate card, and this page is the pricing lever of how to grow a daycare business, which covers fuller rooms and second locations too.
Daycare tuition rates: what child care costs in 2025
Child Care Aware's report prices by age and setting, using its average-of-state-averages method: center-based infant care averaged $15,636 a year in 2025, about $1,300 a month, and center care for a 4-year-old $12,555, against $11,673 and $10,572 in family child care homes.
Child care prices by age and setting, 2025
County data spreads wider: the Labor Department's National Database of Childcare Prices put 2022 annual prices for full-day care anywhere from $6,552 to $15,600, with families spending 8.9% to 16% of median income on one child's care; its latest data year is 2022.
Prices keep climbing: the BLS consumer price index for day care and preschool rose about 4% from August 2025 to August 2026, against about 3.4% for all items, and the 2019-to-2025 annual average gain was about 27%, close to all items at 26%.
Read that as the range the market plays in, not the number to charge.
How to set daycare tuition: cost per child sets the floor
Your cost per child
Worked illustratively: $96,000 of monthly costs with 48 children enrolled full time is $2,000 per child, and any tuition below that loses money on every seat.
The floor is mostly wages: the Center for American Progress's 2018 cost-model analysis of licensed centers found the workforce is the largest expense at 60–80% of total program expenses, with the remaining 20–40% covering occupancy, office and administration, and classroom costs.
Wages you can check yourself: childcare workers in the child day care services industry had a median wage of $16.43 an hour in May 2025, and preschool teachers in the same industry $17.72 (BLS OEWS).
Compute the cost per child room by room, because an infant room's payroll math is not a preschool room's, and price each room above its own line.
What remains above that line is your margin, and the daycare profit margin page covers what centers actually keep.
Set the ceiling with local rate data, not the national average
The ceiling comes from closer sources: Child Care Aware publishes prices by state, and your state's CCDF market rate survey shows subsidized rates in your counties.
Affordability is the hard edge of that ceiling: the same 2025 report puts the national average price at 10% of the median income of a married couple with children and 33% of a single parent's.
Child Care Aware's May 2026 release adds that in every state with data, center care for two children exceeds median rent, and that in most states it exceeds mortgage payments and infant care costs more than in-state public college tuition.
For an hourly cross-check, families paying out of pocket for center-based care averaged $21.32 per child per hour in 2023, a mean over families with any expenses, per NCES's Early Childhood Program Participation survey.
Bright Horizons' 2025 Form 10-K notes that many competitors offer lower prices by using less intensive ratios and paying lower compensation and benefits, the premium chain's own framing of a real trade: a low price implies a different cost structure, not a better deal on the same service.
Decide the lane on purpose: higher ratios and better pay with tuition to match, or a leaner structure with lower prices, with either rate above your own cost per child.
Price each age group on its own economics
CAP's cost model shows per-child cost falls as children get older, because older children allow higher ratios and larger groups; in plain terms, infants need fewer children per teacher.
Bright Horizons' 2025 Form 10-K reports average monthly tuition of $2,765 for infants, $2,565 for toddlers and $2,175 for preschoolers across a sample of about 350 of its US centers; premium, often employer-sponsored care and not a national benchmark, but the gradient, highest for infants and falling with age, is what the cost math predicts.
Demand pools differ by age too: among children 5 and under not yet in kindergarten in 2023, 55% had at least one weekly nonparental care arrangement and 66% of those were in center-based care, with the center share rising from 35% of infants under 1 to 85% of 3-to-5-year-olds (NCES's 2023 survey).
Practically, preschool spots compete in a bigger, more saturated field, while infant spots are scarcer and costlier to staff, so the infant rate and the waitlist both deserve their own math.
Subsidy families change the math
Tuition is most of the industry's revenue but not all of it: CAP estimated in 2018 that private tuition makes up about 60% of child care industry revenue, government funding 39% and philanthropy 1%.
At chain scale, KinderCare's fiscal 2025 Form 10-K reports 37% of revenue came from families whose tuition was partly or fully subsidized, through a dedicated team working with about 850 agencies; one company's mix, not an industry average.
The 7% of income figure parents sometimes quote comes from subsidy policy, not private tuition: the 2016 CCDF rule set 7% of family income as an affordability benchmark for co-payments, the March 2024 rule made it a cap, and the final rule published May 12, 2026 rescinded that cap effective July 13, 2026.
As of March 2026, 37 Lead Agencies (31 states, DC and 5 territories) still limited co-payments to 7% or less of family income and may keep doing so, and states must still show co-payments sit on a sliding fee scale and are not a barrier.
Subsidy rules change through federal rulemaking and state plans, so confirm the current rules with your state's CCDF lead agency.
Whether accepting subsidized enrollments fits your center is its own decision, covered on accepting child care subsidies.
Child care pricing strategy: raising rates without emptying rooms
A price copied from the center down the street
- Their ratios, wages and rent are not yours, and labor alone runs 60–80% of program expenses
- Undercutting them commits you to their price without their size
A price built from your numbers
- A cost-per-child floor from a typical month's books, room by room
- A ceiling checked against your state's price figure or CCDF market rate survey
- A rate per age group that leaves room to raise later
Price and volume move together, and KinderCare's fiscal 2025 is that trade in one line: higher tuition rates added 2.2 points to comparable revenue while lower enrollment subtracted 1.9, netting 0.3%.
Price leads the reasons list more than it decides outcomes: in the 2024 federal Parent Survey, cost was the most common main reason for a child care decision at 25.8%, ahead of quality at 15.4%.
NCES's 2023 survey found 59% of parents with children in weekly care rated cost very important, below reliability at 88%, availability at 77% and staff qualifications at 71%.
Affordability bites hardest lower down the income scale: in OPRE's analysis of 2012 federal survey data, 39% of lower-income parents who searched without enrolling named affordability as the main reason, versus 24% of higher-income parents.
So raise with notice, explain the increase in terms parents can verify, and watch tours booked and enrolled children in the two months after; wages, the largest line in your budget, are the honest explanation.
If rooms stay full the following term, the raise held, and the daycare occupancy rate page covers how to count that honestly.
The method, put together
Floor from your books: total monthly costs divided by enrolled children, computed room by room.
Ceiling from your market: your state's price figure or CCDF market rate survey, tempered by what local families can pay.
A rate per room: highest for infants, each seat above its own cost line.
Once the number is set, whether to publish it is a separate decision, and should daycares post tuition online takes up the publishing side.
Set the rate with that method and judge it by the outcomes that count: rooms filled, families kept, and children enrolled.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a national average daycare rate I should copy?
No. Child Care Aware of America's $13,184 national average for 2025 blends ages, settings and 47 states, so use your state's figure or your state's CCDF market rate survey for the market view, and price from your own cost per child first.
How do I figure out my cost per child?
Divide a typical month's total costs by your full-time-equivalent enrolled children, then check the result room by room, because infant rooms cost more per child than preschool rooms. Labor is the biggest line: 60–80% of program expenses in the Center for American Progress's 2018 cost model.
Why does infant care cost more to provide?
Infants need fewer children per teacher, and labor is the largest expense, so per-child cost is highest at the youngest ages and falls as children get older (CAP's 2018 cost model). That is why infant tuition sits at the top of every published price series.
Does the federal government cap what daycares can charge?
No federal rule caps private tuition. The 7% of income figure applies to CCDF subsidy co-payments: it was a benchmark in the 2016 rule, a cap in the 2024 rule, and the cap was rescinded effective July 13, 2026.
How do I raise tuition without losing enrolled families?
Announce early, explain the increase in terms parents can verify, and watch tours booked and enrollments in the two months after; wages are the honest explanation, since they are the largest line in your budget. KinderCare's fiscal 2025 shows the trade: higher tuition added 2.2 points to revenue while lower enrollment subtracted 1.9.
Is price the main reason parents pick a daycare?
It leads the reasons list more than it decides outcomes: in the 2024 federal Parent Survey, cost was the most common main reason for a child care decision at 25.8%, and 59% of parents rated cost very important in NCES's 2023 survey, below reliability (88%) and availability (77%).