Changing my fee structure, does this sound fair?

[Uhplistrailer]

So currently I charge by the hour. I only take early years children and have 1 of my own, so I can only take 2 children at a time.

It was fine to begin with as I only had full time or full day children.

However, I'm getting a lot of inquiries from people who want to do, say 9.30-1.30 a few days a week. This obviously isn't worth my while as they'd effectively be taking up whole days as most of the nurseries kick out at 12 and it's unlikely I'd be able to fill the space.

I'm not keen to charge per day, but I was thinking about charging half days instead, like nurseries do. So from 9-12.30 and 12.30 until 4 or something like that. Then just my regular rate outside of those hours.

Does anyone else do this or can you come up with something better than I did?

I went for a daily rate, because pror kept cutting an hour here and there and I couldn't afford it. I like to go out for the day and don't do school or pre school runs, so that is why I chose the daily rate. A colleague of mine chose half day rates, 8-1 and 1-6.

I didn't change existing families, but put new starters on the daily rate and over time the hourly people naturally moved on. Some people who only want a half day, use the whole day (as they're paying for it) to do other things.

It makes invoicing much easier too.

Pror - people

Perhaps a minimum daily charge would be more flexible for you? I charge a minimum of 6 hours per day.

As you say, it has to be worth our while and these little bits of hours here and there are extremely difficult to accommodate.

I have a minimum 8 hours charge. I have limited spaces and can't afford to do half days, I find you can never fill the other half of the day.

I don't mind too much the half days, what's problematic is when they eat into the next session of nursery.

I think I'll do 12 hours minimum per week, with min 3 hours in a day for the ones I'm signing up now, and then start charging half day sessions, with a min of 12 hours per week for newbies! Thanks!

I also have minimum 8 hours for pre/schoolers & 2.5 hours for school children