Childminders, what and how do you charge?

[JeanGenie23]

Good evening all, I haven't put my fees up in years, and I am vaguely aware of how cheap I am in comparison to others. I don't want to under value myself, I equally don't want to be over charging. If you wouldn't mind telling me of course, it would be helpful to see what others charge.
I am based in north east London, I am open mom-fri 8am-6pm and serve all organic homemade meals, and snacks. I currently charge £5.95p/h. I was toying with charging £6.20p/h, but is that too much? (Far lower than local nursery and I do accept vouchers payments and early years funding)
Any advice welcome

I pay my childminder by the day but it's £33.50 per day (9 hours). Additional hours are £3.75 each.

Just outside greater London (south) but inside M25 ... I'm £7/h all inclusive fee but no organic food. You shouldn't be cheaper than nursery! I'd match them in price and highlight that you provide organic only.

feelingsickaboutit when you say all inclusive fee does that mean trips out as well or is that extra?

Yes you're charging far too little. Childminders should be slightly more expensive than nurseries as we can take fewer children. :)

Really? Childminders round here are much cheaper than a nursery which is about £40-45 a day.

How can childminders charge as much as nurseries? They just don't have the same overheads if working from their own home.

I too thought that childminders were the cheaper more affordable option, compared to nurseries. I've got to say though doing my monthly accounts, my bills are going up, but my fees aren't. My food bill is astronomical, but I know it's part of my selling point, having organic food.

suffolknclose it's true I don't have wages and rents to pay like a nursery does, but my outgoings are still pretty big, it's all relative isn't it. Training and annual registration fees still apply, I have wear and tear costs to cover that I wouldn't if I wasn't working at home...

I think the user was making the point that a childminder set up is a smaller adult to child ratio than a nursery, so should cost more, with nannies who work on a 1:1 basis, on the highest amount.

I have an all Inclusive daily rate, which is similar to local nurseries.

I think £6.20 is on the lower side for your area. I'm on the Surrey / Sussex / Hampshire border and the going rate is £5-£5.50 per hour excluding food. Allowing for London prices £6.50 doesn't sound unreasonable, perhaps a little more. You could maybe have that rate for new mindees and a cheaper rate for existing children, rather than hit them with the full increase at once?

I'm in NW London (zone 5) and pay £5 ph including breakfast, pick ups and drop offs. My CM is amazing!

Ok interesting mix of responses. I thought £6.20p/h because I didn't want to take current parents (all of whom have been with me for nearly two years) much higher. It's not a bad suggestion to perhaps charge them £6.20 and then new ones £6.50.

I have had a quick look at list of local childminders and I didn't realise but you can advertise your daily rate, some childminders haven't listed theirs, but the ones who have it ranges from £6-8 per hour. Does seem to coincide with their ofsted grades, i have been inspected twice and received good both times so I feel confident I could asked for £6.50

My son's childminder charges £4 per hour but we are in Yorkshire and that seems to be fairly average for my area, and is similar to the local nurseries. It includes meals and trips out. She doesn't charge for when she's on holiday and charges a £10 per week retainer fee in the school holidays for those on term time only contracts.

fineasweare wow what a deal! I couldn't afford to do it at that price!

You can compare even across London. Im in West London and fees vary from £4 to £8 across my borough. I think you have to look at a very localised area for your new customer rates but if you have existing customers I would work out their monthly bill and see if the suggested fee increase for the month seems reasonable.

Nursery's can offer discounts so you need to consider this. They may have higher overheads but can take many more children per age range and also benefit from grants to improve their building and service that cm's normally cant get as a grant to improve a playroom used just for minding is still deemed to increase the value of your home where as a nursery which owns its own premisise can get improvement grants even though it increases the value of their property, they can access free training during the day, often have a high proportion of apprentices earning less than minimum wage but allowing them to charge for the children at full rate and they get a grant for each apprentice they have. They buy in bulk getting economies of scale on craft, general supplies etc.....obviously yes they may have business rates which are very high etc....but if working from a church or scout hut that may not be the case.

A cm with assistants and staff still has to pay pensions maternity sick pay etc.

suffolk what overheads do you think a nursery has that a cm doesn't? It's all relative isn't it? I might not have a massive wage bill but I have to earn enough to pay myself. With reduced ratios that's still around the same proportion as a nursery for example. Just interested to know what you think CMs don't pay for? I certainly do 'bigger outings' than our local nursery and I don't charge extra.

I charge £4.25 an hour in Cheshire. I seem to be charging slightly more than average in my part of Cheshire, but just a ten min drive away in Chester my rate is average- low.
I think if your fee is somewhere around a nursery fee, you're somewhat on track.

Snap8TheCat all the overheads a nursery have (rent, utilities, non childcare staff costs, etc) will all need to be factored into the fees on the basis that they would not be incurred otherwise whereas presumably a childminder does not factor in these costs but wants to end up with a rate high enough to leave themselves with enough to pay their personal costs. Yes utilities will be higher from running a business from home but it's the incremental cost not the full cost. If a childminder is working alone from their home then no way should it cost more than nursery - who would also be paying additional staff to cover employee breaks for example. Childminders are self employed and can manage their costs accordingly. They are not subject to same employment rights and related expense of this. Bit garbled but you catch my drift! Nannies are most expensive again not because of the ratio aspect but dependent of employment terms and also working (mostly) at your own home which again, will have an incremental cost on top in terms of utilities, food and activities.

I agree that at first glance it would seem that nursery costs would be much higher, but we did a cost per child analysis in our LA a couple of years ago and there was not much difference between CMs and nurseries. I worked to my maximum ratios all last year and earned less than minimum wage.

A CM could save on costs by not doing outings, not using petrol on school runs, not providing nappies and food etc, but then they'd probably have to charge less, depending on the demand in their area.

It will also vary from place to place. Cost per child may be higher or lower for different providers in different places, depending on different rent, etc.

I'm in the US so it's different, but I have a flat rate of $25 per child per day. That's a bit over £19 according to Google. :)

When I'm done with my licensing I could have 10 kids under five years old, though. I won't, but I could.

I charge £3 per hour. Food is £2 per meal but I include snacks and trips in the £3. I think the most expensive in my area is £4.50.

Where abouts do you live bonkers?

Leicester

Bedfordshire - CM charges £4 a hr plus £2 a day for all meals and all snacks.

All days out and three toddler groups included, we provide nappies.

Scotland £5 an hour includes snacks and trips in that