Rates?

I am going to be opening my daycare in May/June of this year and was wondering if charging $38/day is a decent rate. I'm in London, ON.

Also, do you charge for early drop off's/late pick ups? What do you charge for that?

What about late payments?

If you put your postal code into the home page ... All the day sees closest to you will come up and you can check out their rates and see if your rate is competitive. Yes I charge a late payment fee $50/day and yes I have a late charge $15 per hour or part there of. I have never had to use either thankfully.

Agree the postal code search on here is an awesome too to ensure you are within what the market will bare .... home childcare fees even within the same city can often have a large range from anywhere to $20 - 40 a day depending on the neighborhood, program the provider is offering, years they have been in business and so forth so there is lots to consider when choosing your fees.

IMO there is nothing wrong with wanting to start out on the high end for your area as a new business specially if you are confident your program and service can sell itself at that fee however it does come with the risk that it will take you even longer to attract clients ... being NEW to this industry is often hard to get those first clients to take the chance so to speak because sadly too many people enter the industry without enough research and preparation and quickly realize they are not cut out for it and close so that already posses challenges .... IMO being NEW and charging top dollar would be two 'challenges' than because you are competing towards established business that might be charging 'less' than you that will sway some clients that way as the deciding factor if you are both awesome ... I empathize because I charge high end for my neighborhood of $34/day because I feel confident I am worth it but my neighboring business are in the $20-25 / day range... good news is even being almost $10 a day more than many in my area I filled my spaces starting out however it took me almost 4 months to do it and having to accept a lot of part time clients to share spaces and I have been full for going into my 7th year it does sometimes take me a bit longer than my some of my peers who are charging so much less than me ~ but I personally would rather hold out for someone willing to invest in what I have to offer because being 'valued' is important to me and well I can afford to be picky because we downsized our family budget when I chose to be self employed to make my income be the 'discretionary' funds only so we do not rely on my income to pay any mandatory bills ~ I pay the extras we could do with out like cable, cell phone data packages and such ... I realize not everyone has that benefit!

My fees are based on a 9 hour day and if they want to have an early drop off or late pick up that is negotiated before hand at a rate dependent on how much 'earlier or later' they are needing and if that falls in the hours I am willing to work ... on average it is $5/half hour of hour time / day the overtime is being requested ... so if it is a daily thing than they would pay $25 extra a week for the arrangement.

If they are just EARLY without having arranged it ~ I would just not open the door until my program opening hours of 7:30 and if they are LATE picking up and it was not prearranged or booked than it is $1 per minute ~ and regular tardiness would result in termination ... all this is clear in the contract!

Fees are due Fridays at noon for the upcoming care period ... I allow clients to pay either weekly, biweekly or monthly but always in ADVANCE of service! Fees not here in the am they get a 'buffer' to arrive with it by pick up if they forget than they are charged $10/day overdue balance charge .... and it is clearly in my contract that regular issues with payment will result in termination of the contract because I do not want to have to CHASE fees I expect to be paid on time without reminder!

My advice is to read through old threads on forums such as this and see what common problems are for providers and create policy proactively to avoid dealing with some of those conflicts because conflict with clients is one of the most challenging things about this business .... from what I read on forums the the children are often the piece of cake in comparison to dealing with some of the client behaviours discussed!