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It will also depend on your area and the cost of living. There are plenty of jobs/careers that don't see pay raises every year so some parents may have an issue with their dc fee raising every year. I don't know of many dcprovider's in my area that raise fee's yearly so FOR ME, I am not willing to risk losing a parent over a $1/day to a cheaper hdc or even a centre. $1/day/child is a big raise for some areas(at least compared to the raises I used to get when I worked out of the home). This is why I choose to raise rates for new families only, this way they can budget for daycare and it will never change. Most families will only be in my care for 1-4 years anyways.
However, if you can find parents to pay your fee's and increase it yearly than great!! Nothing wrong with that :) I do have a question for those that do the $1/day/child/year increase...will you ever have a number that you top out at? Or just continue for as many years as you can?
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Totally agree with 5LM!
For myself I started out at the lower end in order to get families and then moved up from there. The lowest in my area is $25 but I started at $28 (have even seen $20 but not sure how they manage it). The highest at the time was $30 and now slowly there are more and more between $30-$35. I doubt there would be any demand for higher especially when licenced centers are around $18 - $22 (I think).
I do find it great that there are more in my area upping their fees so that the rest of us can follow suit. There has to be a limit though and it would all depend on the area.
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You're close mickyc...centres are $19-$29, or at least those are the last numbers I knew about. Increased fee's and staff raises at MB centres are few and far between and they top out early into your career. Hopefully this changes though!!
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I am pretty much the same situation as you Mickyc. When I started, I was brand new to the area (literally 1 week) so I had only the joy of other daycare ad postings to base the 'going rate' in my area. And for the most part, it was/is $25-$30/day, with one or two at $35.
Being that I just moved to the area and knew nobody AND just found out that I was preggers, I decided to start at $25 in order to bring in some families. Then I decided that come the end of January, I was going to jump to $30/day for any new families, and that did not stop anyone. But have keep my other families at $25/day.
I figure that now that I am full and have gained a rep and have great references, I will continue to slowly raise my fees for new families.
