Along the lines of what Judy was saying. I have found the best time to increase my fees if I want to add more than a dollar ie went from $35 to $37 one year and then from $37 to $40 where I am now was based on raises given to the Federal public service which is probably the biggest employer here in Ottawa obviously. My husband being military gets a raise in conjunction with any federal decisions which again is a big employer in the area.

If you live in an area where companies are saying economy is bad and we can't give a raise this year then your parents aren't going to feel as good about a raise in daycare either.

I also play it by ear sometimes by who I have in care. Even when I was looking at raising my rates I interviewed a family where both husband and wife were working minimum wage jobs and I gave them the $35 a day rate instead of the new $37 rate. I then put off my rate increase to the January space I needed to interview for.

For sure you need to take a lot of factors into consideration to remain competitive. The lower your rates the more likely you are to attract clientele looking for a deal and they also tend to be more demanding - ie give them something once and they expect more and more deals. The higher your rates the more likely you are to have a space to fill waiting for the right client to come along. Which is why most of us check the ads - daycare bear is great is for this and set our rates somewhere in keeping with the majority so we are being judged on our space, location, program offered and not on price.