Necessities for 'Opening day' / how to work out fees

[leopardgirlx]

So i am planning on opening the doors of my business at the beginning of May. (certificate permitted) But what are the business necessities..

- Insurance (e.g morton michel
- Business car insurance
- registering with the ICO (data protection)

and then have policies, fire evacuation, risk assesments etc and contracts ready.

am i missing anything?


second question is how did you work out fee's (i cant seem to use the search bar it comes up with an error message)

i have researched local childminders and all of them seem to charge by the hour this varies from £3.15 (my closest competitor) to £4.00.

i thought about maybe starting in the middle mark of around £3.50 or perhaps to a session fee instead to stand out a bit (i like to be a bit different )


thanks in advance!

this forum is a god-send to us newbies

[TinyTinker]

when I first started at my training course I was advised to charge £3.50 p/h, which I did. But I soon realised that some cm in my area were down as low as £3 p/h there is a lot of competition in my area with a very large nursery, 4 pre-schools and lots of cm. So I dropped my fees to £3.20 for new and existing parents about 2 years into minding. I still haven't put up my fees, but now charge for meals.

I did try the sessional fees of getting a discount if you used longer days, more days a week etc -but soon dropped that as a) it made it hard to work out fees and b) people still only wanted the hours they wanted - so per hour works better for us.

good luck

[k1rstie]

A few years ago, a few new childminders started attending our toddler group. They were all new, and all arrived with 2 or 3 children each.
I did ask one I knew slightly how she had filled her spaces.
She said they were suggested on their preregistration course to undercut the local childminders!

[bunyip]

Any normal business works out its charges by factoring in:-

1. Costs of setting up and running the business.
2. The level of profit required to make the business sustainable.
3. What the local market will bear.

(In fact, the really sensible thing to do is to work this all out before setting up at all, or the person in question is apt to discover they've found a whole new way of losing their investment of time and money.)


OTOH, in the weird and frankly disturbing world of childcare, CMs all realise they are wholly self-employed and therefore completely at liberty to make their own decisions (eg. see above). So, naturally, the childcare market operates by:-

1. ...er.....asking ever other bu88er what they charge.
2. That's all.

.........................................go figure.

[JCrakers]

Will you cook hot meals included in your hourly price or will parents pay extra? That's something to think about. My local rates are between £3.25 and £4.00 but I don't cook hot food so I charge £3.50.

I am putting my rates up to £3.75 soon though as I've not raised my prices in 5 years.

Charge whatever you feel comfortable with. Don't go too low and don't go too high.
Have a look at what you are providing, what included