View Full Version : putting up prices
I am in the East Midlands and currently charge £3.50. In our local town minders are charging between £3.50-£4.50. I am in a village and alot of the surrounding villages charge £4.00-£4.50. I was going to put my prices up to £4 later on in the year when I do my reviews. Some people say that's fair, others say it's too expensive. No one has put up their prices in years and I won't be jumping 50p an hour every year. Do you think this is a big price jump or correct in keeping up with everyone's current price?
VeggieSausage
09-06-2012, 01:35 PM
I went up 50p per hour last time - gave lots of notice and wrote to parents that to keep me in line with other minders and rising costs I need to put my prices up, no one quibbled. I went from £4.50 to £5.
I went up 50p per hour last time - gave lots of notice and wrote to parents that to keep me in line with other minders and rising costs I need to put my prices up, no one quibbled. I went from £4.50 to £5.
Thanks for that. I always give plenty of notice and don't intend to do the change until the new year. Another local childminder has just done this so we will be the same price when I do it.
miffy
09-06-2012, 08:09 PM
It does sound a lot - on a 10 hour day that would be an extra £5.00 - but if your rates are still comparable with other childminders in the area then parents may not find anyone cheaper anyway.
Miffy xx
FussyElmo
09-06-2012, 08:16 PM
Depends on how many hours they do with you if 10 then its £5 a week, £20 a month.
If 50 hours then its £25 a week, £100 a month.
Then if they have more that one child with you.
But as Miffy says if the prices are similar then parents wont find cheaper :thumbsup:
jumpinjen
09-06-2012, 09:18 PM
Are you offering the same service eg another minder that offers meals, snacks, outtings all in for the price and you ask families to provide meals etc for the same price? you may lose business - how busy are you? Could you put up prices for new business by 50p and smaller increments for existing families? I put my prices up every year by between 5 and 15p, and mine have gone up 25p since I started, with one year off as I was on mat leave, so raised them when i returned in the new year and not again in the April - it is in my fees policy that i review my costs and charges in Feb every year in the run up to the new tax year and will raise them with 28 days notice if I am doing so.
HTH, Jen x
It does sound a lot - on a 10 hour day that would be an extra £5.00 - but if your rates are still comparable with other childminders in the area then parents may not find anyone cheaper anyway.
Miffy xx
I don't have anyone for 10 hours per day. They are all between 3.5-6.5 hours at the moment. All the childminders around me charge between £4 and £4.50 plus extra for school pick ups in the car, which I don't. Another minder in my village charges the same and parents are happy to pay. It seems in my area, the more rural you are, the minders cost more and are full with no vacancies. I was very surprised at what they charged but parents are happy to pay. It's been years since anyone increased their prices. I've had mixed views to be honest, that's why I put the question on here.
Are you offering the same service eg another minder that offers meals, snacks, outtings all in for the price and you ask families to provide meals etc for the same price? you may lose business - how busy are you? Could you put up prices for new business by 50p and smaller increments for existing families? I put my prices up every year by between 5 and 15p, and mine have gone up 25p since I started, with one year off as I was on mat leave, so raised them when i returned in the new year and not again in the April - it is in my fees policy that i review my costs and charges in Feb every year in the run up to the new tax year and will raise them with 28 days notice if I am doing so.
HTH, Jen x
I only do my price increases annually and give plenty of notice. I intend to give 2 months notice. I am busy now and some of my parents came away from minders charging £4+ as they weren't happy with the minders. All my children are very happy and parents are. The thing is, I don't intend to increase my prices again once they were up to £4. Another parent said to me if they were happy with their minder and the children were settled, they would be happy to pay that price. I offer the same service, if not more than some minders. No parent sends packed lunch although it is an option. Everyone prefers to pay for meals. I always prepare freshly cooked meals to suit a childs needs and don't buy any cheap rubbish. The children go on outings regularly, make crafts every week especially for special occasions, and have lots of fun. All of this is recorded in the diary I send home and the over 5's have a record of activities for the week after school. I have lovely comments when they read the records so am confident they wouldn't just pack up for a price increase. I include snacks and drinks with my price but meals are extra which is the same as everyone else. Some children would eat me out of house and home if I let them! With the hours I have most children, it wouldn't be a huge difference to the bill.
I spoke to another local childminder who charges £3.50 and said it was expensive what I was doing but I only charge for the hours parents want me. This particular childminder charges a daily rate of £35 and will not take a child on for any less than 2 days. They pay £70 minimum regardless of hours in those 2 days. They also told me they do not work for less than £15 per day when taking children to school in a morning. I worked that out against my hours - my parents would definately quit if I did those rates!:eek:
jumpinjen
10-06-2012, 07:04 AM
I only do my price increases annually and give plenty of notice. I intend to give 2 months notice. I am busy now and some of my parents came away from minders charging £4+ as they weren't happy with the minders. All my children are very happy and parents are. The thing is, I don't intend to increase my prices again once they were up to £4. Another parent said to me if they were happy with their minder and the children were settled, they would be happy to pay that price. I offer the same service, if not more than some minders. No parent sends packed lunch although it is an option. Everyone prefers to pay for meals. I always prepare freshly cooked meals to suit a childs needs and don't buy any cheap rubbish. The children go on outings regularly, make crafts every week especially for special occasions, and have lots of fun. All of this is recorded in the diary I send home and the over 5's have a record of activities for the week after school. I have lovely comments when they read the records so am confident they wouldn't just pack up for a price increase. I include snacks and drinks with my price but meals are extra which is the same as everyone else. Some children would eat me out of house and home if I let them! With the hours I have most children, it wouldn't be a huge difference to the bill.
I wasn't questioning your quality - just throwing some things out there to think about - sounds like your parents would be supportive and it wouldn't cripple them to pay the extra - there is no point working for money that you feel resentful about in the end - Good luck, Jen x
winstonian
10-06-2012, 10:04 AM
I'm in the east Midlands too and charge £3.50. it sounds like we work in a similar way in that I have a lot of part timers.
I started out charging £3 and realised that I had underestimated costs so told all my parents that when we renewed contracts I would have to raise prices. I raised all my existing parents to £3.25 but started all new contracts at £3.50. A couple of my old parents have now moved on so I only have 1 parent left on the £3.25 and all my new ones are at £3.50.
I stressed to all parents at the time that they were getting this good deal as they were already with me and it went down very well.
Good luck with what you decide.
Thanks very much for the replies. I'm going to start the price increase towards the end of the year when I did it last year to make it fair on parents. They will have loads of notice!
jaswinder bedi
12-06-2012, 10:09 PM
Hi when you sign the contract, you could perhaps discuss daily rate, half day or shorter hour I.e. after school all works out different!!! There is nothing wrong with putting price up with all the other expenditure going up every year you could give parents four to eight week notice to say about the changes at your setting. :thumbsup:
Jaswinder