fee increase

[alex__17]

I started childminding just over a year ago and for about 6 months before starting sent my son to a childminder while I worked so had a good idea of prices in the area from researching for that.
However there seems quite a high demand in my area and I was full with EY and schoolies within about 6 months, a couple have said I'm too cheap and recent research shows others are charging 50p to £1.50 per hour more than me with most charging £1 more.

I always planned to increase fees for new business, however my new business in the next year is parents increasing hours as a space comes up or younger siblings starting so my plan isn't going to work.

What is an acceptable fee increase to parents, I'm reluctant to increase it too much esp as I've not had some of them long, but at the same time I work hard and feel I should be changing nearer the going rate.
Do you think it would be acceptable to try and put the younger siblings onto the higher rate?
Or just leave as is as all my parents are great and dont want to annoy them!

[shortstuff]

I would say it is a personal preference as only you know whether what you are charging is enough to maintain your business.

[natlou82]

I'm in a similar situation and recently reviewed my fees and anyone new will pay considerably more than my fees a year ago. Although I am full so I needed to look at existing clients and did an annual review and increased their fees slightly. No one queried the rise (I think they all knew they were onto a good thing lol) and the rate Ive increased them to is still very reasonable x

[tulip0803]

A couple of years ago I had to increase fees but had just taken on a couple of new parents so I did a staggered increase as their contracts came up for review (or after 6 months with the 2 new families). I spoke to them individually when I gave them the letter and apologised but explained I try to keep increases to a minimum but as I hadn't reviewed for 4 years I needed to do so now. I increased by 20p hour. I also gave them 3 months notice.

You need to look at what you need to charge and how much that will increase your fees by and whether you think it is acceptable to parents to do that increase.

[loocyloo]

I work out what I want my new fee to be and then work out what %age increase that is. I then tell parents that fees will be increasing by X%.
I give 3 months notice and state in my policies that I increase fees every April. (It's usually every other year!)
I've never had anyone query it or leave.

[Merlot]

I put my fees up from £3.50 to £4 2 years ago. There was a couple of us decided to increase our fees together even though there are higher rates than us. I had just taken on new parents at the time so didn't want to upset them as I appreciated it was a big jump. As these parents started in the June I said the following January I would be increasing my fees and meal prices but new customers would start with the higher rate from immediate effect. My existing parents appreciated the 6 months notice. I know realistically I only had to give 4 weeks notice to change the contract but wanted to be fair to people so decided to start it from the new year.