Daycare pricing considerations

Buying decisions are rarely about price. It is usually about value. Before deciding on your pricing strategy, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

Daycare cost
What is the price you are charging for your daycare services? How much does it cost to run your daycare?

Quality of daycare services
How would you rate the daycare services you are offering? Be objective. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the quality of the services that you are offering.

What is included
What is included as part of the basic package that the parents are paying for? Are there any additional lessons that parents can opt for?

How convenient is your daycare
Is your daycare near a train station? Are there ample parking for parents to pick up and drop off? Is the traffic near your daycare always congested? Are your operating hours “work-friendly”, meaning, does the parents need to rush to pick their kids up or can they take their time? Do you provide additional baby-sitting services for parents who need to work late?

How reliable is your daycare
How reliable are you? Do you keep parents in the know about the progress of their child and/or any incident that happened to the child? Do you give parents ample notice when you are taking a day off? Do your staff take good care of the children assigned to them? Are you understaffed?

Can they trust your daycare expertise
Are your staff well qualified? Have you been in the daycare business long?

Any guarantee or promise?
For example, does your curriculum prepare the children for school life after preschool?

All the points above will determine the customer’s perceived value of your daycare services. Customers tend to be less price sensitive to products which they feel offer them value. The greater the perceived value, the greater the price you will be able to command.

Price your products according to the value the customer receives from your product. Pricing requires good customer knowledge, dollarization skills and courage – don’t be afraid to price the products to its real value. Determine your daycare service’s value to the customer and price your daycare services to that value.