Your classroom
Your price check
Enter your own state's licensed ratio and your room's own licensed capacity -- this tool does not assert either one for you. Confirm your local licensing, payroll, and tax rules yourself.
What occupancy is actually costing you
| Occupancy | Enrolled | Tuition needed for target margin | Profit at your current tuition |
|---|
Why the number changes
A classroom's biggest cost -- staff scheduled to meet its licensed ratio -- does not shrink when a seat sits empty. That is what makes occupancy, not the sticker price, the number that actually swings a classroom's margin. This calculator makes the empty-seat cost visible so you can decide whether to hold, market, or reprice a room before the next enrollment cycle.
Search questions answered: how to calculate daycare tuition, how much should daycare cost to break even, and what is a classroom's real capacity given its ratio and room size? See the full pricing guide with a worked example, how this compares to pricing tuition by hand or in a spreadsheet, or how this calculator differs from Procare if you already use childcare management software.
Common questions
Does this tool tell me my state's legal child:staff ratio?
No. Ratios vary by state and by age group and change over time, so this tool never asserts one — you type in the ratio from your own license. It only does the arithmetic once you supply that number, the same way it never checks your room's licensed square-footage capacity for you.
Why is the tuition I need lower than what I actually charge?
Because the required-tuition figure is only large enough to hit your stated target margin, not to match whatever you already charge. At the defaults — a 10:1 ratio, two staff, 85% occupancy, and a 10% target margin — the room only needs $669.02 per child to clear that 10% margin, well under the $900 actually being charged, which is why the current-rate margin comes out to about 33%.
What does one empty seat actually cost me?
Not a lower cost — lost revenue. A classroom is staffed to its licensed ratio, not to the exact number of children present on a given day, so payroll and overhead do not fall when a seat sits empty. At the defaults, three empty seats out of a 20-seat room at $900 tuition is $2,700 a month, $32,400 a year, that never appears on any expense line because it left as revenue that was never billed.
How much does occupancy actually move the tuition I need to charge?
More than price itself, in most rooms, because staffing cost is fixed once a classroom is opened. At the defaults, a full room only needs $568.67 per child to clear a 10% margin; the same room at half-full needs $1,137.33 per child to clear the same margin on the same fixed cost — and at the $900 rate actually being charged, that half-full room is losing $1,236 a month, not just earning less.
Is my enrollment and pricing data uploaded anywhere?
No. Every figure is calculated in your browser and saved only to this browser's local storage so the form remembers your numbers next visit. The Copy shareable link button puts the same numbers in the page's URL fragment, which your browser never sends to a server — nothing is uploaded, and no accounts, analytics vendors, or child or family information is collected.