Two numbers, before anything else
Before a parent books a viewing they want to know what a week costs and how much of it funding covers. Most nursery sites answer neither, so the office explains the same arithmetic on the phone every morning while the parent, who rang three settings, books a viewing with whoever picked up first.
The fix is one page, called Fees and funding, written once, owned by a named person, and edited when your fees change. Here is what a day nursery specifically needs on it.
Session types as a table
Nurseries sell time in shapes, and the shapes are what confuse people. Set them out as a table: full day with its hours, morning session, afternoon session, school day, term-time only, and any extended or early-drop option. The fee for each, and by age band where your fees differ for under-twos. A table, not prose, and readable as stacked cards on a phone.
Then minimum attendance. Most nurseries require a minimum number of days or a minimum session length, and a parent who discovers that at the viewing feels ambushed. Say it on the page.
A worked week
One example does more than the table. Three full days for a two-year-old, stated as a weekly figure and a monthly one, since most settings invoice monthly. If your billing averages the year into equal monthly payments, show that too, because it is the single most misunderstood thing on a nursery invoice.
What is included, and what is not
Line by line, because every fee complaint starts here. Meals and snacks. Nappies, wipes and formula. Sun cream. Bedding. Trips and visiting activity providers. Sports or language sessions delivered by a third party. Late collection and how it is charged. Registration fee and whether it is refundable. Deposit, what it is held against and when it is returned. Holiday and sickness: whether fees are charged, and whether you offer any allowance. Retainers over a summer break. Sibling discount if you offer one.
Funded hours, for your country
Treat this as orientation and say so on the page. Entitlements and subsidies are set by government, differ by country and often by region, and change. Write the paragraph for where you operate, date it, and link the official eligibility checker as the authority rather than restating the rules yourself.
Then answer the part that is genuinely yours to answer, which is the part parents cannot look up:
- Whether you stretch funded hours across the year or run them term-time only, and what that means for the monthly figure.
- Which sessions the funded hours can be used against at your setting, and whether there are days or hours they cannot cover.
- What you charge alongside, and on what basis. Nurseries commonly charge separately for consumables or meals during funded sessions, and the rules on what may be charged and how it must be presented differ by country. State your position plainly, state that it is optional or otherwise as the case may be, and check the current guidance for your regulator before you publish.
- What the parent needs to give you and when, such as a code or reference, and the deadline for a term.
- When funding starts once they have it, and what happens in the gap.
If you are unsure of any of this, describe it generally on the page and confirm the detail with your local authority or regulator before wording it tightly. A page that is careful and dated is better than one that is precise and wrong.
Payment, notice and changes
How you invoice and when. Which payment methods you accept, including employer-supported schemes where they apply in your country. Notice to leave or to reduce days. How to swap a day, and whether swaps are guaranteed. When fees are reviewed, stated as a month, every year. Six plain sentences.
It has to match the software
The fees a parent reads must be the fees your platform bills. If Famly, Blossom, Kinderly or whichever system you run applies funding a particular way, the page has to describe that behaviour, not an idealised version of it. The most damaging fee complaint is not a high fee, it is a first invoice that does not look like the website.
That means the page has to be an editable record, not a PDF a designer laid out. A manager changing the September fee schedule should be able to change it on the site the same afternoon, and change the date stamp with it.
Where the answers also live
The full-day fee beside Book a viewing on every room page. A funded hours line in the header strip if you accept them. The fees link in the viewing confirmation, so the numbers are read before the visit. And the voicemail: for fees and funded hours, everything is on the website under Fees and funding. A good share of callers hang up satisfied, and the ones who still ring have a better question.
The follow-up after a viewing
The page does not replace the offer. After a viewing, send the fees for the sessions actually discussed, the funding position for that family, what the first month looks like, and the route to enrol through your software. The page gets them in the door; the tailored figure gets the place taken.
Where this sits
One plain, dated, editable fees and funding page matched to your invoicing is part of every nursery and daycare website we build, and the same discipline runs through the other childcare websites we work on. The office should only be answering what the page cannot. Once the page exists, that is a much shorter list than most nurseries hear every morning.