Childcare Cost Per Hour
Calculator

The calculator divides the total fee for the billing period by the actual number of hours of care provided in that period, which gives a more comparable figure than the sticker weekly or monthly rate alone, especially across providers with different hour totals.

In-home nannies typically have the highest hourly cost since you're paying for one-on-one, individualized care, daycare centers are usually cheaper per hour because costs are spread across many children, and family or informal care sits somewhere in between.

For an accurate comparison between providers, add one-time or recurring extra fees (registration, supplies, activity fees) into the total cost before dividing by hours, since a low advertised rate can hide significant add-on costs.

Converting both options to a true cost per hour strips away the different billing structures (nannies often bill weekly for a fixed schedule, centers may bill monthly with drop-in rates) so you can compare them on equal footing.

Daycare centers usually charge per child, so the hourly cost scales roughly linearly with each additional child, while a nanny's hourly rate is typically fixed regardless of how many of your children she watches, which can make a nanny more cost-effective for larger families.