Staff-to-child ratio calculator
Enter the ages in a room and get the staff you must have on the floor.
Open the calculatorRatio math and licensing paperwork, sorted before pickup
23 calculators and printable templates, 19 guides and 10 comparisons for childcare centers and licensed home programs. Everything runs in your browser — no sign-up, nothing stored.
Open the tools
The calculators
Each one does a single job a licensed program actually has to do, and prints.
Classroom capacity calculator
Square footage and group-size limits turned into a licensed capacity per room.
Open the calculatorDaycare licensing checklist
Every step from application to first inspection, tracked and printable.
Open the calculatorHome daycare license checklist
The home-specific list: rooms, fencing, smoke alarms, household members, capacity.
Open the calculatorDaycare cost calculator
What a family will pay per week, month and year for the care they need.
Open the calculatorTuition rate calculator
Work back from labor, rent and enrollment to the rate a room has to charge.
Open the calculatorEnrollment form builder
A complete enrollment packet: child, guardians, health, authorizations, signatures.
Open the calculatorDaily sheet generator
Meals, naps, diapers and notes on one printable sheet per child.
Open the calculatorHow it works
Put your own numbers in
Every calculator takes your state's ratio, your rent, your enrollment. Nothing is hard-coded to a national average that does not apply to you.
Read the figure, not the vibe
One large number, the working underneath it, and the source of any figure that came from a regulator or an agency — with the date it was fetched.
Print it for the file
Checklists, packets, schedules and daily sheets print clean, without the site around them. The licensing file is paper, so the tools are too.
Four shelves
Ratios & staffing
Staff-to-child ratio math, group-size limits, room capacity, schedules and what teachers are actually paid.
5 tools · 5 guides · 1 compare
Licensing & compliance
Getting licensed, staying licensed: applications, inspections, background checks, health rules and emergency plans.
5 tools · 6 guides · 2 compare
Tuition & costs
What care costs a family, what it costs you to deliver, and what the rate has to be for the room to work.
5 tools · 5 guides · 5 compare
Enrollment & parent ops
Packets, handbooks, contracts, daily sheets and schedules — the paperwork that goes home in a bag.
8 tools · 3 guides · 2 compare
Guides to start with
Daycare ratios by state
Infant, preschool and school-age ratios and group sizes in eleven states, from each state's own rules.
9 min
Infant daycare ratio rules
Why the infant room carries the tightest ratio in childcare, and what that does to its economics.
7 min
Daycare licensing requirements
What every state license has in common, and where the state-by-state differences bite.
10 min
Daycare sick policy
Exclusion and return rules built on the national health and safety standard, not guesswork.
7 min
How much does daycare cost
What the federal price data says, why infant care costs most, and how to find your annual cost.
9 min
Daycare cost per week
Why care is priced by the week, the fees on top of the rate, and how to compare two quotes.
7 min
How to start a daycare
From license research to the first enrolled family, in the order it has to happen.
12 min
Daycare parent handbook
The sections a handbook needs, and the ones that prevent the arguments.
8 min
Start with the ratio calculator
It is the number every other decision in a childcare program sits on top of — staffing, capacity, and what a room has to charge.