Daycare economics are just brutal. It's insanely expensive to pay for, the caregivers make peanuts, and the owners are always at breakeven if they're not explicitly non-profit.
US Big City numbers. I'm generalizing, but these are broadly accurate.
- employees all-in-cost is ~$5000 per month paying $20-something an hour (they will be hitting OT as well, because they arrive before dropoff and stay after pickup). Typical maximum legal ratio might be 5 to 1 kids to carers depending on age. This means just for basic labor, every parent is paying $1000 a month.
- Next there is commercial rent. In a metro area, easily $5-$10k a month. Amortize that across 50 kids and that's another $200 a month.
- 2 meals + snacks daily. Adds in another $250 a month per kid assuming $11 per day per kid. More if you're prioritizing healthy fresh foods and not prepackaged garbage.
- Liability insurance which is very costly (insurers dont love cases involving dead or injured 3 year olds!)
- Utilities in a building that houses 50 people for 200+ hours a month.
- Throw in all the other costs. You have the admin costs of running a business like accounting and billing, and you've got to buy diapers, replace worn-out toys, and purchase endless crayons, and so on.
By the end of it all, you're looking at very slim margins working 55-hour weeks, your employees are paid barely more than a barista, and the parents are taking on a second mortgage with every kid.
Let's say 4 kids per carer, 10 hours per day, minimum wage of £12/hour, an overhead multiplier of 3 (to cover rent, maintenance, insurance, taxes, sickness cover, etc), and you get to £72 per day per child.
Or about £1,500 per month.
Now, you can increase that to 8 kids per carer with older kids, but that's really stretching things if you want to run at all smoothly.