Pricing a daycare day is one of the hardest calls an owner makes. Here is what 242 licensed daycares in England charge, and how to work out a price from your own costs.
The middle full-day price for one dog across 242 licensed daycares in England is £32.50. Half of them charge between £27.88 and £40. In London the middle price is £55, and outside London the South East is dearest at £39.75. Your own price should start from your costs, though, not from these numbers. A small licensed daycare with two staff and 16 dogs a day needs about £31 a day to break even.
What do dog daycares charge in each region?
In September and October 2026 we read the published full-day price for one dog on the websites of 242 licensed daycares. These are the middle prices by region:
London: £55 (23 daycares)
South East: £39.75 (40 daycares)
East of England: £35 (35 daycares)
West Midlands: £31 (18 daycares)
South West: £30.75 (24 daycares)
East Midlands: £30 (25 daycares)
North West: £29.50 (43 daycares)
North East: £27.75 (14 daycares)
Yorkshire and The Humber: £27.50 (20 daycares)
The full table, with the lowest and highest price in each region, is in the Genera price index.
Rover's city guides put a day at £24 in Manchester and £25 in Birmingham. Those figures are averages for sitters listed on Rover, and many of them look after dogs in their own homes. Licensed daycares in the same regions charge £29.50 and £31.
How do you work out your own day rate?
Add up a year of costs and divide it by the dog days you actually sell. Staff come first. The licence allows ten dogs for each member of staff at most, and eight for the higher standard. So if you have 16 dogs on an average day, you need two people on the floor.
This is the sum for a small licensed daycare in 2026:
Two staff on the National Living Wage of £12.71, working nine hours a day for 250 days a year, plus 15% employer costs: £65,774
Rent of £1,500 and running costs of £600 a month, plus £3,000 a year for insurance, the licence and the accountant: £28,200
The owner's own pay: £30,000
Divided by 16 dogs over 250 days, that comes to £30.99 a day to break even.
With 15% profit on top, this daycare should charge £36.46 a day. Put your own figures into the price calculator.
The number that moves the answer most is how many dogs you have on an average day. If you're full on Wednesday and half empty on Monday, Wednesday's takings pay Monday's staff.
What should your price cover?
Your own wages. Many owners pay themselves last. If your price only covers your staff, you are working for free.
Holiday cover. The staff ratio still applies when someone is off, so every holiday means paying someone to stand in.
The licence. A new licence costs £181 in Portsmouth and £1,410 in Westminster, and the middle council charges about £450. A five-star licence lasts three years, and a lower rating lasts less. See what your council charges.
VAT. Once your turnover passes £90,000 a year, you must add 20%. The daycare in the example above turns over about £146,000, so either its customers pay £43.76 a day or the daycare absorbs the VAT.
Should you charge differently for different days?
Regular weekly days. Many daycares charge less per day for a fixed weekly day than for a one-off. At Duncan's Dog Co, one day a week costs £65, two days cost £60 a day, and three or more cost £55 a day.
Weekends and bank holidays. Duncan's Dog Co charges £75 for these days.
Collection. Most daycares charge for collection separately, usually £3 to £10 each way. The 18 daycares in our index whose day rate includes collection charge £40.50 at the middle, against £32 for those that don't.
Half days. A half day saves you very little, because your staff are there all day either way. Price it well above half your day rate.
How do you know if you are undercharging?
If your waiting list is weeks long and few enquiries ask about price, you probably have room to charge more. A safe test is to raise the price for new enquiries only and see whether fewer of them book. When you raise prices for existing families, give at least four weeks' notice and tell each family yourself, with the reason. How to raise your prices without losing customers.
In Genera you set a price for each service. You can add lower rates for regular weekly days, weekend and bank holiday rates, and monthly memberships. Invoices are raised from the bookings you took, and owners pay by card or Direct Debit straight into your account.
Read next. Read how to manage daycare bookings, or twelve daycare systems compared.
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