ABOUT · CHILDCARECOST

Why ChildcareCost exists

Childcare is one of the largest costs a family carries, yet a plain answer to “what does it cost where I live?” is hard to find. ChildcareCost publishes county-level prices straight from official data — sourced, dated, and never estimated.

Who runs it

SHARON BEN-MOSHE · FOUNDER

I’m a software developer who experienced firsthand how difficult it is to find straightforward answers about local childcare expenses. I created ChildcareCost to replace guesswork with a simple, reliable, and entirely official dataset that helps families make informed financial decisions.

How we handle the numbers

Official data only. Every price comes from the National Database of Childcare Prices (NDCP), published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau.
Nothing is invented.When a county has no official figure, we say so plainly rather than filling the gap with an average or a neighbor’s price.
Every figure is dated and sourced. The dataset vintage sits next to the numbers, and any converted or adjusted figure is labeled with how it was derived.

For the full detail on sources, conversions, and aggregation, read the methodology.