How to Use the ChildcareCost Calculator: A Step-by-Step Guide

ChildcareCost's free calculator turns official government childcare prices into your real number: enter your household income and each child's age group and care setting, and it instantly shows your estimated annual cost, its share of your income, and how it compares to the 7% benchmark — no signup required.

Key Takeaways

• It's free and instant. No account, no email — enter your numbers on the calculator page and see results immediately.
• You can add more than one child. Each child gets their own age group (infant, toddler, preschool, or school-age) and care setting (center-based or family childcare) — click "+ Add a child" for each one.
• It always uses national prices. The calculator's price source is the national median for each age and setting — for your own county's official price, visit its page from the state directory and compare the two.
• Missing prices are excluded, not estimated. If DOL hasn't published a price for a specific age/setting combination, that child is listed separately and left out of the total — never filled in with a guess.
• The 7% figure is a labeled reference point, not a current rule. The federal co-payment cap it originally described was rescinded July 13, 2026 — read the full history.

Step 1: Enter Your Household Income

On the calculator page, the first field is labeled "Your yearly household income (before tax)." Type in your gross annual household income — this is what every other result on the page is measured against.

Step 2: Add Each Child's Age and Care Setting

Under "Children in care," the calculator starts with one child pre-set to Infant / Center-based. For each child, choose their age group — Infant, Toddler, Preschool, or School-age — and their care setting — Center-based or Family childcare. Click "+ Add a child" for every additional child; each gets its own Remove button.

Step 3: Read Your Results

The results panel updates live and shows "ESTIMATED COST," a large total annual figure, and "per year · [monthly figure] per month (÷ 12)" beneath it. Below that, "Share of income" shows your total cost as a percentage of the income you entered, and "Benchmark (7% of income)" shows what 7% of that income would be in dollars — followed by a plain-language verdict: whether your total is above or at-or-below that reference point.

What If There's No Official Price for My Combination?

If DOL hasn't published a price for a specific age and setting, that child appears in a note below the results — "No official price for: [age] · [setting]. These children are excluded from the total." — rather than being estimated or averaged in.

Worked Example: Two Children, $80,000 Income

Using the calculator's default national prices, an infant in center-based care ($243.75/week) plus a preschooler in center-based care ($186.00/week) comes to $22,347.00 a year ($1,862.25 a month). On an entered household income of $80,000, that's 27.93% of income — above 7% of $80,000, or $5,600 a year, so the calculator's verdict would read "above the 7%-of-income childcare benchmark."

Comparing Your Own County Instead of the National Number

The calculator itself always prices against the national median — it doesn't detect your location. For your county's own official price, browse to your state and county, where the page shows the same weekly, monthly, and annual breakdown plus its own affordability comparison automatically, using that county's real median family income where DOL has published one. For a full step-by-step on using a real county figure instead of the national default, see our worked budgeting example.

Related: before you plug in a weekly price, see weekly, monthly, or annual? How to compare childcare costs correctly to avoid the common ×4 monthly-cost mistake.