Which Daycare Chains Pay the Most? KinderCare vs Bright Horizons vs Learning Care Group

The direct answer to this page's question is that the data to answer it does not exist: none of the chains this page researched publishes teacher pay rates that would let anyone rank one employer against another on the same terms.

A “highest paying daycare companies” table therefore has no employer disclosure to be checked against — which is why this page compares what each company does and does not publish instead of ranking them.

KinderCare and Bright Horizons are the two major chains whose SEC filings our research covers.

KinderCare's fiscal 2025 annual report describes “competitive wages” for eligible full-time employees but publishes no teacher hourly pay rates, and no KinderCare-posted wage figure was found in our research — our KinderCare pay guide walks through that filing in detail.

Bright Horizons' 2025 annual report puts no teacher pay rates on the record that our research found; what it does report is momentum, with average hourly wage rate increases of 3-4% in its full-service center segment in 2025 (we break that filing down in our Bright Horizons pay guide).

No SEC filings turned up for Learning Care Group — the parent brand of Childtime, Tutor Time and La Petite Academy — or for Childcare Network, Primrose, Goddard, Kiddie Academy or The Learning Experience; each is privately held as far as our research shows.

Our research found no employer-published pay rates for any of them, though Learning Care Group lists benefits on its careers page and Goddard lists example benefits that each school's franchise owner sets.

Here is the comparison in one view — what each chain's own disclosures do and do not establish:

The filings do document scale.

KinderCare employed approximately 43,700 people as of January 3, 2026, approximately 35,700 of them full-time, and says none of its employees are represented by labor unions.

Bright Horizons had approximately 32,200 employees globally at December 31, 2025, approximately 18,450 of them in North America.

Benefits are where the two public chains disclose the most, and the packages are not identical.

KinderCare's fiscal 2025 filing lists competitive wages, health and wellness benefits, matching 401(k) contributions and life insurance for eligible full-time employees, plus discounted tuition for employees' children enrolled in its centers and onsite programs.

Bright Horizons' 2025 filing lists healthcare, a 401(k) with matching contributions, paid time off, child care tuition subsidies, paid parental bonding leave, and the Horizons CDA and Degree Program, which pays for a CDA, an associate or a bachelor's degree in early childhood education at no cost.

Read the differences closely.

A tuition discount for your own child and a child care tuition subsidy are different benefits, and of the two filings, Bright Horizons' is the one our research found documenting funded education — a no-cost route from the CDA through a bachelor's degree.

KinderCare's benefit list is also scoped to eligible full-time employees, so part-time candidates need to ask what applies to them.

Some of the private brands describe benefits on their careers pages instead of in filings.

Learning Care Group lists a 50% child care discount available from the start date, paid wellness days, retirement programs with matching dollars, DailyPay access to earnings, tuition reimbursement and a fully funded CDA credential program.

At Primrose and Goddard, each school's franchise owner is the employer and sets its own benefits; Goddard lists examples such as paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, a childcare discount or reimbursement, a retirement plan and tuition reimbursement.

These are the companies' own published descriptions, not the terms of any offer.

Our research found no employer-published benefits list for Childcare Network, Kiddie Academy or The Learning Experience, so those offers have to be priced on their own terms during the interview.

None of the sources on this page separates chains from independent centers: the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wages by occupation and industry, not by company.

That makes the industry medians the honest benchmark for both.

In child day care services (NAICS 6244), the industry that holds chain and independent centers alike, preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011) earned a median of $17.72 an hour — $36,850 a year — in May 2025.

Childcare workers (SOC 39-9011), an occupation whose reported job titles include daycare, infant and toddler teacher, earned a median of $16.43 an hour ($34,170 a year) in the same industry.

Employer type moves the same occupation a long way.

The median preschool teacher earned $38,140 a year nationally across all settings, $56,750 in elementary and secondary schools, and $45,550 in individual and family services (NAICS 6241) — an industry category that includes many Head Start grantees among other employers, so it is not a Head Start pay figure.

One of the two public employers describes the market this way.

Bright Horizons' own 10-K states that many competitors offer lower prices by using less intensive ratios and lower compensation and benefits — a competitor's characterization, but a clear statement that compensation practices vary from center to center.

Union coverage is one more point the filings speak to.

KinderCare says none of its employees are represented by labor unions, and BLS's 2025 tables count 4.0% union membership across personal care and service occupations — the group that includes childcare workers — with no childcare-worker-specific rate published.

The franchise brands — Primrose, Goddard, Kiddie Academy and The Learning Experience among them — turned up no SEC filings in our research, which verified no employer-published pay rates for any of them.

Any pay figure you come across for these brands therefore comes from a source other than the employer, as far as our research could establish.

A brand name is also not one employer.

Primrose and Goddard say each school's franchise owner is the employer and sets its own pay and benefits, and Kiddie Academy says the employer at its locations may be an independent franchise operator rather than its franchising company — so the same brand can come with different pay and benefits from one school to the next.

That makes the specific school's posting the real data point.

Tutor Time and La Petite Academy sit under the Learning Care Group umbrella alongside Childtime, and the Tutor Time pay and La Petite Academy pay guides collect what employer-side sources do and do not show — treat any school-level figure you find as dated and confirm it during the interview.

Start from the benchmark, not a ranking.

A preschool teacher in child day care services earned a median of $36,850 a year in May 2025, so an offer near that figure is a market-rate center offer whether the center is a chain, a franchised school or an independent — and employer type moves the number a long way too, which is why the highest paying childcare jobs comparison is a separate question.

Then compare real openings side by side.

Browsing childcare teacher jobs at centers and preschools lets you weigh posted pay, benefits and schedule across several employers before you apply anywhere.

Career information, not licensing, legal or financial advice. Figures on this page come from company SEC filings, company careers pages and BLS OEWS May 2025 data; confirm current pay and benefits with each employer, and wage-and-hour questions with the U.S. Department of Labor or your state labor agency.