Childcare franchises: costs, top brands and whether to buy one

A childcare franchise is a license to operate one brand's program at your own location.

The franchisor licenses its name, curriculum, operating systems and site standards; you — the franchisee — form the business, sign the franchise agreement and run the location day to day.

Hiring, payroll, enrollment, tuition and the relationship with your state child care licensing agency sit with you — the brand generally does not hire your staff or hold your license.

The franchise fee buys you into the system; the royalty keeps you in it.

The binding numbers live in the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), which you request from the franchisor before you sign: Item 5 carries the initial fee, Item 6 the royalties, and Item 7 the total investment — where the build-out budget actually sits.

The Goddard School's franchising page, for example, publishes its startup cost ranges and refers readers to Item 7 of its 2026 FDD for the detail.

Every brand figure on this page comes from the franchising pages as they read in October 2026; the FDD you request is the version to rely on.

The sequence to start a daycare franchise follows that structure: compare the FDDs, clear the financial qualifications, secure the site, then run your state's licensing application and hire the opening team.

Know where the joint-employer line sits. Under the joint-employer standard the National Labor Relations Board restored effective February 27, 2026, a franchisor is a joint employer of your staff only if it possesses and exercises substantial direct and immediate control over one or more essential terms or conditions of employment.

That is the NLRB's standard, so ask each franchisor how much control it claims over hiring, pay and scheduling.

The area can still move — our research also saw, but could not confirm, a Department of Labor proposal for its own joint-employer rule under the FLSA, FMLA and MSPA — so take contested employment questions to employment counsel or the DOL.

The franchise does not replace your license. Whichever brand you buy, your building, staff qualifications, ratios, background checks and training have to satisfy your state child care licensing agency — the brand's systems support that work, they do not substitute for it.

Confirm the current requirements with the agency before you sign a lease or a franchise agreement, and if you have not walked the sequence before, start a daycare from the licensing steps first.

The comparison below covers four childcare franchise brands whose franchising pages this research read in October 2026: The Goddard School, The Learning Experience, Primrose Schools and Kiddie Academy.

Which one is best for you is decided by your capital, your market and your appetite for operating inside someone else's systems — not by any national ranking, and the published figures are not all the same kind of number.

Brand	Initial franchise fee	Total investment (as published)	Minimum liquidity	Minimum net worth	Royalty
The Goddard School	$135,000	$1,003,500–$1,503,000 (build-to-suit lease); $1,736,500–$5,032,000 (retrofit lease); $5,493,500–$8,908,000 (land and building)	See the brand's page	See the brand's page	7%
The Learning Experience	$60,000	$650k-$800k	$250,000	$400,000	7% of gross revenue
Primrose Schools	$80,000 ($50,000 veteran discount)	Not confirmed in our research	$1.5 million	Not confirmed in our research	Not confirmed in our research
Kiddie Academy	Not confirmed in our research	Not confirmed in our research	$250,000 (lease) / $750,000–$900,000 (purchase)	$750,000 (lease) / $1 million (purchase)	Not confirmed in our research

Read the columns as the brands wrote them, not as one scale. These are each brand's own franchising-page figures, accessed October 2026 — marketing pages, not the FDDs themselves, which this research did not read.

Confirm every number against Item 5, Item 6 and Item 7 of the current FDD before you rely on it.

Two of the rows do not line up directly: The Learning Experience describes a turnkey real-estate model, so check what its total-investment range includes before setting it against Goddard's lease-versus-purchase ranges, and the Primrose and Kiddie Academy pages, as we read them, publish qualification floors rather than totals.

Primrose's franchising page also publishes performance claims: average school revenue of $2.7 million and average unit EBITDA of $508,000 — with the top third around $848,000.

Those are the brand's own franchising-page figures — an earnings claim in marketing material, not an audited result for your market.

The honest way to use them is as a prompt for due diligence: ask the franchisor what sits behind the average, then build your own model for your building, your tuition market and your staffing costs.

Real estate is the variable that moves the number, and The Goddard School's page is the clearest published illustration: build-to-suit lease startup costs of $1,003,500 to $1,503,000 against $5,493,500 to $8,908,000 to buy the land and building instead — the same brand and program, priced two ways by the real-estate route.

The Learning Experience publishes a total investment of $650k-$800k alongside its $60,000 franchise fee, with the turnkey caveat from the table above, so ask exactly what that range includes.

Primrose and Kiddie Academy's pages, as we read them in October 2026, publish qualification floors instead of totals: Primrose a $1.5 million minimum liquidity, and Kiddie Academy $250,000 in liquid capital to lease or $750,000 to $900,000 to purchase, with net worth of $750,000 or $1 million respectively.

All four pages we read set financial qualification floors, so price your working capital before you price the agreement.

What the published ranges do not give you is a per-square-foot build-out figure.

Our research did not verify one from any primary source, and a single figure would mislead anyway — the bill depends on the building you start with, your state's facility requirements and the capacity you are licensed for.

If you are weighing franchise against independent, the independent budget breaks into the same underlying lines without the fee or the royalty: what it costs to start a daycare prices them line by line, from build-out and equipment to pre-opening payroll.

On financing, SBA 7(a) loans go up to $5 million, and nonprofit businesses are ineligible for SBA business loans.

Whether 7(a) fits your purchase is a lender question — confirm current eligibility and terms with an SBA lender before you count on the program for the buy-in or the build.

Two fees structure the franchise relationship.

The initial franchise fee buys you into the system: $60,000 at The Learning Experience, $80,000 at Primrose Schools and $135,000 at The Goddard School on the pages we read — with Primrose discounting its fee by $50,000 for veterans.

The Kiddie Academy page we read did not publish its fee amount.

Ask what each fee buys — site selection, training, opening support — and what it does not, because the FDD's Item 5 and the franchise agreement define it.

The royalty is the recurring fee: a percentage of your revenue.

Our research found two published rates: The Learning Experience lists 7% of gross revenue, and Goddard's franchise site lists a 7% royalty.

Our research did not confirm Primrose's or Kiddie Academy's rates.

Royalty rates are an Item 6 disclosure, so request each brand's current FDD and read Item 6 before you model the business.

Price the royalty against the sector's margins, not against hope. A royalty on revenue is owed before profit, and profit in child care is thin: a September 2021 U.S. Treasury report said most for-profit child care facilities operate on razor-thin profit margins, usually below 1 percent, and — citing a Center for American Progress cost analysis — put wages at no less than 50-60 percent of child care expenses on U.S. averages, with labor's share larger for infant care.

Those are 2021 sector-wide figures, not a forecast for your location.

They are the reason a 7% royalty deserves a hard look in the model, though: the brand is paid on revenue while you absorb a wage bill the same report puts at no less than 50-60 percent of expenses.

Buying in trades independence for infrastructure.

The franchise side hands you a curriculum, an opening playbook, brand marketing and a network of operators who have already hit the problems you are about to hit; it takes a franchise fee, an ongoing royalty, and a long list of decisions — building, staffing model, tuition — that you now make inside brand standards.

Independent keeps the royalty money and the freedom and hands you the blank page: your own brand, your own curriculum choices, your own mistakes.

The license attaches to your location either way. Independent or franchised, your location answers to your state child care licensing agency for ratios, staff qualifications, background checks, training hours and the building, so confirm the current requirements with the agency before you commit to either route — what a daycare license requires walks through the file you will be building either way.

The economics decide it, and the sector's sourced numbers are sobering.

The Treasury figures above — most for-profit facilities on margins usually below 1 percent, wages at no less than 50-60 percent of expenses — describe the sector, not one business model.

Against that, the earnings claims a brand publishes (Primrose's are quoted above) are the brand's own marketing figures, not audited results for your market.

Neither is your pro forma: model your market's tuition, your real building cost and your staffing hours, and pressure-test the result in a daycare business plan before the commitment rather than after.

If the published investment ranges are the blocker, the franchise decision may not be the decision to be having.

A family child care home skips the commercial build-out entirely — how to start a home daycare walks that route — and for a center on your own flag, how to open a childcare center runs the sequence end to end.

Whichever route you choose, the opening-day problem is the same one: a staffed building, hired and oriented before the doors open.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Franchise figures are the brands' own published numbers as of October 2026 and change; licensing requirements are state-specific and change. Confirm current requirements with your state child care licensing agency, take franchise documents and joint-employer questions to your attorney or employment counsel, and confirm financing with your lender.