Last Updated on September 17, 2026
Finding
A single job advert on Nursery World Jobs costs £249 to £580 at published rates, more than a year of Ofsted registration (£220), NDNA membership (£191) or a daynurseries.co.uk Enhanced listing (£429 + VAT), Whito’s September 2026 price check found.
Source: Whito, whito.co.uk/for/childcare-nurseries/nursery-marketing-costs, September 2026. Free to quote with a link to this page.
Nursery marketing advice tends to mean a nicer logo and more Facebook posts. The real spending in this sector goes on filling staff rota gaps and keeping occupancy up, and the most expensive single item in the whole stack is one job advert.
The mistake is budgeting for the visible things, the signage and the open day, while the recurring costs that actually decide occupancy, staffing adverts and software and directory presence, go untracked. Almost all of them have published UK prices. Here they are.
One job advert costs more than your registration
| Item | Published price | Source, read 2 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Nursery World Jobs, one advert | £249 to £580, up to 30 days | nurseryworldjobs pricing page |
| Ofsted Early Years Register | £220 a year (£35 reduced for small part-time settings) | gov.uk, updated 6 Feb 2026 |
| Ofsted Childcare Register only | £114 | gov.uk, updated 6 Feb 2026 |
| NDNA single-site membership | from £191 a year | ndna.org.uk |
Recruitment is marketing in childcare. A room you cannot staff is revenue you cannot take, and at £249 to £580 per posting, job advertising deserves a line of its own in the budget rather than coming out of contingency every time someone leaves.
The directory that publishes and the one that does not
daynurseries.co.uk publishes its provider prices in full: Enhanced at £35.75 plus VAT a month and Platinum at £71.50 plus VAT a month, invoiced annually at £429 and £858 plus VAT. Childcare.co.uk publishes no price for its Gold membership anywhere public. Its FAQ says there is a charge and stops there; the amount appears only inside the logged-in upgrade flow. When one platform prices in public and the other does not, start your comparison with the one that does.
Software: a ten times spread for the same job
| Tool | Published price | Source, read 2 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Baby’s Days | £15 to £60 a month + VAT by setting size, £10 setup | babysdays.com |
| Famly | £79, £159 or £209 a month excl VAT | famly.co/pricing |
| Ovivio (formerly Blossom Educational) | £79, £129 or £179 a month excl VAT billed yearly | ovivio.com/uk/pricing |
| Tapestry | £132 (up to 20 children) to £900 (up to 300) a year excl VAT | tapestry.info/pricing |
These tools do different amounts, and the dear ones do more. But the spread between £15 a month and £209 a month for the category is real money for a single setting: the difference funds every job advert you will place this year. Price the features you will actually use, not the demo.
The cheap physical layer
Print is almost free by comparison. instantprint’s published price for 1,000 single-sided A5 leaflets on 150gsm is £39.89, and banners start at £15.54. An open day promoted with £50 of print and a free Google Business Profile post costs less than a fifth of one job advert.
What to do, in order
Start: the free public record first. Ofsted URN and a link to your latest report on your website, fees and funded hours in writing, and a complete Google Business Profile. Parents check all three before they ring.
Build: one priced directory listing, software priced against what you will use, and a standing recruitment budget that assumes at least a few postings a year at £249 or more each.
Scale: only once rooms are staffed and the fee page is honest does paid promotion make sense, and by then word of mouth and the waiting list are usually doing the work.
The takeaway: in childcare the marketing budget is mostly a staffing budget wearing a different name. Count the job adverts and everything else looks cheap.
Common questions
What does it cost to list a nursery on the directories?
daynurseries.co.uk publishes its prices: £35.75 plus VAT a month for Enhanced or £71.50 plus VAT a month for Platinum, invoiced annually at £429 and £858 plus VAT. Childcare.co.uk, by contrast, publishes no price for its Gold membership anywhere public; the figure only appears once you are logged in.
How much does nursery management software cost in 2026?
At published rates read in September 2026, Baby’s Days runs £15 to £60 a month plus VAT depending on size, Famly £79 to £209 a month, and Ovivio, formerly Blossom Educational, £79 to £179 a month billed yearly. That is a spread of up to ten times for the same category of tool.
What does it cost to advertise a nursery job?
A single advert on Nursery World Jobs costs £249 to £580 for up to 30 days at its published rates. That one advert costs more than a year of NDNA membership at £191 or annual Ofsted registration at £220.
What does Ofsted registration cost?
£220 a year for the Early Years Register for a nursery on non-domestic premises, £35 reduced fee for small part-time settings, and £114 if you are only joining the Childcare Register, per gov.uk as updated 6 February 2026.
Before you spend any of this, check what the machines can read
The free Whito Visibility Check runs seventeen checks on your nursery website, scored out of 100, every result shown on the page, no email needed.
