Website Design for Daycares & Child Care Centres
Many licensed centres already receive more enquiries than they have spaces, and that changes what the website is for. Instead of drumming up interest, it has to sort the families who arrive. A parent comes in knowing their child's age and needs three answers before anything else matters: is there a space in that room, roughly when, and what does a day cost. So I build these sites around the province's own licensed age groups, one page per room with an availability line, a dated fee page that states your enrolment in the Canada-Wide system either way, and a waiting list explained in writing rather than hidden behind a form. I have not built a licensed child care centre's site yet — the nearest work is a youth academy and two healthcare projects — and this page says so rather than borrowing someone else's.
Short answer
Lead Web Studio designs and hand-codes websites for daycares and licensed child care centres across Ontario — mobile-first, structured for local search, organised by licensed age group, with availability, waitlist rules, daily fees and enrolment status written in plain text instead of behind a contact form. A build is $899–$2,999 one-time and goes live in 5–7 days once content is ready. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work are priced separately.
The Two Questions a Child Care Website Has to Answer
Answer both on the page and a family can shortlist you without picking up the phone. Answer neither and they shortlist a centre that did, usually without ever calling you.
Is there a space for a child this age?
Availability belongs on every room page as a dated line, not in a phone call. It saves a director the enquiries about rooms that are full, and it saves the family that would otherwise have given up before finding the space you actually had.
The waiting list needs the same treatment: how the order works, how a family learns their position, and the fact that joining it costs nothing. Families stay on a list they can see the logic of.
What does a day cost, and are you in CWELCC?
Participation in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care system is voluntary, and a family's fees are only reduced if their provider takes part. That single sentence — enrolled, or not — is the most useful thing on a fees page.
Publish a figure per room with the date it was set, say what is included, and point to where a family applies for subsidy through their region. A price that might change is still more useful than no price at all.
The Work This Is Built On
The nearest project in my portfolio to a child care centre is a youth soccer academy in Etobicoke — UFootball Soccer Academy — where the decision on the other side of the screen has the same shape. A parent arrives knowing only their child's age, has to find the right group, check the times and the location, and finish a registration on a phone. The site was built as programme pages by age band, with schedules attached and a registration form that does not need a phone call behind it.
Two healthcare builds sit beside it — a home care service and a psychotherapy practice — because in both the reader is deciding on behalf of someone else, which changes what the writing has to do. What transfers to child care is the structure: sort the visitor by the child's age first, and put the awkward facts on the page rather than behind a form.
A Page for Every Licensed Age Group
Ontario defines six age categories, each with its own ratio and maximum group size. Your licence names the ones you are approved for — so those, and only those, are the room pages the site should carry.
Infant
The room families queue longest for. Sleep and feeding routines, how the day gets reported back, and an honest waiting-list position rather than an encouraging silence.
Toddler
Toilet learning, the move up from the infant room, and what a first week apart actually looks like for a parent who has never done it before.
Preschool
The daily programme, outdoor time, meals and who prepares them, and what the year before kindergarten covers. Usually the page with the most competition behind it.
Kindergarten
Before and after school hours, which schools you collect from, and how PA days, holidays and early dismissals are handled. Logistics sell this room.
Primary / junior school age
Pick-up arrangements, homework time, and the full-day camp weeks that fill March Break and the summer — often the first time a family finds you at all.
Junior school age
What older children actually do there, written so a ten-year-old reading over a parent's shoulder would not be embarrassed by it.
Age categories as defined in the Ministry of Education's Child Care Centre Licensing Manual, Part 3. Parents can confirm a licence and its inspection history on the province's Licensed Child Care Website — which is exactly why the licensee name belongs on your site as text.
Everything a Daycare Website Needs
Structure & experience
Built to sort a parent by their child's age before anything is sold to them.
- A page per room with its own dated availability line
- A "day here" page covering routine, meals and outdoor time
- Tour booking with real time slots that finishes on a phone
- Photographs of your rooms, yard and kitchen instead of stock children
- Fast, mobile-first pages a parent can read one-handed at 11pm
Trust & growth
The half that turns a shortlist into a tour, and a tour into an enrolment.
- Licensee name and licence in readable text, not a badge image
- A dated fee page with your CWELCC status stated either way
- A written waiting list policy, and intake that confirms by email
- Allergy, medication and closure information where families can plan
- Local SEO, schema and Google Business Profile wired to match
What a Daycare Website Costs
One payment, fixed in writing before I start, and about 5 to 7 days once the content is ready.
| Package | Best for | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Starter — $899 | Up to 10 pages | Home, the rooms, fees, a day here, licence and safety, about and contact, with a protected enquiry form and local SEO in place from day one |
| Full Site — $1,499 | A page per room, fees and waitlist done properly | Individual room pages with availability lines, a dated fee page with enrolment and subsidy information, a written waitlist policy page, staff profiles and deeper local SEO |
| Advanced — $2,999 | Booking, waitlist intake or portals | Online tour booking with real time slots, a waitlist intake that confirms by email and sorts by the child's date of birth, a parent area, unlimited pages and priority support |
Google Business Profile work is separate and starts at $149 — for a business found by searching "daycare near me" it does at least as much as the website. See full pricing and Google Maps management.
Daycare Website Design Near You
Dedicated local pages for child care centres in specific Ontario cities. More added as I take on work in each area.
Related sectors I already build for: soccer academies & youth sports · home care · medical clinics · psychotherapy & counselling. Already have a site somewhere else? See website migration and maintenance & support.
Daycare Website FAQ
What kind of daycare websites do you build?+
Sites for licensed child care centres, preschools, Montessori programmes and before-and-after-school care: a page per room built on the province's licensed age groups, each carrying its own hours, routine and availability line, plus a dated fees page, a written waiting list policy, a licence and safety page and tour booking that finishes on a phone. Hand-coded and mobile-first, with no template and no page builder.
Why should a child care website be organised by age group?+
Because that is how a parent searches and how your licence is written. Ontario defines six licensed age categories, each with its own ratio and maximum group size, and your licence names the ones you are approved for. A page per room matches a real search phrase, a real room and a real waiting list — things a single "Our Programs" page cannot do. It also makes availability easy to keep honest, because each line lives on the page it belongs to.
Can a child care centre charge a fee for its waiting list?+
No. A licensee cannot charge fees or deposits for placing a child's name on a waiting list, and must have a written policy covering the order in which children are offered admission and how a parent learns their child's position while other families' privacy is protected — see the Ministry's licensing manual, Part 11. An enrolment fee is a different thing and can only be charged once a space has actually been offered.
Have you built a website for a child care centre before?+
Not yet, and I would rather say so than borrow someone else's work. The nearest project in my portfolio is UFootball Soccer Academy in Etobicoke, whose site exists so a parent can pick a programme by their child's age, check the schedule and register on a phone. Nurse, Concierge & Beyond and BridgeMinds Psychology sit beside it, both cases where the reader is deciding on behalf of someone they love. The Burlington page works through the sector in detail.
How much does a daycare website cost?+
$899 one-time for up to 10 pages, $1,499 for a fuller site with a page per room and a proper fees and waitlist section, and $2,999 where tour booking, waitlist intake or parent portals are involved. One payment, fixed in writing before work starts, and about 5 to 7 days once the content is ready. Google Business Profile work is separate and starts at $149. See my website design packages.
10+ years designing SEO-ready websites for local businesses, including youth programmes, healthcare and family-facing services across the GTA. About the studio · Get in touch
Does your site say which rooms have space this month?
I'll build a page per room with an availability line, put the fee and your enrolment status in plain text, and give the waiting list a policy a parent can read. Packages from $899.