CenterWorth exists because childcare center operators needed rigorous financial and regulatory intelligence and couldn't find it in one place — so we built it.
CenterWorth was built by people who had direct, firsthand experience operating childcare centers. Not studying them. Not consulting for them from the outside. Running them — managing enrollment, staffing classrooms to ratio, watching payroll percentages climb, and making the decision whether to open an infant room knowing the ratio math could make it unprofitable before enrollment stabilized.
The financial modeling problem was always the same: the numbers that mattered most — what's the staffing cost floor given this state's ratio requirements, what's the break-even enrollment given these fixed costs, what's the real operating margin at 85% occupancy — weren't easy to calculate or verify. Spreadsheets had to be rebuilt for every location. State licensing rules had to be tracked manually. Wage data from the BLS and Census had to be pulled by hand. Every new market meant starting over.
The regulatory problem was just as persistent. Staff-to-child ratios and licensing rules are the foundation of every childcare center's cost structure, but they're documented in dense regulatory code spread across 50 different state agencies — each with its own citation format, update cadence, and administrative history. No single source pulled them together with the accuracy and transparency that financial decision-making actually requires.
CenterWorth was built to solve both problems: a rigorous financial modeling engine built on top of verified, primary-source regulatory data. The goal is to give every operator — whether they're opening their first center, acquiring an existing facility, or managing multiple locations — the same quality of analysis that a sophisticated buyer or lender would demand.
Staff-to-child ratios, group size limits, space requirements, and conditional staffing rules for licensed childcare centers, compiled from official state licensing agency sources — not secondary aggregators.
View state ratiosBreak-even analysis, payroll cost modeling, feasibility grading, startup cost estimation, and acquisition due diligence — built on the ratio and wage data that actually drives childcare center economics.
Run the free calculatorCensus ACS population and income data by census tract, BLS wage benchmarks by state, and regional operating cost benchmarks — giving every analysis a local market foundation.
View our methodologyA $49 one-time full report that delivers a feasibility grade, complete P&L model, staffing plan built to your state's exact ratios, break-even analysis, and 30-day data refresh.
See pricingCenterWorth operates with a small number of non-negotiable data standards. These aren't aspirational — they're structural constraints built into how we source, verify, and publish information.
We compile staffing ratios and licensing rules exclusively from official state agency regulations, administrative codes, and statutory text. We never source regulatory data from secondary aggregators, advocacy organizations, or unofficial compilations. If we can't verify a rule at the primary source, we say so explicitly.
Every regulatory record in CenterWorth's system carries a verification status that reflects what was actually confirmed during review — reviewed full, partial, or not yet reviewed. We don't present any status as verified that wasn't directly cross-referenced against the primary rule text.
CenterWorth's analysis is for financial planning and decision-support. We are not a law firm, and we don't provide legal advice. Every regulatory summary carries an explicit notice that regulations change and that readers must verify current requirements with the applicable licensing agency before making operational or legal decisions.
When regulatory data changes in CenterWorth's system, we maintain a record of what changed and when. Our public regulatory update history page shows the review dates and data events for each verified state, so users can assess the age of the data they're working with.
How we source and prioritize data, from user inputs through official regulatory records to national estimates.
Source selection, verification criteria, corrections policy, and what we won't claim.
Review dates, data events, and verification status for each state in our regulatory database.
The free calculator models payroll, break-even enrollment, and operating margin using your specific inputs and your state's regulatory requirements.