Which is Best: Childcare Franchise v. Kids’ Entertainment Franchise

You love working with kids. You love their energy and their imaginations. Perhaps you have kids of your own — or you claim the title of favorite aunt or uncle.

You are aware of the monthly costs of daycare that parents spend to invest in their children and have pondered the idea of owning your own childcare or daycare franchise.

Would that be a profitable business venture compared to a kids’ entertainment franchise? Let’s take a look.

The childcare industry at a glance

There are approximately 856,000 daycare operators in the U.S. alone, according to Statista — making up the $53 billion childcare industry, which includes daycare franchises, at-home daycare centers and independent out-of-home daycare centers.

As more families rely on dual incomes from both parents, the need for daycare centers has steadily increased over the years as an essential service to communities across the country.

To begin a daycare franchise, the costs can run from $90,000 to $4 million. On average, daycare centers report a profit margin of approximately 6.5%.

The perks and benefits of owning a childcare franchise

By opening a childcare franchise, you can benefit from the national reputation and brand recognition of a school as a whole, which will, in turn, instill a higher level of trust from prospective families (especially those who may be new to the area and unfamiliar with the local daycare scene).

The support and business operations teams from a daycare franchise can pave the way for receiving accreditations from nationally recognized organizations, such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC).

In addition, a daycare franchise can also benefit from its corporate marketing and training teams, which can save new franchise owners time and headaches when it comes to attracting customers and hiring qualified staff who are taught to follow a certain set of standards and protocols.

An alternative: A kids’ entertainment franchise

Kids’ entertainment franchises represent another way to feed off the energy and excitement that come with providing a service to children and their families. They can range anywhere from a miniature golf course to a go-kart track to a multi-faceted family entertainment center/trampoline park, such as Launch Entertainment.

Like childcare centers, most entertainment franchises cater to families with young children. One of the big differences of a Launch franchise, for instance, is that whereas a majority of childcare centers provide service primarily for younger children from newborns through pre-kindergarten (ages 4-5), kids’ entertainment franchises focus on a larger demographic span of children.

According to the industry publication Blooloop.com, the average age of a jumper at a trampoline park is 9 years old. The largest age range of jumpers is between 6-10 (35% of all jumpers), followed by 11-15 (26%).

Given their large size — trampoline parks in the U.S. range from 25,000 to 35,000 square feet, according to the International Association of Trampoline Parks — these facilities can hold an expansive number of people at one time, creating a much larger customer footprint than a childcare center can.

Given the larger scope of a kids’ entertainment franchise, it may not come as a surprise that trampoline park owners alone can enjoy a profit margin of up to 40%. Furthermore, the overall startup costs for a trampoline park and an upper-end childcare franchise are comparable.

In addition, as an owner of a kids’ entertainment franchise you and your staff can focus on the fun parts of providing a service for kids — and not the ones that are less fun, like disciplining unruly children or changing dirty diapers.

Take the next step with Launch

Becoming a franchise owner of a nationally recognized brand such as Launch Entertainment allows you to enjoy instant name recognition and comprehensive support and training through the entire process of building a family entertainment center in your own city or town. Our best-in-class franchise team assists with site selection and the build-out process. Launch has also developed a series of marketing programs to attract customers and controls for managing labor to help franchisees optimize their business’s potential. Franchisees enjoy ongoing support after their doors open to the public, with experts on our team who are available to assist owners at every step.

In addition to being provided with a series of marketing programs designed to drive revenue, you will be given all of the resources needed to take part in our national STERILE cleanliness certification program, which ensures the industry’s highest sanitations are met.