Phoenix, AZ · West
Payment processing for child care & preschools in Phoenix
Phoenix child care & preschools use Enterprise Pay Gateway to take booking deposits, sell prepaid packages, bill monthly memberships and email invoices. Card payments run through your own Stripe account, funds settle straight to your bank on America/Phoenix reporting, and you pay a fixed monthly subscription plus a platform fee from 0.20% to 0.75% — Stripe's processing fee is billed separately by Stripe.
Last updated 9 September 2026
What Phoenix child care & preschools are dealing with
Fast-growing suburban service businesses opening additional locations year over year.
Tuition is chased manually
Directors spend hours each month reminding families about payments. Scheduled card billing removes the chase entirely for the large majority of families.
Places are held without a deposit
A registration deposit converts a casual enquiry into a commitment and covers the cost of holding a place that is later dropped.
Failed cards become arrears
One declined charge quietly becomes three months of arrears. Retries plus an email linking to a billing portal resolve most failures before anyone has to have a conversation.
Extras are invisible
Late pickup, meals, field trips and holiday cover are billed inconsistently or not at all. Selling them as products captures revenue already being delivered.
How the money moves in Phoenix
- 1
Registration deposit
Take a deposit at enrolment through a checkout link, credited against the first month's tuition.
- 2
Recurring tuition
Bill weekly or monthly on a schedule, with automatic retries and a portal where families update their own card.
- 3
Extras and add-ons
Sell meals, extended hours and trips as separate products so the delivered service is actually billed.
- 4
Reporting
See enrolled revenue, failed payments and arrears in one view instead of reconciling a spreadsheet each month.
Benchmarks
- Typical monthly tuition
- $800–$2,200
- Recurring fit
- Very high
- Average tenure
- 2–4 years
Per child, per month, repeating for years. Lifetime value per enrolled family is among the highest of any local service business.
Almost all revenue is recurring by nature, which makes reliable scheduled billing the single most important system in the building.
Long tenure means a small improvement in payment reliability compounds into a large annual revenue difference.
What it costs
Pricing is identical everywhere — no city or state surcharge. Plans start at $49.00 per month plus a 0.75% platform fee on card volume, and Stripe's own processing fees are charged separately so nothing is hidden inside a blended rate.
Your account defaults to the America/Phoenix timezone, so daily takings and payout reports line up with your trading day in Phoenix.
Common questions
- Can a preschool bill tuition automatically each month?
- Yes. Tuition is set up as a recurring product billed weekly or monthly. Declined cards are retried automatically and families can update their own card through a billing portal, which removes almost all manual chasing.
- Can we take a registration deposit to hold a place?
- Yes. Create a deposit product at the amount you want to hold and share its checkout link at enrolment. Credit it against the first month's tuition and publish the refund window in writing.
- Is bank debit cheaper than card for tuition?
- Usually yes for large recurring amounts, because bank debit fees are typically capped rather than a percentage. Stripe sets and bills those processing rates directly.
- What does it cost?
- Stripe's processing fee plus a platform fee. Enterprise Pay Gateway charges $49 to $199 a month plus 0.75% down to 0.40%, with negotiated 0.20%–0.35% pricing for larger groups.