How to Increase Childcare Occupancy and Fill Vacancies Fast
Most of a childcare centre's costs are fixed. Rent, the core team and the lights cost the same whether a room is full or half empty, so every extra place you fill goes almost straight to your bottom line. That's why occupancy is the number most owners watch, and why a few empty places in one room can quietly turn a good month into a bad one.
The good news is that lifting occupancy is rarely about one big campaign. It's about finding exactly where places are sitting idle, filling them before they open, and keeping the families you already have. Here's how to do it, step by step.
Step 1: Find out where your places are actually empty
A single headline occupancy figure hides the real story. Break it down three ways:
By room or age group. One room is often dragging the average down while the others are full.
By day of the week. Many centres are busy mid-week and soft on Mondays and Fridays.
Booked versus attended. Places that are booked but regularly unused are a different problem from places nobody has booked.
Once you can see "two places in the toddler room on Mondays and Fridays" instead of "82% occupancy", your marketing gets far more precise, and far cheaper.
Check it's a demand problem, not a staffing problem
Before you spend a dollar on ads, confirm you can actually staff the empty places within ratio. If a room is short of educators, advertising it will only create enquiries you can't accept, which frustrates parents and wastes budget.
Step 2: Fill vacancies before they open
The fastest way to fill a place is to never let it sit empty. Most vacancies are predictable if you look ahead:
Children moving up to the next room on their birthday
Children starting school next year
Families who've told you they're relocating or reducing days
Keep a simple 90-day forecast of when places will open in each room. Then contact matching families from your waitlist before the place opens, with a specific start date. By the time the place is free, the next family is ready to start.
Treat your waitlist as a pipeline, not a list
A waitlist that hasn't been touched in six months is mostly out of date. Every term:
Contact every waitlisted family and confirm they still need care, and which days.
Sort the list by age group and preferred start date.
Remove families who've found care elsewhere, so your forecast stays accurate.
Let families know honestly how long the wait is likely to be.
Families who hear from you regularly are far less likely to drift to another centre while they wait.
Step 3: Make your vacancies visible and accurate everywhere
When the ACCC looked at how parents choose childcare, it found affordability, location and availability are the threshold questions families answer first, before they think about quality. It also found that information about available places is often unclear or out of date (ACCC Childcare inquiry, September 2023 interim report). If parents can't tell whether you have a place, many won't bother asking.
So be specific and consistent in three places:
StartingBlocks.gov.au. Your vacancies there come from what you enter in the CCS Provider Entry Point (PEP) or your childcare software, by age group and day, and updates can take 24 to 48 hours to appear (StartingBlocks). If your software only offers a yes/no tick box, StartingBlocks asks you to enter the full detail in PEP.
Your website. Replace "Enquire about vacancies" with "Places available in our 3–5 room on Mondays and Fridays". Specific beats vague every time.
Your Google Business Profile. Post an update whenever a room opens up, and keep your tour link front and centre. Steady, genuine reviews help here too; our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how to ask.
Step 4: Use the 3 Day Guarantee to reach new families
Since 5 January 2026, all Child Care Subsidy (CCS) eligible families can get at least 72 hours of subsidised care per fortnight, or three days a week, regardless of activity levels. It replaced the previous activity test (Department of Education).
For centres with spare capacity, that's a marketing opportunity. Some local families who previously assumed they weren't eligible, or couldn't afford more than a day or two, may now be able to use three days. Families who weren't already getting CCS still need to make a claim through Services Australia, so a simple explainer helps.
Practical ways to use it:
Add a short, plain-English 3 Day Guarantee section to your fees page.
Brief your front desk so they can explain it confidently on enquiry calls.
Suggest a third day to current families on two days, where your quiet days have room.
Keep it factual. Point families to Services Australia for their own circumstances rather than quoting what they'll pay.
Step 5: Turn more enquiries into enrolments
Filling places isn't only about more enquiries. It's about losing fewer of the ones you already get. Families often contact several centres at once, so speed and warmth matter:
Reply to every enquiry the same business day, ideally within a couple of hours.
Offer two or three specific tour times instead of "when suits you?".
Follow up after every tour with a short personal message, then again a few days later.
Make the enrolment form simple and easy to finish on a phone.
The ACCC also found that families lean heavily on informal signs of quality, such as word of mouth, how well the centre is presented, and how educators relate to the children. The tour is where you prove all three. A virtual tour on your website can help parents shortlist you before they visit.
For the full enquiry-to-enrolment process, see our guide on how to increase childcare enrolments.
Step 6: Fill quiet days smartly, and within the rules
Mondays and Fridays are the classic problem days. A few options worth testing:
Promote your quiet days specifically in ads and on your website.
Offer flexible or casual places on those days if it suits your operating model.
Plan room transitions so a child moving up frees a place you've already lined up a family for.
Be careful with offers. The Department of Education bans inducements such as cash, vouchers, gift cards and electronic devices, including incentives to current families that are likely to bring in another family. That means "refer a friend and get a voucher" is out. You can advertise discounted or free care (reported correctly if CCS is claimed), and you can offer free site visits or trial periods (Department of Education).
Step 7: Keep the families you already have
Every family that stays is a place you don't have to fill again, and a family who may recommend you to friends. Retention is the cheapest occupancy strategy you have:
Keep daily communication warm and consistent.
Deal with concerns quickly and personally.
Ask for feedback each term, and show families what you changed because of it.
Make it easy for happy families to share your tour link with friends.
Bringing it together
To increase childcare occupancy, start with the data: find the exact rooms and days with empty places, check you can staff them, and forecast what's opening next. Then make those vacancies easy for parents to find, respond fast when they enquire, and look after the families you already have. Paid ads work best once these basics are in place, because every enquiry you pay for is far more likely to become an enrolment.
Need help filling your empty places?
Maximize Marketing works with childcare centres across Australia to fill specific rooms and days with local families, from Google and Facebook ads to websites and virtual tours that turn visitors into tour bookings. See how our childcare marketing service works, or book a free chat about the rooms you need to fill.
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