Setting next year's private fees
How much can we raise private fees next April without losing residents?
Know your cost rise first, then judge how tight your market is and what self funders can afford.
When people use it: January and February, ahead of April fee rises; check again if occupancy moves.
How it works, step by step
Your cost rise
Enter your fees, pay and occupancy. The April step in cost a day is roughly the rise you need just to stand still.
How tight is the market?
Above about 90% and rising: you have pricing power. Below 85%: price rises risk empty beds.
What families can afford
Years of care an average house pays for: when fees rise faster than house prices, stays get shorter and more residents move to council funding.
Local competition
Filter to your district and similar homes (rating, size, newer homes) to see who families will compare you with.
The views you will use
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, for a care home owner in Kent (October 2026). It answers only from Orrery's data and the subscriber's own documents, and shows its sources.
A typical Kent care home needs private fees to rise by about 4.0% next April just to stand still.
- Cost per resident goes from £157.69 to £163.93 a day, a 4.0% rise (Orrery cost model).
- Staff are 82% of running costs, and the model assumes pay rises 4% a year.
- At the typical private residential fee of £1,590 a week, 4.0% is about £64 a week. That is my arithmetic on the model's figures.
- Occupancy is 87.9%, which Orrery calls soft (England median 87.7%). That suggests the market supports little more than the cost rise.
This is a projection on stated assumptions, not a forecast. It is for a typical 60 bed home, and you can change the inputs on the page. Take professional advice before setting fees.
- Pay is about four fifths of running costs, so the April pay rise sets the floor for your fee rise.
- Self funders cross subsidise council places in most homes; the council rate commentary shows by how much it lags pay.
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