Ask camp operators what they charge and you'll often get a number followed by a shrug: "£35 a day… that's what everyone else charges." Pricing by osmosis is the single most common way good camps lose money.
Here's the math-based version — what to charge, which structure to use, and where camps quietly leak revenue.
Step 1: Know your cost per camper per day
Start with the number most operators have never calculated. Fixed weekly costs divided by realistic attendance:
Example: a week of multi-sport camp
- Venue hire: $800
- Lead coach: $650
- Two assistant coaches: $700
- Equipment/first-aid/consumables: $100
- Total: $2,300
Realistic enrollment is the key input — not your capacity, your realistic fill. If you plan for 40 campers across the week:
$2,300 ÷ 40 = $57.50 cost per camper-week.
Price below that and you're subsidizing families out of your own pocket. Price at 1.5–2× that and you have a business with margin for the weeks that underfill.
Step 2: Pick a pricing model
Per-day rate — e.g., $35/day. Flexible for parents, highest effective rate for you. Best for drop-in-friendly camps and younger kids whose parents book around schedules.
Per-week rate — e.g., $150/week. Simpler admin, better cash flow, rewards commitment. The standard for holiday camps.
Hybrid (the winner for most): a per-week price with a per-day rate for single days, priced so the week wins: e.g., $38/day or $145/week. The math does the upselling — parents who need three days do the arithmetic and book the week.
Step 3: Structure discounts deliberately
Discounts aren't charity; they're capacity tools. The three that matter:
- Sibling discount (10–15%) — the single most requested policy from multi-child families. It costs you less than it looks: the second child fills a seat that would otherwise be empty. See our guide to setting up sibling discounts.
- Full-week vs daily: price the week at roughly the cost of 4 days so the full week is an obvious deal.
- Early-bird: 10% off until 6–8 weeks out. This isn't generosity — it's demand forecasting. Early bookings tell you which weeks to staff.
Whatever rules you choose, automate them. Manually applied discounts across 40 families produce errors and disputes; automated rules apply consistently at booking time.
Step 4: Price for your true capacity, not your dream one
The most expensive mistake in camp pricing is planning revenue at 100% fill. A 60-place camp rarely sells 60 every week. Model at 60–75% fill and make sure you're profitable there:
- 60% fill at $145/week: $8,700 revenue vs $2,300+ costs → thin
- 70% fill at $165 → healthy
- 75%+ → the camp funds the off-season
If the numbers only work at full capacity, your price is too low or your costs are too high. Both are fixable before the season; only one is fixable after.
The mistakes that quietly lose money
- Pricing from competitors alone. Their costs aren't yours — their venue deal, coach ratios, and overhead differ. Use their price as a sanity check, not a source.
- No deposit or payment-at-booking. Unpaid "reservations" are the top cause of week-one no-shows. Take payment (or at least a deposit) at booking.
- Flat pricing across weeks. If one week always underfills, discount it specifically rather than cutting everything.
- Ignoring the sibling math. A family with three kids at full price books elsewhere. A 10% third-child discount that keeps them is pure margin.
- Manual discounting. Every hand-applied discount is a future discrepancy. Automate the rules once.
Make the pricing operational, not just correct
The best price is worth little if collecting it is chaos. When camp registration runs through a system:
- Parents see live availability per week and book online — including the exact price with their discounts applied
- Invoices generate automatically with payment references, so matching camp-week payments takes minutes instead of a spreadsheet
- Waitlists capture demand for full weeks instead of losing it
- You see bookings and outstanding payments per week in one dashboard
That's the workflow Club Term is built for — sessions with capacity, automatic invoicing with discounts, and a parent portal that does the selling while you coach.
Set up your camp → — and if registration day is your pain point, read the registration day survival guide. For the bigger picture beyond camp season, see how to increase sports facility revenue year-round.