🧮 Cost of Raising a Child Calculator
List your monthly child-related expenses, set your child's age and a target age, and see the monthly, annual, and long-term projected cost.
💰 Add Up the Costs
What is the Cost of Raising a Child Calculator?
It builds a personal estimate from your own numbers. Add each recurring monthly expense — childcare, food, diapers, clothing, activities and more — and the tool totals them by month and year, then projects the spend out to the age you choose.
Use it to budget for a new arrival, weigh childcare choices, or picture the long-run commitment. It's a straight-line estimate at today's prices, so revisit it as costs change — think of the projection as a baseline, not a forecast.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to raise a child?
It varies enormously by family, region, and choices, but studies routinely put the total in the hundreds of thousands over 18 years. This tool lets you build your own figure from real monthly line items rather than a national average, so it reflects your situation.
What expenses should I include?
Start with the big recurring ones — childcare, food, diapers or clothing, healthcare, activities, and any child-related share of housing or transport — then add your own rows. The more line items you include, the closer the projection lands to reality.
How is the projected total calculated?
Each line runs from your child's current age until the age it stops (or the end age you set): monthly cost x 12 x those years. The projected total is the sum of the lines shown in the breakdown. Diapers and full-time childcare stop long before 18, so give them a stop age; leave it blank for costs that run to the end.
Does it account for inflation or changing costs?
No. It is an estimate at today's prices. Stop ages handle costs that end, but real costs also shift with inflation, new needs as children grow, and one-off expenses. Treat the projection as a planning baseline and revisit it as your budget changes.