Fawnly
Childcare & Income Planner - High Earners
Your Adjusted Net Income from all sources, and how a pension top-up can keep you under the £60k Child Benefit and £100k childcare limits - and exactly what that's worth. Plus your real childcare cost after free hours and Tax-Free Childcare, and whether you're better off with both working or one parent at home. Estimates only - everything stays in your browser.
Your household
Childcare
Include everything you actually pay - all your hours, meals, nappies and any supplement fees. Tax-Free Childcare (20%, capped £2,000 per child or £4,000 if disabled) is applied below.
What the 15 or 30 free hours save you a year. Not sure? Estimate it with our Childcare Cost Calculator, or leave at 0. This is what you'd lose if you go over £100k.
A rough value for cooking, cleaning, admin and care an at-home parent would do that you'd otherwise pay for. Optional - leave at 0 to ignore.
A reminder: a full-time parent caring for children often has little time for extra housework on top - so it's easy to over-value this. Keep it realistic, or leave it at 0.
Adjusted Net Income & limits
Childcare cost
Better off working, or at home?
The chart shows your household's yearly net income if both work (falls as childcare gets dearer) versus one parent at home (flat). Where they cross is the net childcare cost at which staying home breaks even. Rental, savings and dividends count in both scenarios, since they continue whether or not a parent works.
Maternity leave & the £100k cliff (optional, tap to open)
On a high salary, maternity leave lowers your income for part of the tax year, so you may not breach £100,000 at all, or may only need a small pension top-up. This projects your tax-year income from your leave and return dates, and tells you how much (if any) to pay in. You can do that as a lump sum near year-end, not during leave.
Leave the enhanced weeks at 0 for statutory pay only (6 weeks at 90% of pay, then the flat SMP rate). If you get tax-free Maternity Allowance instead of SMP, it does not count; set the enhanced weeks to 0 and treat maternity pay as nil. If you return before your SMP ends, just enter your real return date; full pay resumes from then, which raises your tax-year income and how close you are to £100,000.
Estimate for the parent on leave (the £100k test is per parent). Maternity pay is approximated; for exact week-by-week pay use the Maternity Pay Calculator. Adjusted Net Income also includes your other taxable income and is reduced by gross pension and Gift Aid. Confirm before acting; not tax advice.
Timing. The test is your expected adjusted net income for the tax year your claim falls in (the current one), and you reconfirm every 3 months. If your leave spans two tax years, check each year separately. In practice, HMRC's automatic check often starts from your previous tax year's income, so if you have recently reduced yours (for example, pension contributions to drop under £100,000) your claim can be rejected or reviewed. You can update your declaration and may be asked to prove it with a recent payslip showing your new salary and pension contributions, so keep that to hand.