HarborPlain

Stay-at-Home Parent Value Calculator

Set the hours a week spent on childcare, cooking, cleaning, driving, and household admin, and see what that work is worth a year at real BLS wages — plus the life cover it would take to replace it. Everything runs in your browser: no email, no sales call.

An educational estimate, not insurance advice — and the premium figure is an illustration, never a quote.

Set the hours a week spent on each job. Defaults are reasonable starting points grounded in the American Time Use Survey — adjust them to your household.

Includes active care plus supervisory / on-call time — ATUS 2024 reports about 5.2 hours a day of secondary childcare for the youngest child under 13, which a paid provider is on the clock for. Childcare Workers, $15/hr (BLS, SOC 39-9011, as of May 2024)

Planning, shopping, cooking, and cleanup for the household's meals. Priced at the BLS median wage for Cooks. Cooks, $17/hr (BLS, SOC 35-2010, as of May 2024)

Tidying, cleaning, laundry, and household upkeep. Priced at the BLS median wage for Maids & Housekeeping Cleaners (the mean is a little higher). Maids & Housekeeping Cleaners, $17/hr (BLS, SOC 37-2012, as of May 2024)

School runs, activities, appointments, and errands. Priced at the BLS median wage for Shuttle Drivers & Chauffeurs. Shuttle Drivers & Chauffeurs, $18/hr (BLS, SOC 53-3053, as of May 2024)

Scheduling, bills, paperwork, and keeping the household running. No occupation matches this directly, so it is valued using administrative-assistant wages as a proxy. Secretaries & Administrative Assistants, $23/hr (BLS, SOC 43-6014, as of May 2024)

Coverage replaces the household work for this many years — the span until your youngest can manage without it.

Annual value of this work

$74,163 / year

84 hours a week, valued at BLS median wages for each job. An estimate of replacement cost — not a salary or an appraisal.

Where the value comes from

Childcare · 40h/wk
$32,053
Cooking & meal prep · 14h/wk
$12,514
Cleaning & laundry · 12h/wk
$10,396
Driving & errands · 8h/wk
$7,334
Household admin & management · 10h/wk
$11,866

Coverage to replace this work

$1,112,445

$74,163 a year × 15 years. How we calculate this

Illustrative monthly premium

$41–$67 / mo

A wide illustration for a healthy applicant in their 30s, 20-year level term, non-smoker, Preferred health class. Premiums do not scale evenly with coverage and rise with age, so treat this as a ballpark — real quotes will differ.

These reduce the gross need to a coverage gap — the amount of new cover to actually shop for.

For comparison

Other groups put a headline number on a stay-at-home parent’s work: $145,235 as reported by Insure.com (May 2025); $184,820 as reported by Salary.com (2025). They use different hours and job lists, which is why they run higher — a reminder that every figure here, ours included, is an estimate, not a precise wage.

Size cover for the earning parent →

Educational estimate only — not financial or insurance advice, and not a quote. Everything is computed in your browser; no email, no name, nothing stored on our servers.

How we calculate this

The estimate is built up job by job, the way you would if you priced out hiring each task, then rolled into a coverage figure.

First, value each job. For each of the five roles we take the hours a week you set, multiply by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) median hourly wage for the nearest occupation, and annualise over 52 weeks. The wages are the May 2024 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics medians:

  • Childcare — Childcare Workers (SOC 39-9011), $15.41/hr. This field is labelled to include supervisory / on-call time, because the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) shows a large amount of secondary childcare a paid provider is on the clock for.
  • Cooking & meal prep — Cooks (SOC 35-2010), $17.19/hr.
  • Cleaning & laundry— Maids & Housekeeping Cleaners (SOC 37-2012), $16.66/hr median.
  • Driving & errands— Shuttle Drivers & Chauffeurs (SOC 53-3053), $17.63/hr.
  • Household admin & management— valued using Secretaries & Administrative Assistants (SOC 43-6014), $22.82/hr, as a proxy, because no single occupation matches this work directly.

Second, size the cover. We multiply the annual value by the years until your children are independent — the span the work would need replacing. That follows the standard approach for insuring a non-earning parent: add up the cost to replace their tasks and plug the total in as the income to cover. Open the optional panel to net out liquid assets and any existing cover, which turns the gross need into a coverage gap.

Third, the premium — an illustration, not a quote. The monthly range assumes a healthy applicant in their 30s buying 20-year level term as a non-smoker in a Preferred health class, and is anchored to published average rates (for example, NerdWallet’s average of about $26 a month for a 40-year-old on $500,000 of 20-year term, which brackets Policygenius’s late-2024 figures for a healthy 30-year-old). Crucially, premiums are not linear in coverage: fixed policy costs mean the price per $1,000 falls as cover rises, so doubling the coverage does not double the premium. Prices also climb with age (roughly 5–8% a year), run higher for men than women, and are far higher for smokers. That is why we show a wide band and call it illustrative.

Every wage figure is BLS OEWS (May 2024); the hour defaults are grounded in ATUS 2024; and the underinsurance context comes from LIMRA’s 2025 Insurance Barometer. The headline comparison figures are third-party estimates, attributed on screen: Insure.com’s Mother’s Day Index ($145,235, May 2025) and Salary.com (about $184,820). These figures were last reviewed in July 2026.

How to use the result

Treat the annual figure as a conversation-starter, not a paycheck: it is what the household would have to spend to replace the work, which is exactly the thing life insurance on a stay-at-home parent is meant to fund. If the coverage number looks large, that is the point — childcare alone is expensive, and it lasts for years.

Once you have a target, price real cover. Our Life Insurance Calculator sizes cover for the earning parent from income, so together the two give you a whole-family picture. And because term pricing varies widely for identical cover, get quotes from two or three insurers or a broker before you commit.

Frequently asked questions

Each job — childcare, cooking, cleaning and laundry, driving and errands, and household admin — is priced at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics median hourly wage for the nearest occupation, multiplied by the hours a week you set and by 52 weeks. Add the jobs together and you get an annual replacement-cost estimate: what it would roughly cost to hire out the work. It is an estimate of replacement cost, not a salary and not an appraisal.

Because a single headline figure hides the assumptions. Building it up job by job, at published wages, means you can see exactly where the value comes from and adjust the hours to your own household. Widely quoted totals — Insure.com's Mother's Day Index at about $145,000, or Salary.com's roughly $185,000 — use different job lists and far more hours (Salary.com assumes about 106 hours a week and includes executive titles), which is why they land higher than a focused, wage-based estimate.

Because if that parent were gone, someone would have to be paid to do the work — childcare especially, which is often the largest line. Life cover on a stay-at-home parent funds that replacement for the years the children still depend on it. LIMRA's 2025 Insurance Barometer found roughly 100 million U.S. adults are underinsured, and non-earning parents are a common blind spot.

No — it is deliberately a wide illustration, not a quote. It assumes a healthy applicant in their 30s buying a 20-year level term policy as a non-smoker in a Preferred health class, and it is anchored to published average rates. Real pricing is not linear in coverage (a policy for twice the cover does not cost twice as much), and it rises with age, differs by sex, and is far higher for smokers. Always get real quotes before deciding.

By default the tool shows the full cost of replacing the work. If you open the optional panel and enter liquid savings and any life cover already in place, it subtracts those to leave a coverage gap — the amount of new cover it would actually make sense to shop for. Leave it closed and you get the gross figure.

No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing on our servers — there is no email box and no sign-up. Your inputs are only reflected in the page's web address so you can bookmark, share, or print your result; clear the link and they are gone.

Educational estimate only — not financial or insurance advice, and not an offer of coverage. Wages and benchmark figures are national estimates and your situation will differ; the premium range is an illustration, not a quote. For decisions about your own cover, get real quotes and consult a licensed professional. HarborPlain explains the math; the decisions are yours.