Earning over £100k? You've already lost £8,000 in childcare.

If either parent's adjusted net income (ANI) exceeds £100,000 in any tax year, you lose the 30-hour entitlement AND Tax-Free Childcare for every child in your family — even if the other parent earns nothing. For a family with one preschooler this is worth around £8,000–£10,000/year. With two preschoolers it can exceed £15,000/year. The cliff is binary, not tapered — £99,999 is fine, £100,001 wipes out the lot.

Adjusted net income is taxable income minus pension contributions made through salary sacrifice or 'net pay' arrangements. If your gross salary is £125,000 and you sacrifice £25,001 into your workplace pension, your ANI drops to £99,999. Below the threshold, you reclaim 30 free hours and TFC. The pension contribution also escapes income tax AND National Insurance — at incomes between £100k and £125k you're effectively in a 60% marginal-tax band, so the sacrifice itself saves nearly all of the contribution.

Income between £100,000 and £125,140 is taxed at an effective 60% rate, because the personal allowance (£12,570) is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000. Add NI on top and every £1 earned in this band gives you ~38p in your pocket. Salary sacrifice in this range is dramatically tax-efficient — every £1 sacrificed retains ~62p of value that would otherwise vanish to tax.

Yes. HICBC tapers Child Benefit at 1% per £200 of ANI above £60,000, reaching 100% at £80,000. If you're not yet claiming Child Benefit because of HICBC, the optimiser models the recovery — bringing ANI below £80k restores it fully, below £60k removes the charge entirely. Child Benefit is worth around £1,350/year for the first child and around £900/year for each additional one, uprated annually each April.

Most UK workplace schemes allow you to increase your contribution % at any time via the HR or payroll portal. Some require salary sacrifice changes to be set at the start of the tax year. The optimiser gives you the exact contribution figure (£/year and % of salary) along with the tax-year context, which you can take to HR or your payroll team directly.

Self-employed parents can't do salary sacrifice but get the same tax relief via a personal pension. The contribution reduces your adjusted net income for childcare-eligibility purposes — the calculation is identical. The optimiser models both employed and self-employed scenarios; it just outputs slightly different advice (SIPP contribution rather than employer sacrifice).

Both need to come under. The optimiser models this — you need pension contributions from each parent that bring each ANI below £100k. The combined sacrifice can be substantial but typically pays for itself: at very high incomes the marginal-rate savings combined with regained childcare entitlements often exceed the contribution.

Yes — if your employer matches contributions, the optimiser figures the matched portion separately. Most schemes match 1:1 or 1:2 up to a cap; the optimiser asks for your scheme details so the maths is exact.

The standard annual allowance is £60,000 for 2026/27. Above £200,000 'threshold income' it tapers, reaching £10,000 minimum at £360,000+ adjusted income. The optimiser warns you if a recommended contribution would breach your tapered allowance. You can also tell us how much you've already contributed this year so it factors in your remaining headroom.

Full Access is £49 one-off — includes the salary optimiser, invoice analyser (12 analyses), dispute letter generator, and any future tools we add. No subscription, no recurring charges.