copay gauge

Check a Childcare Copay Against the Tier You Were Given — Free

Paste the copay you were charged and the income figures behind your tier, and read which band that copay actually belongs to.

The proof surface

Copay tables are applied by hand and errors cluster at band boundaries. The reading shows which band was applied, which is the question a provider can answer in one email.

Inputthe copay charged plus the income and hours behind your tier

Rare devicerecomputes the copay band from the reader's own income figures instead of repeating a fee table

Output artifacta band reading that places the copay against the bands your own figures imply

Cost$0 · local-first · one free run · samples labelled

Sample, not your facts: Sample: copay $42 a week for 30 hours, household income $46,800, 15 funded hours, invoice week commencing 7 Sep 2026 — four concrete points across four types.

Why the flat version breaks

Band boundaries

Most copay errors appear at band edges, where a small income change should move the fee and does not.

Funded hours missed

Entitlement that starts mid-term is often applied late, leaving weeks billed at the full rate.

Sibling discounts

Discounts applied manually disappear when the invoice system changes, and they are easy to spot on the invoice lines.

How to work the copay gauge

Paste the invoice figures

Copay, hours, income and any funded or discounted element on its own line.

Enter your expected copay and weeks

Your own reading plus the billing-year length prices the difference.

Read the needle

The needle shows where the charged copay sits against the bands your figures imply.

Query in writing

Ask which band was applied, on what evidence, and whether funded hours and discounts were applied for the whole period.

What the gauge replaces

Question	Before	On the gauge
Is the invoice right	read the fee table again	copay placed against your own bands
What is the difference	estimate	differential priced across the billing year
What to ask	'this looks wrong'	which band was applied and on what evidence

The gauge uses your reading of the fee table; it does not know your provider's current rates or funding rules.

Run it on the samples, right here

FIRST-LOAD

Data note: Everything runs in this browser tab on the copay gauge: your invoice and income figures stays on this device, nothing is uploaded, and the reading is rebuilt only when you press run.

Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a meter band gauge

The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the ready-to-mail packet, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 8 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.

The gauge and the band reading are free. The paid layer keeps the invoice and prints the query letter to the provider.

Open the copay tier gauge companion

Boundary

This copay gauge works only on the invoice and income figures you paste you paste. It does not decide your entitlement, does not contact the provider for you, and does not give benefits advice. The figures describe what you supplied, not what is true in the world. Confirm anything you plan to act on with your provider's billing team and, if unresolved, the funding authority before you rely on it.

What this is built on

Every figure comes from the invoice and income figures you paste you paste; nothing is looked up, scraped or asserted as verified.
Method: the charged copay is placed against the band you supply and priced across the weeks in your billing year
Sample values are labelled samples — illustrative by design, not your data and not a quotation of any organisation's policy.

Before: the reader assumed the invoice was right. After: they can see a $42 weekly copay sitting in the band their own figures place at $28.