I considered a live-in nanny but there a couple of issues. First is my wife didn't want the person living in the house, so that killed that idea. But the other issues are that there is no guarantee the nanny will be good, and even if the nanny is OK, the amount of teaching and socialization usually doesn't compare with a good daycare.
OTOH, there is no guarantee the daycare you choose will be good. Some of the less expensive ones can be bad, esp. if they're not licenced, while the better ones have long waiting lists and not surprisingly are more expensive. Luckily for us we have a daycare at our workplace which is licenced and good. The price isn't cheap, but it's at least a bit cheaper than the private daycares nearby.
In the province of Quebec the daycares are heavily subsidized by the government so that the cost ends up being around $150 per month. However, consequently, they aren't well funded so they are usually rated poor to mediocre, and parents have been known to steal kids' clothing and stuff like that. And there still aren't enough spots open. However, they've recently changed things so that higher income families pay more, up to around $450 a month... albeit for the same mediocre facilities. Thus, some wealthier parents continue to spend 4-digit $ prices for higher quality daycares.
In my province there is no such daycare subsidy, but they've recently introduced all-day kindergarten for 4 year-olds, which essentially means daycare for 4 year-olds but with less supervision. However, there are still problems, since at our local school there is no before and after care, meaning either that you have to get the kid outta there by around 3:30 or whatever, or hire someone to do that. There is a program that buses kids to another school for before and after care but it ends up costing $900 a month to make a kid sit on a bus and travel back and forth so that seems totally pointless.