Childminder Vs Nursery

Hello 👋. This post may be a bit daft but I would like to please hear from people's experiences. Our almost 3 year old has spent his time in a nursery since he was 9 months old. He is settled which is good and attends 2 x days a week, totalling 20 hours. However the snag that we have at the moment, like a lot of settings is that the prices have astronomically gone up! Even with our 20% tax free and 15 hours funded, we cannot believe how much we are paying every month. There were a lot of complaints from parents and some children have since left. We can pay the fees however we cannot save, afford days out etc. We would only move our boy if there was somewhere else that wowed us! Unfortunately there's not a lot of settings where we live. There are a lot of pre-schools however the hours do not suit my hours as a nurse and my husband who is in the military. Obviously when he starts school there will be wrap around care which may help. I went to view a childminder today, I told my son that we were going to visit my 'friend' so it wouldn't hopefully confuse him. He did not want to leave and had the best time. Which is great. It would seem that he would be the oldest with other children 6 months/1 year younger. There are also school children drop off/pick up. The childminder seemed great and I was very impressed. They go out a lot and there seems to be a lot of learning opportunities. My only concern is whether or not he will get bored as he gets a bit older? The reason it came to mind is because she said that when her child gets to 3/4 she plans to send him to a pre-school so he can mix in larger groups. This is a valid point that did not cross my mind initially. I have thought about him doing one day with a childminder and the other with a nursery. I would have to do the maths as to whether financially this is beneficial as I would not want to move unnecessarily. Does anyone have any experience of advice? Thank you ☺️