Most routine charts sold online assume a reading child, and the children who benefit most from one are usually two, three and four.
Toddlers and young preschoolers can hold roughly four to six steps in a fixed order without help. A twelve-step chart is a nightly test the child fails, and a chart that gets failed nightly stops being used at all. Count the steps in the preview, the same check as a chore chart.
A pre-reader needs to recognize a step from its picture alone: a bath, a toothbrush, a book, a moon. If the images depend on a caption underneath to make sense, the listing has not actually solved the pre-reading problem, only hidden the words in smaller print.
Some routine charts print a specific sequence permanently; others give blank slots so a household can set its own order. A fixed sequence that does not match how your evenings actually run will need to be worked around every day, which defeats a large part of the point.
A peg, a clip, a moved marker, a piece placed on each step as it happens. A child moving something themselves is doing the routine; being told "next" by an adult is having the routine done to them. Check whether the chart includes any physical marker.
A chart meant to be laminated and reused with a wipe-off marker survives months without reprinting; a chart meant to be filled in with pen for one week needs a fresh page regularly. Check which one is actually being sold.
Roughly two, once a child can recognize a picture as standing for a real thing. Before that the routine still helps; the chart is not yet the part doing the work.
It does not need one. For bedtime especially, the story or lights-out moment tends to work as the reward already built into the sequence.
Look specifically for a chart with blank or reorderable steps rather than a fixed printed sequence, so the chart matches your routine instead of asking you to change it.
Part of our guide to Buying guides: for a specific child.