Dog sitting how much to charge

The best rule of thumb when it comes to deciding how much to charge for dog-sitting is to keep it simple. You may be tempted to price your services and offerings based on every task you do while dog-sitting. For example, you could have a set price for a minute visit and a minute visit, plus an overnight rate.

Sure, some pet owners might want you to take their dog for two walks or collect mail from their mailbox. If you try to itemize every task you do as a dog sitter, your prices are only going to overwhelm your clients. Of course, if a dog owner needs you to perform additional tasks that are beyond the scope of your normal services, you should feel comfortable charging more.

More on this later. For instance, if you hope to provide mostly overnight visits or dog boarding at your own home, your pricing structure should reflect these business models. Pricing is so important to people looking for a pet sitter, so it can make or break your ability to get clients.

Thankfully, there are helpful dog-sitting rate calculators online that provide the average cost of dog-sitting when you enter your zip code and service duration. These tools make it easy for you to quickly gain a ballpark idea of how much to charge for dog-sitting. Rather, you should treat these rates as a good baseline. From there, you can continue to factor in your experience, qualifications, and position in the market. This is an important consideration that will help you decided how much to charge for dog-sitting.

Add up all of the expenses you incur on a monthly basis to run your dog-sitting business. When setting your rates, it is most likely going to be a combination of what you want to make per hour and what the typical rates are for your area.

We recommend frequency discounts because it encourages more use and loyalty from clients. Of course, some months like February - there will be fewer walks, and other months like January , there will be more. Additional pets.

More pets can often require more time and work. You may want to simply set your costs based on the time you spend but charging for extra pets is a very common and accepted fee in the pet care industry.

It is common for pet care companies to charge extra rates for holidays. Think of it this way. How much would your customer expect to be compensated for working on Christmas? Be sure you value your time on holidays appropriately. No matter how fair your price is, there will always be potential clients that try to haggle on price.

There will also likely be people outside your desired service area that would like to be customers. This is where you must decide if taking on a particular customer is in your best interest. It can be hard to turn down business, especially when you are first getting started and are eager to grow but it is okay to say no.

There are also questions you can ask potential new clients before you even have the meet and greet. Use our new pet care rate calculators to find out what you should be charging for pet sitting and dog walking. We help pet care professionals start, grow and manage their businesses. Time To Pet uses cookies to provide a more tailored experience to you based on your browsing and preferences.

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Try Time To Pet on a day free trial! They may be happy with a flat fee, or it may suit you both to pay depending on what your friend is required to do as the time goes on. Most people agree that the circumstances vary so much that good communication between you and your friend is required. Some people offer an hourly rate, and others offer money to walk the dog a number of times in the day when they are away.

Others swap services instead of money. Of course this varies by company and area. You must take into account if your friend will incur any costs dog sitting for you, such as travel, time off work,school, or additional travel if they stay at your place and travel elsewhere.

Dog sitting for this length of time will include :. Professional dog sitters offer multiple services within their work for you. They keep your dog happy and content, which gives you peace of mind. Many dog sitters come to your house and live-in. This may be something for your friend to consider.