How to set your Pet Business Pricing

You’ve decided to become a pet care business owner. That’s great news! Let’s also assume you know broadly what type of pet care service you want to provide. That’s also great news! There are a ton of things to get to on your to do list but one of the most important is figuring out what you’re going to charge for your services. This is where a lot of potential pet business owners run into the proverbial brick wall.

There are several factors to take into account when pricing your services. Let’s talk about a few of them.

#1 Define your services

This sounds obvious, you know what you want to provide right? You want to provide grooming or pet sitting or dog walking. While this is a good start, it’s not the end answer. Let’s say you want to groom dogs. What does that mean exactly? Is a standard groom a wash and shave? Or is it just the shave? Start by defining your base service. Let’s say for this example the base service is an even clip of the dog’s coat all over. Then think about extra services that you can add on. Perhaps it’s styling the coat into a special cut or washing the dog first.

Once you’ve got the standard service and the extra services defined, spend some time thinking about additional fees. We all like to think our pets are perfectly well behaved but unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Some pets are harder to work with then others. It’s not their fault obviously but it does mean that the pet care provider is working a little bit harder with certain pets. You may want to charge a fee for large dogs or fearful dogs. You will also want to think about the time is takes you to provide the service. A dog who hasn’t been groomed in years will take considerably longer than one who is groomed regularly. Extra fees for extra time are not unreasonable.

Another area to consider is the time of day, week or year of the service. Are you going to charge extra for holiday service or last-minute requests? Most pet sitters do charge extra for holiday periods as it’s their busiest time of year and cancellations have a larger impact on their business during that time.

Dog walkers and pet sitters will also want to consider whether they want to charge by the visit, by the time they spend with the pet or by the number of pets they’re caring for.

All of this sounds complicated right? I mean, all you really wanted to do was walk a dog and have someone pay you for it. It doesn’t have to be complicated but it’s not as simple as it sounds. The better you can define your services the easier it will be to set a realistic expectation with your clients. It’s important that they understand both what they can expect from their money and what they shouldn’t expect. Well defined services, while a bit of work up front, will prevent a lot of misunderstandings down the road that could lead to dissatisfied customers.

#2 Do the research

Once you’ve defined what your services are and are not, the next step is to get to know your market both at a macro (national) and micro (local) level.

Start at the macro level. Organizations like NAPPS, National Association of Professional Pet Sitters and other pet care related professional organizations collect pricing data on a national level and publish detailed reports. These reports are generally parsed up into regions and types of services. They usually offer them for free to their members. If you’re not a member today, even if you don’t use any of their other services, the price of a yearlong membership is often worth it to get a hold of the pricing reports.

Once you get a high-level view of what other like businesses are charging for their services you can drill down to the micro or local level. This does require some legwork but doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple excel spreadsheet will work. Start with listing all of the businesses in your area that provide services similar to yours. Make this list down the left side of the spreadsheet using one line for each business. Next, working across on the columns, list out the different types of services you want to offer. Once you have this grid created start filling in the blanks. Each box in the grid will correspond to a specific pet business and a specific service. In each box you will put the actual price that business is charging for that service. See diagram below.

Fill in as many boxes as you can bearing in mind that not every business will provide every service so there will be blanks. Once you’ve filled them in calculate an average price for each column. This will give you a range of and an average price for each of the service based on your local competition.

You can set your own service prices using both your national and local data as a guide. If you do decide to set your prices higher than the average or even the upper end of the price range, keep in mind that you will need to offer the market some premium service that justifies the higher-than-average price.

As a new pet business owner, a trap that many people fall into is worrying about charging too much and not getting enough clients. Even those who have done the market research, and this is a must do, tend to price their services on the low end when they’re just starting out. Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing your services and yourself. Cut rate pricing will send a message to the market that you are not as valuable and not as good as other similar businesses not to mention it will erode your own profits and make it difficult to build a lasting business.

Do take the time to think thoroughly about your service pricing. Be clear on what you’re offering and do the research to back up your pricing. Do also keep in mind that nothing is set in stone and can’t be undone. Your prices will evolve based on the market and your service offerings over time. Happy Pricing! 

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About Eliza

Eliza is the owner of two successful pet related businesses; Preferred Pet Partners, a pet sitting and dog walking company, and The Pet Business Coach, offering coaching and resources to aspiring or current pet related business entrepreneurs. She maintains two awesome blogs. One for pet parents https://preferredpetpartners.com/blog/ and one for pet business owners https://thepetbusinesscoach.dog/blog-page/.  Eliza also supports various animal rescue and shelter organizations. Eliza and her husband have a growing pet family. Visit her websites: www.preferredpetpartners.com or www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog.