The 6 Best Pet Sitting Business Software Solutions for 2024!

Easy Busy Pets

February 20, 2024

If you're a pet sitter or dog walker working independently, you understand the challenges of managing all aspects of your business. From scheduling clients and walks to managing invoices and insurance, it can quickly become overwhelming.

Fortunately, there are software solutions designed to streamline these tasks and make running your pet sitting or dog walking business much more manageable. With the right pet sitting software, you can efficiently handle all these essential aspects, reducing stress and improving efficiency.

You can find the list of top pet sitting solutions at the end of this article. Before that, we'll delve into the features that make these products stand out. If you prefer to jump straight to the list, you can click here.

The Evolution of Pet Sitting Software

Traditional pet care methods for pet sitters and dog walkers have relied on manual scheduling, paper-based records, and personal communication with clients. However, these methods can be time-consuming, prone to errors, and limit the scalability of your business.

Pet sitting software offers a modern solution to these challenges by providing tools for automated scheduling, client management, invoices, payments and communication. With pet sitting software, you can streamline your operations, improve client satisfaction, and grow your business more efficiently.

How do Pet Sitters Benefit from Business Software?

Running a pet sitting business on your own can be challenging. However, there's a solution: utilizing software can significantly improve your business operations.

Let's start by defining the basic requirements of any pet sitting software. Then, we'll pinpoint the crucial features that cater specifically to a growing pet sitting business, setting it apart from generic solutions or single purpose apps.

Must-Have (Basic) Features for Any Pet Sitting Software

Excited about finding those special pet-focused features? Skip ahead to the next section, where you'll discover all the essential elements you should seek in a software designed exclusively for growing pet sitting businesses. Let's explore the perfect fit for your furry companions!

Manage Client Profiles

Having a pet sitting app that keeps all your client and information organized is super important. You can easily save notes and pictures about each client, and even keep track of all your appointments. It's like having a virtual assistant to help you stay on top of things!

Manage Your Pet Sitting Crew

Using business software can be a real game-changer when it comes to managing your pet sitters and dog walkers effectively, especially when everyone has their own availabilities, specialties, and geographic limitations.

With cool features like integrated group calendars, GPS check-in, or sending picture and note updates via mobile webapp, you'll have a smoother way to handle schedules and appointments. Plus, it can step up your team's 2-way communication with pet parents, making it more professional and polished. Say hello to better team coordination and client interactions with the right pet sitting business software!

Scheduling

The finest pet sitting software packages come equipped with an up-to-date online calendar that streamlines the process of setting up dog or cat visits, private and group dog walks ensuring no appointment conflicts (a.k.a. double bookings) arise. Moreover, software can even offer clients the added convenience of scheduling through an online portal, making the entire process smooth and hassle-free.

Embrace the ease and efficiency with these remarkable software features!

Invoicing

Invoicing for a service-based business like pet sitting is different from a product bill. Each item in the invoice is likely a completed visit or dog walk, linking to the corresponding appointment in your schedule. A basic pet sitting app simplifies this process. Clients can conveniently pay online, and pet sitters can track payments and manage their finances effortlessly. Financial exports compatible with accounting software like QuickBooks or Sage further streamlines the process, ensuring a seamless experience.

If you're exploring solutions that don't link invoices to appointments, we recommend looking elsewhere.

Integrated Payment

Some pet sitting software lets you handle payments directly on the platform. Some work with other apps for payments.

Most offer this option online (i.e., via electronic invoice or on the website). If you want to charge credit cards in person, look for solutions that also offer options for payment terminals.

Payment Processing for Pet Sitting and Dog Walking by Easy Busy Pets Software

Digital Forms

In many software programs, you can easily enable and keep track of digital service agreements, home entry, client, and pet profiles. This is really helpful for pet sitters because they can set things up just how they like, which makes their job a lot easier. Sometimes pet sitters need more sophisticated documentation options, such as applications for other types of pet care like dog training and daycare, staff information, or other unique documents that reflect their business model. In these cases, off-the-shelf (hard-coded) documents may not be enough. The good news is that there are a smaller group of apps offering a fully loaded digital forms builder, making customizing these forms a breeze.

Imagine a form that both a pet sitter and a client can use. It can be customized so that it has sections only for the business (not visible to the client) and other sections that the client can see but not change. This helps the software meet the specific needs of pet sitters, making it easier for them and their clients to work together smoothly.

Cutting-Edge Features of Next-Generation Pet Sitting Software

Welcome to the future of pet sitting software! You might be wondering, what sets this next-generation software apart from the rest?

To truly qualify as next-generation, software should have all the features and user experience behind the basic pet sitting services discussed above while going above and beyond scheduling and invoicing basics. In fact, there are so many nuances to your needs for pet sitting scheduling alone, it would take more than just one article to list and describe each one individually.

Marketing and communications is a big one as well, making it a versatile and all-encompassing solution for pet sitters who want to grow.

Let's look at some mature features common to the best pet sitting software solutions:

CRM for Pets

It's all about the pets! We believe software is there to enhance your operations and client interactions with speed and intelligence. For a pet-focused pet sitting and dog walking business like yours, having software that effectively tracks each individual pet's needs, starting with their profile, is crucial. Every pet sitter has their unique methods, and the profile customization must cater to the specific needs of their business model.

Digital Forms for Pets

The pet care industry requires documentation that applies to pets (also known as "dependents"). While clients need to fill out documents like a simple service agreement or home entry instructions, pets need to be documented much more extensively. Some examples may include unique:

media release documents
medication and feeding instructions (for boarding and pet sitting),
vaccinations (e.g., Rabies or Bordetella), and
behavioral questionairres

Repeat Customer Appointments

Imagine having to remember the booking details for your regular clients all the time.

Pet sitting businesses need an easy way for pets to get booked once and not have to worry about it again. With reminders and automatic payments (using packages, memberships, or auto-invoicing), this ongoing pain can turn into a smoothly running automated system for your business.

There are many names for this feature:

Recurring services
Never-ending appointments
Scheduling templates
Continuous booking
Repeat appointments
Regular scheduling
Ongoing scheduling
Automated rebooking
Rolling appointments
Persistent bookings

All these names might seem complicated, which is why we call it 'Ongoing Appointments' at Easy Busy Pets.

Most clients need the same dog walks or pet visits every week, while others need them daily or monthly. This means pet owners don't have to plan appointments a year or two in advance to keep things organized.

Group Dog Walks

Different from a private or pet visit, a group walk entails a unique scheduling experience, necessitating a user-friendly interface where pet owners can easily enroll in group walks rather than a standard service bookings. The system must consider the dog capacity of each group dog walk, ensuring there is room for all eager pups to attend. A waiting list feature for full groups can bring a nice touch to address overcapacity versus sending folks to your competition.

Group Walk Scheduling software by Easy Busy Pets

Sitting Photos And Videos

If a pet owner has you hired to walk a dog for 30 minutes, when would you start the timer? Usually at the same time you add your first photo or video!

Media, like appointment photos and videos, is essential for professional pet sitting. It lets pet owners see their pets' progress and is best when it can be easily captured on a mobile phone and shared in real-time or in email reports.

Pet Owner Portal

The client requires access to their dog or cat updates, including pet sitting pictures, videos, notes history, forms, programs, billing, and payments, among others. This access is facilitated through a pet owner portal accessible via any internet-enabled device, providing real-time availability 24/7.

Curious to see a pet owner portal in action? Check out this sample site (please note, you'll need to sign up as a pet owner): https://countryboardinganddaycare.com/signup

Automated Pricing Rules

The ability to set prices for a service or product unique to a specific client is a basic feature of top pet sitting software.

A software solution that includes payment automation through packages or memberships is undoubtedly valuable for any service business, including various types of pet sitting and dog walking services and programs.

Packages are bundles of services that you sell together at a lower price. For instance, you could offer a "Buy 5, Get 10% Off" package, where customers pay upfront for 5 pet sittings at a discounted rate of 10%.

Memberships are in a category all their own. Think of a gym membership for people, then add pet-centric features that apply to pet sitting and other pet care services. Here are some key points: Memberships can renew automatically with integrated payments. The frequency of services can be limited within a period of days or weeks to prevent overuse. Special VIP pricing can apply to other products or services just for being a member.

Then, there's a cutting-edge pricing feature that's relatively new to the pet sitting industry: This feature allows for automated pricing adjustments based on unique pet attributes such as size, gender, behavior, and location. This innovative feature is currently only available at Easy Busy Pets, where it's known as Smart Fields.

Automated Invoicing

The best pet sitting software enables you to effortlessly manage and process invoices, ensuring a seamless experience.

Exceptional dog walking software takes it a step further by automating certain tasks (bulk billing), streamlining your workflow. However, the ultimate pet sitting software goes above and beyond, fully automating the invoicing process, sparing you from any billing-related burdens.

This remarkable system possesses a comprehensive understanding of each client, their unique pricing, scheduling history, allowances, package credits, or memberships, culminating in perfectly personalized invoices tailored to their specific needs. With such top-tier software at your disposal, invoicing becomes a hassle-free and personalized affair, allowing you to focus entirely on what truly matters - walking and visiting our beloved canine companions.

Marketing & Communications

The most effective marketing and communication tools offered by pet sitting software are those that leverage your existing data to drive growth. Here are the top three (3) marketing features that pet sitting software can provide:

Website (SEO, Blog, Media)

"All-in-one" means that your scheduling and invoicing are integrated with a website, all within a single system. This allows you to manage your content and operations in one place. One significant benefit is that visitors stay on your site as they explore, make bookings, and issue payments for your services, all on your site. If you've used a scheduler before, you know that you're often redirected to their platform to interact with the business online. This means you leave the pet sitting business's website! Those who've experienced this know exactly what this writer means.

If this is the first time you're hearing about pet sitting software that also offers to host your website, now might be a good time to learn more. Click here to contact Easy Busy Pets about their website feature.

Client Testimonials

So easy! Automate collecting and publishing reviews to drive organic business growth. Save hundreds or thousands of dollars each month on Reputation Management software and ad dollars by simply using the included feature in your
pet sitting software.

Webstore / Shop

While not traditionally associated with pet sitting, business owners are increasingly diversifying their offerings by including an online store to sell products. In many cases, they offer merchandise such as t-shirts, hats, apparel, and small baked goods. Many pet sitters and dog walkers are also beginning to sell other inventory items online, such as lock boxes for key storage at homes, as part of their key management services. Here's an example of how a sample company has implemented this.

Staff Management

As your pet sitting business grows from a solo gig (1-5 sitters) to something much larger, your needs and expectations from pet sitting software change significantly. Imagine having multiple neighborhoods and hundreds of appointments in a single day in a city. Managing twenty or more pet sitters and dog walkers at any time of the day takes an entirely different set of skills. Trusting everyone with everything becomes a liability, because even at 20+ workers, you can no longer find people you know very well to help run things efficiently while handling customers and billing. How do you control who has access to what information and which parts of your software so that all your policies are respected, and the pups are in safe hands? Automating staff availability and permissions is the key to a thriving pet sitting business!

Top Pet Sitting Software Tools by Need

In compiling this list, we have endeavored to remain objective and impartial. The list is therefore in alphabetical order. Where applicable, we have also included our Easy Busy Pets platform to showcase the value it offers, providing the functionality of multiple tools for the price of just one. For a full list of top pet sitting software features, click here.

Scheduling & Invoicing (Pets CRM)

Easy Busy Pets
Pet Check Technology

Pet Sitter Plus

Precise Petcare

Scout

TimeToPet by DaySmart

Scheduling & Invoicing (Generic)

Acuity Scheduling
Appointy
Bookafy

Calendly

DoTimely

Mindbody

MyOwnWebsite.com*

Setmore

Schedulicity SimplyBook.me

Square Appointments Timely

Review Management

Broadly
Easy Busy Pets
GatherUp

Grade.us

Podium

Reputation.com ReviewPush ReviewTrackers

TrustSpot

Website

Easy Busy Pets

GoDaddy
Shopify

Squarespace

Weebly

Wix

WordPress

* MyOwnWebsite.com is a product from Click Less Do More Inc., the same company behind the Easy Busy Pets pet sitting software solution.

Pet sitting business software empowers you to focus on the pets, eliminating unnecessary manual operations.

Tailored to ease the lives of small or growing pet business owners, whether they work solo or lead a full team, these solutions accommodate various pet sitting business models such as 30 minute dog walks, cat sitting visit, boarding, overnights, dog hiking, and group dog walks in the park.

When seeking the ideal software, look for one that checks off as many boxes as possible. Among the many useful solutions available, consider Easy Busy Pets, which stands out with its cutting edge next generation features for pet sitting and dog walking businesses.

If you have any questions, we're just a quick call away. Talk to you soon!

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