Is the price right?

How much should you charge for your pet sitting business services?

In setting the prices for your pet sitting business there are many factors that you should use in calculating fees for your pet sitting services including: what the market will bear, what you want in order to make a modest profit, what you need to make to and sustain basic operations, and what customers will consider a fair price that will keep them coming back to your pet sitting business startup. So, as you organize your startup pet sitting e business, you need to look at how your pet sitting services should be priced. Ask yourself, how much should my basic pet sitting services cost? How much additional should I charge for multi-pet households? What should I expect to be paid for extra services such as plant care or mail retrieval? Are there simple services I can throw in to my pet sitting business at no charge that will help keep customers? (Be careful here – every service no matter how small takes time away from potential money making services).

What does it cost you to do business? First, look at your fixed expenses – this is your pet sitting business start up bottom-line requirement. Calculate your costs for telephone, advertising, printing, insurance, supplies, and vehicle operations. As your pet sitting home business grows, you will also include labor costs into fixed costs. The total of fixed expenses is a place holder number in your calculations that will help you identify how many clients, paying how much, your pet sitting startup needs to survive.

The next two cost items are variable. How much do you need to make for your labor? If your pet sitting home business is your only source of income, figure out what you need to be making. If you plan on beginning your pet care business as a sideline to another job, calibrate what you want to make in the fewer hours you will have available to work. Finally, in developing your pet sitting business plan, include a reasonable profit, usually somewhere value between 15% and 35%. Add the fixed and variable costs – this is your goal.

Bringing money in – your pet sitting business startup’s fee structure. Of course you have to work to reach your goal. You need to get clients and charge reasonable fees for your pet sitting services. But, how do you determine what to charge? I recommend that you begin by investigating your competition and potential referral sources to find out what are acceptable or expected charges for pet sitting home business services in your market place. Contact local veterinarians, kennels, and other pet sitting businesses to establish what is being charged. Have a checklist of questions about fees in order to develop an accurate comparison picture of the local pet sitting business market. When I began collecting market information, I learned that not everyone was willing to share fee information upfront with me. However, by asking only one fee-related question per call to another pet sitting business, I was able to build a good picture.

In your eagerness to get your pet sitting home business going, remember that no service is really free – everything takes time and time is potentially money. It is very difficult and unpleasant to later begin charging a client for a service you have been giving for free – so I recommend not offering free services. If a client failed to mention their bird, or their gerbil, or their fish tank – offer to take care of those animals for a modest additional cost to their current contract for services.

Now that you have the basis of a fee structure, you can calculate the client numbers required by type of service offered that your pet sitting business startup needs in order to reach your goal.

A final word of advice: I do not believe in offering coupons or discounts – although you may decide differently when starting your pet sitting business. I believe that you should consider your service valuable and you will expect to be working hard to provide a quality service. You should NEVER feel uncomfortable about expecting to be paid fairly for your pet sitting services.

John A. Corey created his own highly successful pet-sitting business, Critters Choice and is the author of Pet Sitting Success: The Critters Choice Way. His goal is to share the hands-on knowledge he has gained over the last 19 years, which makes it possible for others to avoid many of the common pitfalls all pet sitting startups experience and quickly move on to achieving success.