Pet Boarding Software Without a Facility Plan Fee: Who Needs the Extra Tier

Porchlight has no facility plan and no facility fee. Boarding and daycare come with Solo at $35 a month and Team at $79 a month, and by the end of this guide you can price your own bill and decide whether you need a deeper facility tool at all.

If you are a sitter or walker company that also takes some boarders, one flat price is usually simpler. If boarding is your whole business, read the Time To Pet section before you decide. It is the stronger tool for facility depth, and Porchlight's own comparison page says so too. The details of what Porchlight includes are on its boarding and daycare page.

Boarding is included in both Porchlight plans, with no add-on tier

You get the same boarding tools on Solo ($35 a month, owner only) and Team ($79 a month, unlimited staff): rooms and runs, capacity checks, a waitlist, vaccination checks, a daily ops board and stay invoicing. There is no per-seat charge and no feature paywall on those core tools. Prices are on the pricing page, and the 30 day trial needs no card.

That covers a sitter company that adds a few overnight stays or daycare days. It does not turn Porchlight into a kennel management suite, and it does not claim to.

Time To Pet also offers boarding, and its Facility plan is the deeper option

Time To Pet lists four plans on its pricing page: Lite, Solo, Team and Facility. Its billing help page describes Facility as the plan for companies built around daycare, grooming or boarding. Solo and Team are described as including daycare and boarding too.

So the fair way to put it is this. Time To Pet has a dedicated tier for facility businesses. Porchlight has no such tier, because boarding is in every plan. If you run many runs, several locations or heavy daycare operations, the dedicated tier exists for you, and Time To Pet is stronger there.

Pick your tool with this rule

The rule behind the table: when boarding is a side service, pay for one tool that does everything at a flat price. When it is the business, pay for depth.

Here is who should stay on Time To Pet or start there. If you run a facility with a long list of runs, play groups and daily ratios, you will outgrow the boarding tools in any sitter-first product, ours included. Porchlight's own comparison page concedes that Time To Pet is stronger in facility and boarding depth, along with QuickBooks maturity and community. Porchlight also has no public customer count or reviews yet, so use the trial and your own bookings as the proof, not our word for it.

Price your own bill in 10 minutes

Write down one monthly total for each tool at your headcount, for the plan that includes your services. Use this formula:

Monthly cost = base plan + facility plan (if it is separate) + per staff charges + payment processing

Payment processing and per staff or per location fees are the lines people forget, and buyer guides such as PocketSuite's pet daycare software comparison tell you to add them up before you compare quotes.

Example: say you run 6 active staff. On Time To Pet's Team plan, as checked on its pricing page on 2026-10-08, that is $40 plus 6 x $16, which is $136 a month. Porchlight Team is $79 for 6 staff or for 40. The staff charge is where the gap comes from, not boarding. The full math is in what 6 sitters really cost on Time To Pet Team.

Then do the add-on check for any tier that costs extra. Example: say an add-on tier costs $80 a month and you charge $55 a night. $80 divided by $55 is about 1.5, so two extra boarding nights a month cover it. That tells you the fee itself is rarely the issue. What matters is whether the depth is something you will use.

Test boarding with an expired vaccine before you trust a feature list

Buyer guides agree on the same checklist: booking, vaccination records, capacity and waitlist. Every tool says yes to all of them. A trial shows who means it. Run these five steps in the free trial of any tool:

1. Add a test dog with a rabies date that has already expired. Try to book a stay. A good tool blocks it or flags it.
2. Fill one run for a weekend. Try to put a second dog in the same run for the same nights. You want a clear conflict warning.
3. Request a stay on a night that is full. Check that it lands on a waitlist and that you can see how someone gets told when a space opens.
4. Close the stay and send the invoice. Nights, add-ons and daycare days should show as separate lines.
5. Open the daily ops board on your phone and check you can read who arrives and who leaves today.

If you would still keep a paper list for vaccines or the waitlist after the trial, that tool does not fit. Guideflow's kennel software guide also notes that some boarding software caps the clients or employees you can register, so ask what the limit is at your size.

Four mistakes that make the bill bigger than the quote

• Comparing headline prices only. A tier that looks cheap can grow once staff and payment lines are added. Add every line, every time.
• Buying facility depth for three boarders. You pay for room management and ratios you will never open.
• Choosing a light tool for a busy kennel. You run out of features mid season and pay again to switch. Be honest about which business you are.
• Skipping the export. Whatever you pick, ask how you get your data out. Porchlight exports every table as CSV and JSON, and the guide on exporting clients if you leave pet sitting software shows what to ask any vendor.

Your next 10 minutes

Open a note and list last month's boarding nights, daycare days, visits and walks. Next to it, write the monthly total each tool would charge for your staff count. If boarding is under a quarter of your revenue and the totals are close, start the trial on the flat plan and run the five step test above with one real booking. If boarding is closer to half your revenue, run both trials side by side and compare the same week of bookings in each.

Try boarding on your own bookings

Porchlight's Solo and Team plans both include boarding and daycare, with no facility fee. You can set up a room, take a test stay and send the invoice during a 30 day trial that needs no card. Start free for 30 days.