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Pet Sitting Rate Calculator: How to Price Every Visit From Your Own Numbers
Add sitter pay for the whole time block, the costs that ride on every visit, then divide by 1 minus your margin. Includes a 30, 45 and 60 minute price table, flat add-ons and a notice to copy.
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To price a pet sitting visit, add up what the whole time block costs you (sitter pay, driving, per-visit costs), then divide by 1 minus the margin you want. By the end you will have a price for your 30, 45 and 60 minute visits, plus flat add-ons for extra dogs and medication.
The formula takes about ten minutes to run once. Everything below uses it.
Price by visit length, because that is how clients buy
Clients compare the number on the invoice, not your hourly wage. PetSit.com describes charging by visit length (30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour) as the industry norm, and it makes billing and records simpler too. Build one price per length and stop quoting by the hour.
A plain hourly formula, like the one in Omni Calculator's pet sitter rate tool (rate = cost / (time x days)), is fine for a solo sitter with no drive time. It breaks the moment you drive between stops or pay someone else to do the visit. The five steps below fix that.
The five-step visit price formula
Example: say a sitter is paid $18 an hour, a visit is 30 minutes, and driving, parking and notes add another 15 minutes. Those numbers are for illustration. Swap in your own.
- Time block = visit minutes + drive and admin minutes. 30 + 15 = 45 minutes, or 0.75 hours.
- Labor = sitter hourly pay x time block in hours. $18 x 0.75 = $13.50.
- Per-visit costs = everything that rides along with the visit:
- Mileage: 4 miles between stops x $0.725 = $2.90
- Payroll taxes and fees, say 10 percent of pay: $1.35
- Supplies (waste bags, cleaning wipes): $0.25
- Software share, say a $79 monthly plan spread over 400 visits: $0.20
- Total: $4.70
- Cost per visit = $13.50 + $4.70 = $18.20.
- Price = cost / (1 - target margin). At a 30 percent margin, $18.20 / 0.70 = $26.00.
That is a $26 visit. The $7.80 left over is what pays for your own time, your fixed costs and your profit.
Use the current IRS rate for the mileage line
If you do not track your own cost per mile, use the IRS business rate as a stand-in. The IRS set the 2026 business rate at 72.5 cents per mile as of January 1, and then revised the 2026 rates effective July 1, so check the IRS page for today's figure before you plug it in. The example above uses the January figure.
When your own tracked cost per mile (fuel, repairs, tires, depreciation, divided by miles driven) is higher than the IRS rate, use yours. The IRS number is a tax rate, not a measure of what your car costs you. This is not tax advice.
Get the mileage line from a real day
Add up the miles for one full day and divide by the visits. Example: 28 miles x $0.725 = $20.30, spread over 8 visits is $2.54 per visit. A day with long gaps between stops will cost more per visit than a tight cluster, which is the case for pricing far-out stops higher.
Run it for all three visit lengths
The drive and admin time does not shrink when the visit does. That is why the short visit looks cheap and is not. Same sitter pay, same 15 minutes of overhead, same mileage, same software share.
| Visit length | Time block | Labor | Per-visit costs | Cost | Price at 30% margin | Rounded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 minutes | 45 min | $13.50 | $4.70 | $18.20 | $26.00 | $26 |
| 45 minutes | 60 min | $18.00 | $5.15 | $23.15 | $33.07 | $33 |
| 60 minutes | 75 min | $22.50 | $5.60 | $28.10 | $40.14 | $40 |
Payroll taxes and fees scale with pay, and mileage, supplies and software stay flat, which is why the per-visit costs creep up with visit length.
Check what each hour of your day earns
Divide each price by its time block in hours: $26 / 0.75 = $34.67, $33 / 1.00 = $33.00, $40 / 1.25 = $32.00. The 30-minute visit earns the most per hour of your day because the overhead is already spread over a short block, and the hour-long visit earns the least. So if your 60-minute price sits below the $40 the formula gives you, you are quietly paying clients to book your longest visit.
Decide what to do when the market disagrees
Compare your calculated prices with what other local sitters charge (market rates by visit length are on our rates page). For posted prices by service and region, see our pet sitting rates 2026 data. Then use these rules:
| If this is true | Do this |
|---|---|
| Market rate is above your price | Charge the market rate and keep the difference as margin. |
| Market rate is below your price | Do not copy it. Cut unpaid driving first (tighter routes, a minimum number of visits per area). Then add a travel fee for the far-out stops. |
| A client sits outside your usual route | Price the drive plus the visit as one block, not the visit alone. |
| A hired sitter does the visit | Price from what the visit costs you with their pay in it, not from your own wage. |
The mistake that costs the most is copying the cheapest local rate. You carry that low price on every recurring visit, and recurring clients rarely accept a big jump later.
Price extras as flat add-ons, not a higher base
Keep the base price clean and put each extra on top. A single-pet client should not pay for a multi-pet client's extra time, and a high base price looks expensive next to local rates. PetSit.com recommends listing extras up front in your rate sheet so nothing surprises a client later.
For each extra, estimate the added minutes, multiply by your cost per working hour, then divide by 1 minus your margin.
Example: say your cost per working hour is $19.80 ($18 pay plus 10 percent payroll costs).
- Second dog, 10 extra minutes: 10 / 60 x $19.80 = $3.30. Divide by 0.70 and you get $4.71, so charge $5. Care.com reports that sitters typically add $5 to $10 per extra dog, so $5 sits at the low end.
- Medication, 5 extra minutes: 5 / 60 x $19.80 = $1.65. Divide by 0.70 and you get $2.36, so charge $3 or round to $5.
- Holiday visit: pick a flat amount per visit. Say $8.
- Travel fee: charge it when a client lives outside your service area.
So a holiday 30-minute visit with two dogs and medication prices at $26 + $5 + $3 + $8 = $42, and the client sees every line before booking.
Raise prices once, for everyone, with notice
Hold a new price steady for at least a year, and give at least a month of notice before the next increase, per PetSit.com's guide to setting and increasing rates. Send one notice to every client on the same day. Copy this:
Starting [date], our base visit prices change: 30 minutes $[price], 45 minutes $[price], 60 minutes $[price]. Add-ons stay as listed on our rate sheet. Visits already booked before [date] keep their current price.
Raising prices several times a year with no notice risks the recurring clients who make your route work. Waiting too long is just as bad: costs rise every year, and a flat price quietly lowers your real pay.
Check that your price covers your fixed costs
Break-even visits per month = fixed monthly costs / (price minus cost per visit). Example: say you carry $400 a month in other fixed costs (phone, website, accounting, your own admin time). On the 30-minute visit that is $400 / ($26 - $18.20) = 51.3, so you need 52 visits a month before you are ahead.
If your route does not reach that number, the fix is more stops per area or a higher price. A lower price makes it worse.
What changes when you hire the sixth sitter
Every new sitter adds payroll costs, and the formula above keeps labor honest. The software share is the one line you can control. On a flat plan like Porchlight's Team plan ($79 a month, unlimited staff), the software share per visit gets smaller as visits go up. A per-staff fee does the opposite and lands in your per-visit costs with every hire. What per-seat pricing really costs walks through that math, and hourly payroll for pet sitters covers the pay line.
Your next ten minutes
Open your calendar and pull your last five visits. For each, write down the visit minutes, the drive minutes and the minutes spent on notes and messages. Average the unpaid minutes, plug them into step 1, and run the 30-minute price. If it comes out more than a dollar above what you charge today, you have found the first thing to fix.
Set the price, then let the software carry the rest
A price only helps if the visits get done, recorded and invoiced without extra office hours. Porchlight handles scheduling, invoicing on weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly or per-trip cadences, payroll and proof of service for one flat monthly price, and the 30-day free trial needs no card. Start your free 30-day trial and run your new prices through a real week.
Want your own number? The free pet sitting calculator works out a price per visit, overnight and holiday with the math shown, and needs no email.
Questions
How do I calculate what to charge per pet sitting visit?
Add the visit minutes to your unpaid drive and admin minutes to get a time block, multiply it by the sitter's hourly pay, add per-visit costs like mileage and payroll taxes, then divide by 1 minus your target margin. Run it once for each visit length you sell.
Should I charge by the hour or by the visit?
By the visit. Clients compare the number on the invoice, and PetSit.com describes pricing by visit length (30, 45 or 60 minutes) as the industry norm. Use hours only inside your own math.
Why does a 30-minute visit earn more per hour than a 60-minute visit?
The drive and admin time stays the same whatever the visit length. In the example, a $26 visit over a 45-minute block earns $34.67 per block hour, while a $40 visit over a 75-minute block earns $32.00.
How much extra should I charge for a second dog or medication?
Estimate the added minutes, multiply by your cost per working hour, and divide by 1 minus your margin. In the example, 10 extra minutes works out to about $5 for a second dog. Care.com reports sitters typically add $5 to $10 per extra dog.
How much notice do I give before raising prices?
PetSit.com advises holding a new price steady for at least a year and giving at least a month of notice before the next increase. Send one notice to every client on the same day.
What mileage rate should I use in my visit price?
Use your own tracked cost per mile if you have it. If not, use the current IRS business mileage rate, which was set at 72.5 cents per mile on January 1, 2026 and later revised effective July 1, 2026. This is not tax advice.
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