Time To Pet Pricing: What 6 Sitters Really Cost

For a pet sitting company with 6 active sitters, Time To Pet's Team plan works out to $136 a month before texting and card fees, per Time To Pet's billing help page, checked October 9, 2026. By the end of this post you can fill in a five-line worksheet and know your own number, not a rounded guess.

Time To Pet has four plans, and only one charges per sitter

Per Time To Pet's pricing page and the billing help article above, checked October 9, 2026:

Confirm the $5 rate and the Facility price on the pricing page before you rely on them. Plans change.

The word that matters is "active." Time To Pet counts a staff member as active if they have at least one scheduled service in the billing period, and office managers and administrators always count. So your office manager is a seat, even if they never walk a dog.

The Team plan hits $79 at the third active person

Here is the Team formula for up to 25 people: $40 + (active people x $16). Above 25 it is $440 + ((people - 25) x $5).

Example: say you run the numbers on list prices and put them next to Porchlight's Team plan at $79 a month, which does not change with headcount.

This is arithmetic on listed prices, not a quote from either company. At 6 people the gap is $57 a month, or $684 over 12 months of monthly billing. The general version of this math is in What per-seat pricing really costs a pet sitting company.

Two people or fewer, the per-seat plan is cheaper. If you are a solo owner with no plan to hire, a $25 or $50 plan and Porchlight's $35 Solo plan land in the same range, so pick on features and skip the spreadsheet.

Texting is a second charge that scales with your team

Texting is not part of the plan price. Per Time To Pet's texting integration page and its text messages FAQ, checked October 9, 2026, texting is a $10 a month add-on. It includes 250 texts per active staff member. Unused texts roll over, and overage is billed at the end of the month at $0.025 per text. Texting is not available during the free trial, so you cannot test it before you pay.

For 6 active sitters that is 1,500 included texts. Example: say your team sends 2,500 texts in a month. That is 1,000 over, or $25 extra. Every additional 1,000 texts costs $25.

Porchlight includes 5,000 SMS segments a month on every plan, with no overage billing, under a fair use policy. It is a capped allowance, not open-ended texting. Time To Pet counts texts and Porchlight counts SMS segments, so ask each company how a long message is counted before you compare the two numbers.

Card and ACH fees are a third line, and they are not a software charge

Per Time To Pet's credit card rates page, checked October 9, 2026, US companies pay 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment and 1.3% + $0.30 per ACH payment. There is no monthly fee for Time To Pet Payments, and a chargeback costs $15. Above $80,000 a month in processed payments, the page says to contact Time To Pet about discounts.

That is a normal cost of taking payments online. Do not count it against a software price. It depends on how your clients pay, and every processor charges something.

Example: say $10,000 a month comes in over 100 invoices.

• By card: ($10,000 x 0.029) + (100 x $0.30) = $290 + $30 = $320
• By ACH: ($10,000 x 0.013) + (100 x $0.30) = $130 + $30 = $160

Same revenue, $160 a month apart. If most of your clients pay by card and you can nudge a few recurring ones to ACH, that is a real saving whichever software you use.

Fill in this five-line worksheet with your own numbers

Copy it and fill it in.

1. Seats: $40 + (active people x $16) = ____
2. Texting: $10 + (texts above [250 x active people]) x $0.025 = ____ (if you send fewer texts than included, the overage is $0)
3. Card fees: (card revenue x 0.029) + (number of card payments x $0.30) = ____
4. ACH fees: (ACH revenue x 0.013) + (number of ACH payments x $0.30) = ____
5. Software total: add lines 1 and 2. Keep lines 3 and 4 as payment costs.

Then compare the software total to $79.

For the 6-sitter company above, with 2,500 texts: line 1 is $136, line 2 is $10 + $25 = $35, and the software total is $171. With the sample card volume, lines 3 and 4 add $320 if every payment is by card. Show them next to the software total, not inside it.

Count active people from last month's schedule, not this week's

Time To Pet bills at the end of the billing period based on usage, so the count that matters is everyone with a scheduled service in that period. Count from last month's calendar, add the office manager and any admin, and then work out the bill for one more hire and three more.

Four mistakes that make the comparison wrong

• Comparing the $40 base with a flat price. You miss the per-person charge. The real bill at 6 people is $136, not $40.
• Leaving out office staff. Admins and managers always count as active, so your headcount is probably one or two short.
• Counting only this week's active sitters. The billing period is the unit. A sitter who covered two visits still counts.
• Treating Facility as a Team plan with a different name. If you run boarding or daycare, Time To Pet sells that on the $79 Facility plan, so the per-person math changes. Ask what Facility includes first. Porchlight includes boarding and daycare in its plans.

When to stay with Time To Pet

Per Porchlight's own comparison page, Time To Pet is stronger in facility and boarding depth, QuickBooks maturity, and brand trust and community. Porchlight has no public customer count or reviews yet. If the worksheet shows a small gap and you depend on one of those strengths, stay.

If you have 3 or more active people, expect to hire again, or your texting regularly runs past the included amount, the flat plan is the lower number on list prices. Porchlight's 30-day free trial needs no card, so you can load your own clients and test a full visit before you pay.

If you decide to move, How to Switch From Time To Pet: Export, Dry Run, Cutover walks through the export and the dry run. How long an import takes depends on how much data you have.

Next step for the next ten minutes

Open last month's schedule, list everyone with at least one scheduled service, add your office manager, and put the count into line 1 of the worksheet. Then write down the number for one more hire.

Run the flat price on your own data

If the worksheet says you are paying more every time you hire, test the alternative with your own clients and pets. Start free for 30 days. No card needed.