Enter your sitter's quoted rate and booking details to estimate the total cost for visits, nights, days, or hours of pet care.
Advanced options
Table of contents
How to use our Pet Sitter Rates Calculator
- Choose the pet-care service that matches the quote: a basic care visit, dog walk, overnight stay, day sitting, or hourly care.
- Enter the quoted rate, the number of billed visits, nights, days, or hours, and the number of pets included in the booking.
- Open Advanced options only for charges listed in the quote, such as an extra-pet fee, a repeating add-on, a one-time fee, or a holiday surcharge.
- Click Calculate. Check the estimated booking total first, then check the itemized charges to make sure a repeating fee was multiplied and a one-time fee was added only once.
- For basic visits, dog walks, and overnight stays, use the PSI 2024 US reference as a national comparison only; the sitter's written quote is the amount to confirm before booking.
Definitions
Pet-care service: The service named in the sitter's quote. It sets whether the rate and booking quantity are counted by visit, night, day, or hour.
Quoted rate: The price for one visit, night, day, or hour before optional charges.
Extra-pet fee: A charge for each pet after the first that repeats for every selected service unit.
Other recurring charge: A non-pet charge that repeats for every visit, night, day, or hour.
Once-per-booking charge: A fixed fee added one time for the whole booking.
Holiday surcharge: A percentage added to recurring service charges. It does not apply to the once-per-booking charge.
Pet Sitters International (PSI) 2024 US reference: A national comparison amount shown for supported service types. It is not a local price quote.
Common mistakes and quick fixes
Mistake: Entering days when the sitter quoted a rate per visit.
Fix: Choose the matching service and enter the number of billed visits, nights, days, or hours.
Mistake: Treating an overnight stay as 24 hours of hourly care.
Fix: Use Overnight stay for a per-night quote. Use Hourly care only when the quote actually bills by the hour.
Mistake: Entering an extra-pet fee only once when it applies to every visit or night.
Fix: Put that amount in Extra-pet fee. The calculator applies it to each pet after the first for every selected service unit.
Mistake: Putting a key pickup or booking fee in Other recurring charge.
Fix: Enter a fee charged once for the whole booking as a Once-per-booking charge.
Mistake: Adding both a holiday percentage and a flat holiday fee without checking the quote.
Fix: Enter only charges the sitter lists, and confirm whether each holiday charge is a percentage or a fixed amount.
Mistake: Treating the PSI 2024 US reference amount as a guaranteed local price.
Fix: Use the estimated booking total for the entered quote. Treat the reference amount as a national comparison, not a final price.
Limitations & Key Assumptions / Boundary Conditions
- The estimate depends on the service, rate, quantity, pet count, and charge rules in the sitter's quote.
- Extra-pet fees and other recurring charges are treated as charges that repeat for every selected service unit.
- The holiday percentage applies to recurring service charges only, not to the once-per-booking charge.
- Tips, platform fees, taxes, cancellation fees, travel charges, medication fees, and emergency charges are excluded unless you include an applicable amount in an available field.
- Day sitting and hourly care do not receive a PSI 2024 US reference because this calculator has no matching reference rate for those services.
- A national reference can differ from a local quote because service scope, dates, sitter experience, and location can affect pricing.
Methodology
Calculation method
The calculator keeps the billing unit from the sitter's quote. A per-visit rate is multiplied by visits, a per-night rate by nights, and the same rule applies to days or hours.
base service charge = quoted rate * booking quantity
extra-pet charge = (pets needing care - 1) * extra-pet fee * booking quantity
other recurring charges = other recurring charge * booking quantity
recurring service subtotal = base service charge + extra-pet charge + other recurring charges
holiday surcharge added = recurring service subtotal * holiday surcharge / 100
estimated pet-sitting booking total = recurring service subtotal + holiday surcharge added + once-per-booking charge
average cost per selected service unit = estimated pet-sitting booking total / booking quantity
Worked example
Suppose a booking has 4 basic care visits at $30 each for 2 pets. If the extra-pet fee is $5 per visit, another recurring charge is $2 per visit, the one-time charge is $10, and the holiday surcharge is 10%, the recurring subtotal is $148. The holiday surcharge is $14.80, so the estimated booking total is $172.80.
Reference comparison
For basic care visits, dog walks, and overnight stays, the calculator also multiplies the matching PSI 2024 US reference rate by the booking quantity. The comparison is the estimated booking total minus that reference amount. A positive difference means the calculated quote is higher, and a negative difference means it is lower.
Calculation rules
Blank optional charges count as $0. Nonblank optional charges must be valid nonnegative numbers. Visits, dog walks, and overnight stays use whole booking quantities; day sitting and hourly care can use positive decimal quantities. The calculation prices only the charges entered and does not determine what services a sitter's quote includes.
Sources
- Pet Sitters International: 2024 State of the Industry Survey service rates. The US averages are $25.49 per basic visit, $25.63 per dog walk, and $96.99 per overnight visit. These are survey benchmarks, not local quotes.