Sitters can receive tips …it’s not required or expected and can’t be requested by the sitter .
However THS does say that hosts can “leave your sitter a sign of gratitude (like a tip or a small gift) if you feel you want to.
”https://support.trustedhousesitters.com/hc/en-gb/articles/23306467139869-Should-I-tip-my-Sitter
I wouldn’t want THS to take a cut of any tip that the host decided to give the sitter .
THS received £25M in membership fees in 2024. THS expenses in 2024 were £28 more or less. The expenses were salaries for 81 paid staff, facilities and cloud services. Investors in THS covered the losses. That’s the nutshell view. And, no, none of the membership funds went to buying other companies.
I worked for a few companies that had huge revenues but still lost money. Nokia, to name one example.
One of the nicest things about Trusted Housesitters is that each sit is a connection between the sitter and the hosts. We enter their lives, they enter ours. We trust them and they trust us. Money does not enter the conversation. Rare in our world today. While the new Trusted Housesitter’s money exchange is not between sitter and host directly, it does make the entire experience feel different. Not in a good way.
But, it is understandable that Trusted Housesitters may see a difference between a very frequent sitter (we are) and the occasional sitter and perhaps a tiered membership with people who plan to use this frequently and thus pay a bit more at the onset (less credit card fees) , would be a fairer and less creepy way to do this. Per use fee feels like we are just being constantly asked for more.
Clearly there is no way that an increase in fees will make everyone happy, but Trusted Housesitters might want to consider how this per sit fee may discourage one or two night hosts (there seems to be a lot of these) or make frequent sitters feel a bit penalized. This is not good for business. Experienced, well travelled sitters are your best advertisement. We know how to do this and we do this well. Hosts share this with their friends, well travelled sitters share the Trusted Housesitters website with people they meet on buses, trains and their blogs/instagrams (most of us have them). This is likely to encourage people to go off site, explore free sitting sites and you may lose some of your membership.
Again it is not just the dollar amount, but rather the further monetizing of what feels like an organic community just happy to help each other and take care pets.
Of course I always ask if they have a credit card on file at the vet or are they reachable to give a credit card number in case of emergencies. Last year one WG said I would pay for vet bills and they would reimburse me. I told her I will not be sitting for her as I do not pay for vet bills. She said she would be reachable and she will pay for vet bills. I told her since she has it written in the WG that I pay she will have to change it. She did and the sit went on. I drive my car to sits. What about people who do not drive. Do they get on a bus with a sick animal? If people are complaining about the small booking fee do you think they are calling an Uber for 100.00 back and forth and covering vet bills. I read posts where people are saying because of a small booking fee they can no longer afford this site. I wonder if other pet sitting sites have this policy as well. Would they expect their gardener to pay for vet bills if they are not home and they see a sick dog who was left in the yard. The gardener probably wouldn’t even inform the PP and if they did the PP would just say, thank you for telling us and hopefully rush right home. They would not sue the gardener if the dog dies in the interim.
Right. The fear of being sued by a host if home repairs or vet bills aren’t paid is over the top.
No one’s going to get sued if a pet suffers an unfortunate demise during a sit unless there’s gross negligence on the part of a caregiver such as them actually causing the death of the animal. If we’re going to tiptoe in life around the possibility of getting sued we might as well never even step out of the house. A sitter could sideswipe another vehicle on the way to a sit and be sued for damages.
The sitter has no way of verifying if the host actually left a working credit card. Even if they do verify, the card can be closed the next day. There is no security for the sitter. Sure it is better if the host has thought about arranging something, but you will never be able to trust what they say. And the cost of that is in your hands.
I did some digging … and …
There is no official current employee count, however, the estimates are as follows:
The variability in the estimates (213, 262, 298) is (apparently) common among private companies. The consensus, however, places the number well above 200.
They still seem to be short of staff as THS´s CEO is currently promoting recruitment for “cool new roles” on LinkedIn.
You were somewhere in the financials convo with the other guy so tagged you both. No worries, really, I have grown weary of this whole topic and have no interest in talking about it anymore so you are free!
I quickly skimmed it and most major companies indulge in “creative accounting” so I’m not seeing any of those numbers and claims as being anything but their own numbers and claims. I am officially done with this topic and am bowing out of this convo, thanks for playing! Happy sits, Happy Holidays. x
That’s what lawyers put in contracts. It’s a nothingburger.
81 paid staff must be getting paid WELL, then. Cloud services could not have cost them more than 1.5 million at most. Hard facilites aren’t exactly necessary for an outfit such as this one, most can work remotely, and probably do. Soft facilities, not sure what that would encompass for them but it’s not costing them 10 million a year. Numbers are whatever they want them to look like so we’ll never know. I’m super done with this topic and trying to sort out how to mute the whole thing but wanted to respond! Thanks for the input! Happy Holidays
You will have in writing that they left a credit card. That is protection for the sitter. Don’t sign anything at the vet office.
I have not had good luck using AI for these kinds of questions. I tried and followed up by looking at the references which mostly turned out to be speculative marketing materials from marginally adjacent businesses. So I’ll stick with what THS has officially reported to the UK government which was 81 employees as of December 2024.
FWIW, I been involved with well funded, early stage, high tech startup companies. Going from 81 employees to 200+ in a year would have been quite an achievement even with the 100Ms in funding available to those startups. THS has nothing close to the necessary level of funding.
But if your estimates are close to correct, THS is seriously running in the red.
You must have an accounting or finance background, I really enjoy reading your take on this.
It reminds me of a US company whose name I won’t mention but rhymes with Spelothon. They started virtual cycling/spin classes that were meant to replicate a spin studio experience. They were chugging along pre-pandemic but once gyms started shutting down their business exploded.
They assumed everyone would love working out at home once they got used to their product and business would continue to grow exponentially. They assumed the shift to staying/working from home was somewhat permanent. They were wrong.
People couldn’t wait to get back together once they were able. This company was left saddled with so much inventory (they sold the bikes too) that their stock tanked when growth sputtered.
Add to that some bad PR: product recalls and a truly dumb approval of a product placement on a major show where a key character died of a heart attack while exercising on their bike.
It’s a downward spiral they are still trying to recover from.
Sounds similar to THS.
My thoughts as well. With 20 software engineers on staff at the end of 2024, I can’t imagine they are all or even mostly on maintenance. My guess is that they’ve been scrambling to replace what was handed down in the form of a UK cottage industry software to an entirely different thing that scales to support a much larger membership across 100+ countries. That’s no small feat and riddled with risks (not the least running out of funding before getting it off the ground).
Respectfully as someone that has run numerous UK companies summiting wrong accounts to companies house is illegal and can carry significant jail terms for the directors who sign the accounts off.
Of course there are legal ways to pay your offshore company money so your UK company accounts look bad and make a loss. But these payments must be accounted for and I don’t see any large sums being paid to the holding company and then paid to another company.
Good post. I looked at a company recently for an investment partner in Europe. On the face of it a great agency business with a number of blue chip clients on long term contracts and revenues of 17m euros for the last trading year
However digging deep saw this 12 year old business had never made money and in the last year lost over 3m euros due to high staff costs and outsourcing at some cost!
After I had an issue with a fitting cat and a fight between the vet and HO one of my pre sit questions is what if the unthinkable happens during my sit and I need to rush your pet to your vets. I reference my experience and most HO are happy to explain what their preferred solution is as I don’t have the necessary funds to be paying thousands out of pocket expenses to a vet then hope a HO will reimburse me.
True, true. That’s a good point. What I meant was, it would be good if the owner was sent a digital prompt (like via the uber app) to tip their sitter. Without it, most don’t. If prompted, they may be more likely to do so, especially if you already left the sit. The ability to earn some cash would be an incentive for sitters that may create more likelihood of not worrying so much about the extra fees.
I don’t have a problem with increased prices if there is increased value provided.
However, I’ve seen so much incompetence when it comes to simple tech changes that can serve everyone and don’t get implemented, year after year, while prices increase and owners become more entitled in their requests for free labour. I ethically have no interest in supporting anything close to slave labour and honestly, some of these sits are exactly that.
The favoured platform in Australia is Aussie House Sitters. They also have a site in New Zealand and the USA. I truly hope they implement the changes THS refuse to.
It’s not about the service fee for me, it’s about my dignity. My services are valuable and I won’t pay for yours (THS) if they’re not up to scratch. There are endless sits on Facebook and other platforms.
Continuing the discussion from Introducing a booking fee to support every sit:
