A publicly traded company is more demanding and must satisfy its shareholders, who have higher profitability expectations, particularly through dividend payments. The pet-sitting market is large and can be divided between large and small businesses.
If pet owners don’t know any other alternatives, it’s understandable that they stay on the platform. Switching providers requires research and the courage to switch to a new, up-and-coming platform. The free first year offer can help them take the plunge.
I’ve signed up with two start ups, both for free. Cost me a little in time an labour, will be interesting to see how it plays out. I want the feeling of being a member once again.
THS is privately owned rather than publicly traded, isn’t it?
Yup, privately held. And even many public companies don’t pay dividends.
Since I joined several years ago I have cultivated my own small local pet sitting business that pays. I’ve only been using THS to find places I would want to travel to & would rather stay with furkins than at Airbnb’s. I have repeat sitters happy to go off the book. I will just miss the opportunity for the sits far away. Does anyone know if you rejoin if w/ the 20% off if it hooks back up to your original profile?
@MeggieJ yes if you rejoin, supposedly after 2 years but definitely after one year (I’ve done it) your profile and reviews, everything, is still there. You don’t lose anything.
Are you sure? Because I was thinking of taking a break and trying other sites that are free or less and none have the new fee. But I don’t want to lose my history. I have read different things about this.
@Maoli I guarantee it!
@Maoli If you do take a break, you could-just to be on the safe side- screenshot all your reviews (and profile description too if you wish) as back up- just incase! I started screenshotting reviews a couple of years back when we were temporarily suspended. I was worried that if our account was terminated completely we’d lose all our hard earned reviews. In the end all was OK but I have continued to Screenshot reviews anyway.
Thank you! I will do this. I don’t see anything in writing about data being kept for 1 year or 2 years only reports by members and that can vary perhaps when a system purge is done or whatever. I wonder if screenshots of reviews will be viewed as genuine the originals though.
Screenshots are not the same, and may not be regarded as genuine, but it is better than losing those hard earned reviews completely! I’ve also noticed that at least 3 of my previous hosts have, at some point since our sit, cancelled their Accounts, not just letting their membership lapse, but actually formally cancelling it and requesting their data be removed. This therefore includes all reviews they have given. The stars do remain, so you do not lose your review count, but the nice written comments are gone. Fortunately I had already made Screenshots so I still have copies of those reviews that are now gone. Those type of reviews, once deleted, are gone forever, whether you take a break or not. So I’d still screenshot all your reviews anyway, whatever you end up doing!
You can ask THS to send you your data. It can take up to a moth but if you’re still a member, they will.
Another option is to sign up on a free platform and transfer your reviews. There’s some information on how to do it on another thread
Yes I found one that does that and joined it already and got my reviews from here posted there. But it isn’t a very busy site as far as finding sitters goes. I’ve had some success but not like here.
Sure, I just suggested it as an option to keep your reviews for a while until THS sends you the file and in case they don’t save them for two years as some claim.
I haven’t been able to find that “promise” on the site and when I let my membership expire I got a warning that all my profile and reviews would disappear. They didn’t but I only was off site for 2 or three weeks.
@Jenny is there much point in keeping this thread open? THS don’t monitor the forum to “hear” our feedback. We certainly have not heard anything back from them. This thread (and the one before it with 1000+ comments) is like whistling into the wind! It’s very demoralising.
People sometimes just want to vent and be listened to even if nothing will change.
Just ask my wife.
I agree with all this
But I also think
I would even say that, given the biased moderation applied in some threads, it would be healthy to keep it open.
I have been a premium member since almost the beginning of my membership over three years ago, I haven’t even used THS since renewal at the beginning of 2026 and still have to refrain myself from writing a complaint every day in this thread! 
I can only imagine the impact on legacy members.
Hi @Crookie
I don’t think it would be in the Community’s best interests to close the discussion, though I do appreciate and understand where you’re coming from.
The Forum team always makes a point of capturing feedback and sharing it where we can, so there’s every chance for community voices to be heard further down the line.
Constructive criticism is always genuinely welcome.
Jenny 
Reading through this extremely long and very active forum thread, what comes through to me is that THS is completely uninterested in solving discontent within their community. There is really nothing these moderators can do and there is nothing their superiors, upper management nor Executives care to solve. The decision to charge booking fees to the sitters is 1000% financial and done without true consideration of what the effect would be. My sense is even if they had the foresight to know the depth of these responses they would still have made the decision. Recently I had a direct back and for the with about 8 emails regarding the subject and the responses were all rote and company line rhetoric. No true understanding or care at what is at the core of this.
The truth about this site is that it provides owners with an invaluable service for an amazingly modest price. The owner can plan a trip(s), vacation, personal or business, repeatedly through the year for a modest membership fee and a paltry booking fee. They do not have to pay a pet care service 50-100 per day to care for their pets and in most cases they get great care for their homer; plants watered, mail retrieved, trash put out and brought in, yard poop picked up, the safety that someone is in the home to protect from any theft, and when they come back, the home is often cleaner than when they left it, and on top of all that they get their prized pets taken care of by caring proven pet sitters who send photos and texts and love their pets for them while they are gone without any care or personal responsibility of the above care. That is worth hundreds if not thousands depending on the length of their trip. What does the sitter get? Well, the sitter may want to travel and may want to stay for free, and although they truly love pets, they must still “work” for their stay doing the above “chores” for the lucky homeowner saving tons of money. The trade off for the sitter is just a free place to stay where they have to work for their room and board. On top of that work the sitter pays the same membership fee and the same booking fee. The exchange between owner and sitter is clearly not balanced at all. SO, this is why the sitters here are all angry, upset, indignant, in an uproar and some leaving. Because they are not valued as the “commodity” on this site. The value is not the bogus free stay for the sitter, the value on this site is clearly the FREE sitter. If you can’t show the value to the sitter by charging a lesser membership fee and NO booking fee, then YOU THS have zero understanding of your own website. The owner should pay a higher membership fee and ALL of the booking fee. Simple. You keep great strong sitters who aren’t suddenly awakened that they aren’t valued and being exploited, and won’t leave to sites and services that pay them or value them better than THS.
We already know the response to this post. They shouldn’t even bother. Whatever the “moderator” or bot responds will be nothing knew and will not be an answer any of us sitters will find helpful. After thousands of comments and responses, you’d think there might be a change of some kind. However since there hasn’t been by now, there won’t be anything coming in the future.
The rise and fall of a good idea.
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