I just took out pet sitting insurance today for that very same reason. I can pass on a 5% discount to anyone who wants it. The policy costs just £5.41 a month, (less than a pint of beer!) or £76.74, annually, which is STILL CHEAPER than upgrading from basic to PREMIUM.
4 Likes
I get your point. Live in the now. But to me, this booking fee is a red flag. I saw it happen with a company I worked for for 15 years – Sam’s Club owned by Walmart here in the US. When I joined the company, it was all about supporting their associates and the customers. As time went on, I saw the degrading of the company and its ethical standards sink for profit. When retirement came up, I left.
Sounds like you’re sticking with the program regardless. Time will tell.
2 Likes
The case for the fee is most like related to company finances and the revamp of the software. Doing it by introducing a fee instead of raising the annual cost provides a more differentiated approach, having those who use the service the most pay the most. Not at all a novel approach and quite in line with being a community.
The community thing, if to be taken seriously, obviously must go both ways. Not to the extent that everyone must chip in, but if you expect a community just to be beneficial to you it raises a few questions on whether it actually is a functioning community.
I don’t think the fee is the actual problem, as much as the communication aspect of the rollout. It was definitely not well thought out. If properly introduced I’m confident the uproar would be less, especially if combined with some sort of loyalty program.
I understand the emotional attachment to the service and the personal investment many has made over a long time, but I also feel the response has been unproportional.
5 Likes
In fairness to my op, I made exactly 1 main argument: THS is running in the red. Fix that or nothing else matters!
Thank you for your level headed response. I absolutely agree that the communication is the proximate issue. Had they done a better job communicating the underlying need and how they reached their conclusions, THS wouldn’t have shot themselves in the foot. I’m afraid they are or have run out of time to stop pulling the trigger.
5 Likes
At the root of your question, all platform designs are about improving a product. When successful, improved products eventually generate more value for any enterprise’s backers. A more pressing concern to me is that upgrading/replacing software is a high risk endeavor. Success is far from assured. Software teams can and do burn through huge piles of cash. Software teams have also been known to wander off in the wrong direction while burning that cash.
3 Likes
I honestly don’t think that’s a fair characterization. THS is a victim of its own success. If you read the short blurb @pietkuip linked to from Sunscapers from 15 YEARS AGO, you’ll find a textbook description of one of the most common early stage startup mistakes related to software based products. Based on performance and updates today, the “fix” of 15 years ago is also turning into an unmaintainable morass of code. That result says inept but it’s understandable ineptness given that the founders and leaders of THS are not software developers and yet are dependent on the software expertise of developers..
Companies stumble. They make forward progress then lose ground. They are where they are now and must proceed from there. My guess is that they looked at their burn rate versus their milestones timeline and recognize they will run out of runway at current revenue levels.
1 Like
I was thinking about the fees in relationship to cancelling. I think you might be right that both homeowners and sitters might wait to be really sure before hitting confirm, but I could also see that leading to more harm than good with the delays frustrating both sitters and homeowners.
I agree that so many places don’t survive on subscription alone, but “booking” is the main purpose of the site. It’s like a date/matching site charging for dates. I don’t know personally, but AI tells me they charge for add-ons, not the dates.
I could see a number of a la carte and some per diem add-ons for non-premium members, with premium being an “all-inclusive.” I think if you were reminded about cancellation insurance with a prompt every time, you might take it eventually and/or decide to upgrade. Simiilar with household/personal property etc.
I agree that a lot of the blowback is that whiile THS already has bigger fees than similar housesitting sites, for some of the very frequent flyers it was still a low amount especially with extensions so any pricing increasing/change was going to feel like something never seen before and cause feelings.
I read some corporate fiddle-faddle about “fairness’“ and people who book more should pay more, but I feel that’ isn’t reality. Some sitters and some homes bring more value than others. Someoene experienced with big dogs and willing to take on tough dog sits that might otherwise go unfilled is bringing value and should be encouraged to take a lot of sits, not punished for it. A homeowner with a great apartment, easy sit in a major city is eye candy for potential sitter-members.
If there is a case for the booking fees, they shouldn’t be charged until the sit starts and should be cancelleable before then, like hotel bookings. If I am a homeower trying to book a Thanksgiving sit, and two sitters ask me to cancel them – which happened to me this year – then I don’t want to have examine my credit card statement and deal with customer service to get my refund.
3 Likes
Is this available only for residents of the UK? I’m interested, but live in the US, though I do sit in Europe.
From my perspective, that is poor management. They didn’t build a team of good advisors as they grew. They patched, when they needed to rebuild.
I intended to stay with THS as I’m not offended by the fee or policy changes and the fee won’t apply to me as a Premum member.
But I figured I’d check out other sites in case a large number of sitters leave and I don’t have good applicants. I found a lot of success on 2 others, one free and one only $29 for lifetime membership. I posted a tentative set of dates for next March, got a slew of sitter applicants, and chose one even though the dates aren’t even firm. So I may not renew my THS membership as it may not be necessary.
I have no idea about other countries why would I?
Thanks for your piece. It’s insightful, offering a rational perspective on the debate despite some educated guesses.
Poor rollout: Spot-on criticism of the clumsy communication; better forum engagement could have fostered understanding. It doesn’t justify the fee directly, but a clearer pitch might’ve eased tensions. The ongoing backlash appears to be tied to deeper issues, such as eroding the community’s non-monetary ethos, as evident in online discussions and review sites.
THS Unprofitability: Public data shows $53.4M in 2023 revenue falling short of expenses, with backers bridging the gaps. However, the growth of over 200,000 members in 2023 demonstrates scalability, and the $10M funding raised could also fuel growth, rather than just losses. The fee could help, but we still don’t know if alternatives, such as sub hikes, were given proper consideration.
Software upgrade suspicions: We dont’ have any objective evidence of this, so the rewrite idea is an unsubstantiated guess. If THS provided more transparency, disputes like this might be resolved more quickly.
Subscription-only models: A nod to broader platforms needing fees for viability (e.g., travel/tickets). However, it overgeneralizes by missing niche competitors like MindMyHouse ($20–$ 40/year), Nomador (free basic/premium), HouseCarers ($50/year), and Workaway ($59/year), which thrive without per-sit fees.
Nominal fees and value: Plausible, psychology-backed angle that $12 could boost commitment and cut cancellations; however, the evidence points to higher-stakes scenarios (e.g., $50–100 therapy), and this model also directly contradicts THS’s “equitable exchange” ethos.
5 Likes
Thank you for your well expressed responses. It’s refreshing of late. A few reactions/observations from me…
Unsubstantiated for sure but I consider it an educated guess based on my entire career working in software development at young enterprises. It does not take more than 3 or 4 software engineers to maintain and tweak unstable, garbage software. THS had 20 engineers on staff at the end of 2024. That’s the size of new product development team. We have not seen new functionality added to the THS website or app other than very minor tweaks. More than a year’s software effort is going somewhere not in evidence as yet.
Whether or not any of those alternatives is thriving is entirely unknown. All are smaller than THS. Nomador looks like the closest match but insights into whether anny of those alternatives is thriving or headed for a cliff are entirely absent.
2 Likes
Exactly this. With a membership you can’t actually confirm a sit (unless you have premium), so with a non premium membership all you can do without additional cost is peruse the listings. That’s like if my gym membership only allowed me to stand outside and look in. If I wanted to actually use the equipment there would be an extra charge. I don’t think that booking fees are appropriate for this type of business.
9 Likes
You could apply , contact the host and then make a private arrangement so that neither party pays a fee .
4 Likes
We saw how they went about replacing the messenging part.
1 Like
huh??? NOT TRUE. I have done. 50 times, with a Basic membership.
1 Like
That might be the end for me though I fear it would also be the end of the site. The more they raise the fees the more it ridiculous it becomes for sitters, and the less useful it is for homeowners as sitters leave or the price starts to equal out with hiring someone and paying them directly.
This “race to the bottom” has been happening for years with remote work such as the work toward buiding large scale AI models, where companies like Mercor offer increasing low-hourly “jobs.” I don’t see how this sustains for a pet sitting site that offered a different model than other sites – travel and exchange.
I feel like I know how the move ends. Two years from now an increasingly more expensive but strangely less useful THS will be bought by Rover or something like it and disappear. Sitters will be offered a chance to “get paid” and join the new overlords. Homeowners will be told the “no money” model didn’t work but now they can find more sitters than ever on the new thing.
Many will go with the flow. Many will go elsewhere.
3 Likes
They said membership grew from 70,000 in early 2022 to 200,000 by late 2023. There are a lot of people interested. If I came in now and was told the membership was $250, I would have paid since I have saved thousands in stays while visiting my daughter and the marginal benefit of the last winter and now this winter out of the north. Roll out was annoying but the membership growth numbers show, they don’t care if people leave.
2 Likes