THS do whatever they want for $$
A one off payment would cover the second sitter verification - no need for a monthly charge.
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Once I became aware they were beta testing the overlap with duo sitter accounts, I did not expect it would be free. I figured there would at least be a fee to get the second sitter verified, but more likely an increase in the overall membership fee.
My husband and I have been sitting 11 years and we actually never did overlapping sits all that often but I decided to get the add on because I figure it couldn’t hurt to have the option.
Now that there is an option to have both sitters verified, it remains to be seen whether that will give double-verified accounts–especially US sitters who get background checked– a leg up over those who choose not to do that.
I understand being annoyed by the extra fee but if they are now offering a feature that is not available to all members, if they didn’t charge extra for it, I am sure there would be lots of complaints from people who sit solo that it isn’t fair all members have the same pricing if they don’t have access to all the same benefits.
So it would either be reducing the fee for single accounts, making less money, or increasing the price of duo accounts, making more money… not a tough one there.
Memberships of many kinds cost more with two people rather than one so that approach is not unreasonable by any means. But obviously it not being like that for so long, it is understandable for people to be annoyed.
At the end of the day, even the highest level membership is relatively inexpensive–perhaps a couple of nights in a mid-range hotel or one night in a higher end one in the areas where membership is most common. Even the most part-time of sitters can easily recoup this cost.
And as far as the perks of premium membership, there was never any indication that any new feature would automatically be applied to this tier free of charge.
It is understandable that people may not be happy with all aspects of how a business is run, but the reality is that THS does not have any meaningful competition and until it does, many people may feel dependent on it to some extent. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be members any longer and they wouldn’t be here complaining about them, sometimes quite frequently.
Of course it is fine to air grievances in the forum as that is part of their purpose–there are certain things I don’t like–but if THS factors heavily into your housesitting adventures, as I am sure is the case for many people, you just have to roll with the changes, knowing that over time they will probably continue making tweaks to the service that may raise the prices.
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Adding fees and features is common for many platforms. It takes upkeep whenever elements are added, and how to recoup and profit are up to each company.
Businesses are run to make money, which isn’t surprising. How many of us work, run businesses, etc., without considering how to make more over time?
Of course, users can opt out of using certain features or choose to not renew. Since THS has no strong competition, it has greater leverage than most companies.
And FYI, at various businesses, having customers complain a lot and yet stick are actually signs of engagement. If customers didn’t value the service or product, they wouldn’t be sticking around and complaining — they’d typically just move on.
My last word on the topic (thank goodness I hear you say)!
We don’t do overlapping sits, never have and never will I don’t have an issue with other members doing it responsibly.
Previously members could overlap as part of their membership. That option was taken away from them and now they can pay to have the option back. Not a one off payment to cover the verification but a monthly fee.
THS stated the reason for stopping overlapping sits was pets were being abandoned and the same sitters were getting all the sits.
Now it is fine as there is money to be made. It is the sheer hypocrisy that annoys me.
Tiered membership was the thin end of the wedge. I expect more ‘new’ charged initiatives in the future.
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The information that I received from THS was that it’s a yearly charge ( not monthly ) of £17.88 to add someone to U.K. membership .
Also you can change the person that you sit with whenever you want for no additional charge - ( they also get verified )
Seems that different messages are being sent out to different people ??!
Just to add to the oddness, we haven’t been offered it at all? We probably wouldn’t do it as we don’t do back to back and has never come up as an issue so far. One member said they were quoted $2 a month, another said $3.75 a month, yours is a yearly figure. You do have to roll your eyes when as @Twitcher says, it was taken away as an option because of the “risk to pets” 18 months ago and now suddenly it’s okay to do it. #doublestandards
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The difference now is that with duo sitting, the hosts will know and presumably can cancel if they’re not comfortable with it. Previously, hosts wouldn’t know if the sitter hid an overlap from them. And now, only duo sitters can do it, versus previously, when anyone could. Presumably, such precautions will help keep pets safer.
I know at first glance, the feature can appear to be just some ‘cash grab’ and while of course they were going to monetize it, I really think the primary intention was to bring back a feature that many people were mad about being taken away.
I remember when it first happened, the feedback on the forum was to a similar level of the ‘5 app rule.’ A lot of people were very unhappy with it, felt that is was an over-correction and felt very strongly that people sitting as a pair should not be subject to that restriction.
While I can’t know for sure, I imagine the instances of pets being abandoned were by single sitters. While it is possible that two people could do the same thing, it is less likely.And now that THS will send hosts official notifications about overlaps, it is no longer possible to to do this without their knowledge.
By just granting the option to accounts with two members, and sending hosts official notifications so they are in the loop, they are now allowing sitters the flexibility they felt they were entitled to while addressing one of the key problems initially which was hosts potentially not being told.
I get being annoyed about having to pay extra, I was a bit too. But I did not expect they would just add it back for free. Like I mentioned before, it is very commonplace for membership fees of all kinds to be based on the number of people using the service. The only problem here is that it was introduced after a long time of it not being that way, so I get that people aren’t happy about that.
For people who don’t think they will use the service, they don’t have to–it would have been very easy for them to at the very least require verification of the second member and charge a one-off fee for that. I think leaving that optional was a good thing.
For those who may want to use it, but will not pay more money out of principle, that is a choice they are free to make as well.
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Hello,
I just wanted to pop on and confirm that the duo-sitter fee is paid yearly, rather than monthly.
It’s advertised as being “x amount yearly, which is the equivalent of x amount monthly”, but members will be asked to pay for the yearly amount when purchasing. That being said, it will be pro-rated if there’s less than 12 months left on the membership, and prices will vary depending on the member’s currency.
Looking at the numbers mentioned by @cuttlefish, one of them is 2EUR per month (see confirmation from @avocadotoast and also the screenshot from @skylos above) and the other one is 3.75USD, rather than two people getting different prices in the same currency.
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Explain please? I or no one else paid to be in the Beta Group.
2 euros and 3.75 USD are not equivalent. 2 euros is equal to $2.32 right now. $3.75 a month is $45 for the year, 2 euros a month is 24 euros for the year or $27.85. Not roughly equivalent. $45 a year on top of the membership fees seems like a lot for this ‘feature’. I know in the US they would need the background check, but that’s a one time thing.
I meant turning it into a test group for a new feature that has now become monetised for the full membership. Not for the group itself, that was the carrot. Now we have the stick 
#joking
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$1.99AUS per month or $23.88AUS per year which works out approximately at $15.50US, £11.54 or 13.35 euros.
Which to me seems absurdly unfair to the first HO. They arranged sitters, thought they were good to go, then TH springs a message on them forcing them to either cancel the sit and (potentially) scramble to find a new sitter or keep the sit with an overlap that they might not be comfortable with but now have to accept. How can TH possibly think it is fair to the first HO to just casually change the terms of the sit like that?
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I’d think it would be more likely that the first host has a veto-like choice.
If that is the case, then the second HO is the one who gets to think they found sitters and are good to go, only to find out that, nope, first HO has declined an overlapping sit so you’re out of luck.
Either way, TH is putting one or more of the HOs in an unpleasant and unfair position.
But TH help just says they’re informed. Nothing about being able to decline the overlap.
“When an overlapping sit is confirmed, both pet parents will receive an email notification so they’re fully informed.”
I haven’t used the feature, since I’m not a host. If I were to design it logically, I wouldn’t give the sitter the ability to surprise the second hosts by accepting and then finding out that their sit was affected by a pair of duo sitters.
If I were a host, I’d simply have a discussion at the outset about who’s going to be at our sit and whether they’ll stay the whole time or what, and go from there. Or if it made me uncomfortable, I might just note in my listing that my dates aren’t flexible or I’m not open to sitter duos with overlapping sits.
If THS designed the feature badly, problems will crop up quickly and they’ll need to adjust. That’s often the case with companies and features.
Bigger picture, few sitters probably will use the feature, because it’s open only to pairs and because most sitters don’t stack sits. You can easily see that by looking at sitters profiles. Most sitters do it only sporadically.
Memberships are different prices for different nationalities. US and Swiss (and Singapore) members pay more. Aussies pay less. I had a fun time with a VPN once seeing the quite significant differences.
Hello!
I checked in with the team with regards to pricing differences between countries, and this is the feedback that I got:
”As a global network, our yearly membership prices vary from location to location based on the needs of the platform.
It is also important to note that we have local competition, which drives market pricing based on region, along with different margins and taxes in different regions.”
If you’ve any more questions or concerns around this, it might be worth reaching out to Membership Services directly.