I’m curious what other people use as their “strategies” for timing their posts seeking sitters.
When we leave, it is generally for one to three weeks. Our strategy for seeking a sitter is to post it about 7 weeks in advance, leaving about a week to gather applications then select an applicant. We figure that gives the applicant about a week lead time to seek out the best fares if he/she is flying to Austin (where we live).
In the past, we almost always received at least four high quality applicants, and deciding is difficult for us.
This last time, we had only one applicant. Fortunately, they have great reviews, so we interviewed them and invited them to sit for us.
So… as I mentioned above, I’m curious (1) what strategies you folks employ, and (2) did something change in the market that caused us to only receive one applicant this time around?
I think you’d be eliminating a number of potential sitters by leaving it so late. Of course, you need only one sitter, so maybe you can get away with that.
In your place, I’d post the sit as soon as your plans are solid, say three to six months out if possible, potentially giving you a bigger pool of applicants.
Personally, I have a Texas sit booked a few months out. And I doubt I’d ever accept a sit in Texas only a month away. I’d do that only for more typically popular locations, because they’re harder to get.
Hi there,
Sounds like you leave your self an okay amount of time to find a sitter, but it certainly help to post earlier.
There’s no guidelines for when to post, and usually it just comes down to each individual’s needs and (sometimes) how organised they are with leaving enough time to find a sitter. Most hosts post a few months in advance (2 - 6 months or so), though some have cancellations or situations in life where they post last minute (and sometimes still mange to find a sitter)and others post a whole year or more in advance. It really just depends on their needs and circumstances. In general though, the earlier the better.
In terms of gaining less applicants, your listing link is currently not working, so I can’t see your listing. Here’s how to add it:
There can be many reasons why you received less applicants, from time of year, to sit length & location, to what your responsibilities are. In general, the narrower your needs and who you’re looking for, then the narrower the pool of interested sitters will be. But in the end, it’s not about how many applicants you have, it’s about finding the right match (and it sounds like you have ).
As sitters, we’ve confirmed sits for up to a year in advance, and we’ve also had sits confirmed only 2 - 3 weeks in advance! It really just depends what date & location we’re looking for and what’s available that we’re interested in.
Just 7 weeks??? That’s fine if you’re only planning your own break 7 weeks ahead of time, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case in your scenario.
You’re ruling out a whole chunk of brilliant sitters, the ones that get booked up fast because they have a ton of reviews and fantastic comments.
You’re also missing out on the sitters who would happily return to sit for you in your particular location, because they get booked up fast too.
We return to sit in two different locations/countries where our family lives, and the owners we’ve sat for know that, so they book us well ahead of time, to ensure they get us before our diary gets fully booked. They know they can rely on us time after time, it’s much easier for them to have a sitter that their pets already know and have bonded with, and who already knows everything about their location and home.
If your location is in a high demand, then you’ll probably receive great applications anyway, but don’t leave it to chance if you know your dates ahead of time.
I think the best tactic is, if you know your dates, post them. We’ve had two bookings in for 2026 since last year.
@TexasTed
As a sitter, I have to agree with the other comments about posting earlier. As sitters that travel the world full time, we normally book well in advance. Due to some uncertainty in the rest of the year, we aren’t currently booked but normally would be booked well into year. Many of us full time experienced sitters do the same so by waiting, you are limiting that pool of sitters.
Dan
For a 2-week trip in mid-April we posted in early December and confirmed a great, very experienced sitter and her sons soon after. But in late February she had to cancel for a totally legitimate reason. She was gutted because it was her first ever cancellation. We reposted and quickly confirmed a new sitter. The longer the time between finding a sitter and the start date, the higher the chances that something will come up to throw a spanner in the works. Same with a long sit — something might happen to either party during it. Next time, I will still post months ahead but will ask if there is any scenario on the confirmed sitter’s end that could possibly cause them to have to cancel. And establish a date by which they should get in touch if they have any doubts no matter how faint. Likewise on our side.
I agree that posting your dates and confirming a sitter at least 3 months ahead for longer sits is ideal. Sits of 1-2 months should be booked 6 months ahead.
But, for sits that are less than one week, in general, posting your dates 6-8 weeks ahead of the sit is fine.
I am surprised how many newly posted sits that I see that are less than one month away. These owners are not setting themselves up for success.
Sitters should not accept/confirm sits unless they are 100% confident that they can do it. Unexpected emergencies are just that, unexpected emergencies. These should be the only reasons to renege on your commitment.
This is a pivot from the other replies you’ve received; I am not a full-time sitter, but unless I were looking at a sit abroad, I would be hesitant to commit to anything more than 4-6 weeks out. I have 600+ favorites saved and out of the 47 currently accepting applications, one is in June, two in July, the rest are requests for March, April and early May
Wow, those observations certainly attest to the fact that most owners don’t plan very far ahead! Very interesting…
I wish owners planned farther ahead, but it just goes to show that everyone is different! Looks like the majority of Owners like to plan only for the next 2 months. I must be an outlier; I like to plan many months ahead.
I was wondering this as well. In looking at the answers it seems that, as with so many things in life….everyone is different.
Part of me wants to post as soon as my plans are solidified, but part of me thinks I’m being a bit over anxious in posting super early. I guess there’s no real disadvantage to it. I know some sitters don’t like to commit too far ahead, but again…..we’re all different.
As a homeowner I always used to list my sit 5-6 months ahead and always got good applicants. As sitters, my husband and I plan about a year out ahead. We currently are fully booked (with sits both on THS and off-platform) until January 2026.
We seem to get lots of panic invitations to sits where clearly HOs haven’t planned ahead and are desperately seeking sitters at short notice. I know that sometimes a situation arises where pre planning isn’t possible, but there’s just too many of them for that to be true all the time.
No, we’ve found the total opposite. 90% of the owners we’ve sat for message us privately ages in advance of their dates to see if we are free or asking when we are free, and the sits are organised with private invites.
So in @mdarden1x 's case, 600 less 47 could have organised things via a private invite, ie potentially 553 owners organised things sooner rather than later, but it’s hard to say without looking at a whole year of stats, rather than 6 months, but still, given just 47 was during part of the holiday season, the likelihood is that people plan ages ahead of their dates.
We are sitters as well and don’t like to plan too far ahead. We have only 5-star reviews and are also available on short notice when everything fits. So it’s not true that good sitters always plan far in advance and are no longer available if you post it closer to the departure date. You can still find very good sitters even shortly before leaving. In the end, it just has to be the right fit.
Good point. It would be interesting to see some real statistics. You would think that THS would study this for their own analysis and could share the data.
I wish listings would have the date that they were posted on them. It would be another clue to help sitters!
If hosts knew that posting earlier might get them better results, they might start doing that more. THS could offer such guidance if applicable data wise, even without revealing actual numbers if it would prefer not to as a business.
Typically, many companies — especially startups — are tight with their data. No point making it easier for competitors to work against them. Or to do work / gather data / do analysis or collect learnings, which cost companies, and then to make it available to competitors for free.
My sits are usually 1-7 weeks in duration (with at least one 5-7 week sit per year). I never post a sit until I have purchased my flights, which generally means 2 months out.
The one exception is when I had a 12 day sit over the end of year holidays - I posted that sit either 4 or 5 months in advance.
I see lots of posts saying “you’re missing out on so many great sitters!” - but the only sitter I’ve had who wasn’t excellent was the holiday one posted months in advance - but that’s a super competitive time. TBH, unless I had a repeat sitter that I knew wanted to come to my area over the holidays, I’d rather just not deal with it.
Obviously, if it becomes more difficult to get good applications, I will rethink it, but so far this is working. I’m not flooded with applications like I was the first year (my location is saturated with sits), but I do get more applications that are a good match. My last sit only had one applicant, but the sitter was fantastic. For my upcoming sit, my first applicant looked so stellar that I paused applications until I could do a video call.
The reason I list relatively late is that there are too many variables before flights are purchased. Too much chance for something to change on my end - or on the sitter’s.
I don’t think posting earlier is guaranteed to get better sitters. It’s simply likely to get you more applicants, so you have more choice. Hosts still need to do due diligence.
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