This is a new one on me. Not THS. I know a lot of you do some compensated petcare. I do some dog-walking and cat drop ins compensated for neighbors. A new potential “client” contacted me about puppy sitting two goldendoodles who are pad trained at this point for 5 hours this Friday evening. Which I could do. But I’m trying to figure out a rate. Any ideas hive mind?
Puppy sitting meaning spending the evening in their home with the puppies, or they come to yours?
I would check Rover for rates in your area but I would guess $30-$40 per hour in my area, with a surcharge for puppies under a year old on top of that.
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I go to them 5 hours. It seems crazy to charge a “per hour” as that would be a lot.
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Cleaners charge £18ph x2 puppies are a bigger responsibility so I’d charge £25 an hour.
You can certainly charge a flat rate but 5 hours is a lot and 2 puppies can be a lot. I would check Rover for an overnight rate and discount that by a little.
Really if the puppies can hold it 5 hours, they should just have someone stop in once for a half hour potty walk/play break and they should be able to stay alone the rest of the time. So if they want 5 hours of continuous attention on the pup it shouldnt be inexpensive either.
I did my first paid sit on Saturday via Rover. It was for 5 hours, although they could have had 24 hours for the same price. It wasn’t for a puppy but 2 year old Cockerpoo. £40, but I get £34 as Rover takes their cut. I worked out my charge by taking the average of 40 local sitters’ charges. If I’d had 2 dogs the second would have been an extra £30
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The biggest question here Marion is what is YOUR time worth? We women are notorious for undervaluing ourselves. Don’t aim too low 
and if they think a bit expensive they can always negotiate.
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I would find out how many hours they can hold it and propose two visits at 20-30 minutes each, depending what they need. I in Connecticut, US, and charge $20/visit for about half a hour regardless of what’s involved, or $30/hour. During that time, you might replace puppy pads, take them outside if the owners want that, play with them, feed and water them, cuddle them, etc. I have had the rare client ask me to spend several hours with their pet, and since I’m not spending time and gas money doing more than one trip there and back I give them a break - like maybe $100 for the whole five hours. I have owned a pet sitting business for over 20 years.