Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. The Playbook — every article, guide, and KPI breakdown — is entirely free, with no courses to buy and no paywalls to hit partway through. The App's core OPERATE tier is free forever too, covering scheduling, clients, and payments; paid tiers only add extra modules on top of that free base. Nothing here is a lead-in to a hidden upsell. Read about the App →

They haven't gone anywhere — the content and the App itself simply moved under one roof. PetBizApp is now the App pillar here on PetBizOwner, and PetBizPlaybook is now the Playbook pillar, alongside two brand-new pillars: Buy & Sell and Partners. Consolidating them means one login, one search, and everything a pet business owner needs cross-linked in one place instead of scattered across separate sites. Explore the pillars →

PetBizApp is in active development right now, being built by someone who actually runs a pet business day to day rather than a software team guessing at the workflow. Early access is rolling out to the waitlist first, in batches, before any public launch. Joining the waitlist doesn't commit you to anything — it just means you'll hear the moment access opens for you. Join the waitlist →

Not yet. Rather than launch a placeholder list of logos, the Partners pillar is being built out with real, useful content first — the kind of comparisons and guidance you'd actually want before choosing an insurance provider, accountant, or software vendor. Join the Playbook newsletter to be notified the moment the first vetted entries go live. See the Partners pillar →

Tony Bacon — a former Metropolitan Police officer who left that career to build and run Scritches Pet Services, a real, operating pet care business. He still owns and runs it today, which is why the Playbook, the App, and everything else here comes from things that have actually been tried, not textbook theory. That firsthand experience is also why some advice here may differ from generic small-business content you'll find elsewhere. Read his story →

Follow START, a free six-stage guided launch checklist that walks through Foundation, Pricing & Money, Field Setup, Marketing Launch, Getting First Clients, and Hiring in order. Each stage has its own progress tracking and links to real downloadable resources — templates, checklists, and calculators — so you're not starting from a blank page. You don't need to sign up for anything just to browse it. Start the checklist →

The Resources page hosts every downloadable currently available — pricing calculators, legal templates, hiring frameworks, and operational checklists — organized by category so you can find what's relevant to where you are right now. Downloads are free; the only step involved is a short form to receive the file itself, there's no separate paywall or membership behind it. New resources are added regularly as new topics get covered. See all resources →

Screening matters more in pet care than in most service businesses, because sitters are given house keys and left alone with people's animals and homes. At minimum that means a real criminal background check, identity verification, and calling actual references rather than just reading them off a resume. The full article walks through the specific checks worth running and a few red flags that are easy to miss during a quick interview. Read the full guide →

Your first visit's price sets client expectations for everything that follows, so pricing it too low just to win the booking tends to create problems later when you try to raise rates. The right starting point depends on your local market, the specific service — drop-in vs. overnight vs. walking — and what your time is actually worth once travel and prep are factored in. The full breakdown walks through a practical way to land on a number instead of guessing. Read the full guide →

A sole proprietorship is the default if you do nothing — simple to set up, but it gives you zero legal separation between your business and personal assets if something goes wrong. An LLC costs more to form and maintain but shields your personal savings, car, and home from most business liabilities, which matters more once you're routinely inside other people's houses with their pets. The full guide compares the real costs and protections of each so the decision is based on your actual risk exposure, not just convenience. Read the full guide →

Rebooking without a prompt almost never comes down to luck — it's usually a handful of specific, repeatable habits around communication, consistency, and how the small things that go wrong get handled. Clients notice whether you show up on time, whether you proactively update them mid-visit, and whether problems get resolved before they even have to ask. The full post breaks down the concrete habits that build that kind of trust over time. Read the full guide →

Most pet businesses need one, but a lot of free templates floating around online miss clauses that actually matter — like what happens if a pet is injured, escapes, or damages property while in your care. A good waiver also clarifies what you're responsible for versus what's outside your control, protecting both you and the client from misunderstandings later. The full post covers what a genuinely useful waiver should include, beyond generic boilerplate. Read the full guide →

Local search is one of the highest-leverage marketing channels for a service business like pet sitting, since people searching for a sitter nearby are already close to ready to book. The fundamentals include a properly filled-out Google Business Profile, consistent name/address/phone details across the web, and genuine local reviews, rather than just a keyword-stuffed website. The full post walks through the specific steps in rough order of impact. Read the full guide →

A tight onboarding process front-loads the questions and paperwork that prevent problems later — pet medical info, house access details, emergency contacts, and clear expectations on both sides. Skipping this and figuring it out visit by visit is one of the most common sources of early-relationship friction with new clients. The full post lists what a complete onboarding checklist should actually cover before the first visit happens. Read the full guide →

Sitter utilisation rate measures how much of your team's actual available capacity is being booked, versus how much is sitting idle. It's easy to feel busy while actually running well under capacity, and this KPI is what exposes that gap so you can fix scheduling or marketing before it quietly costs you revenue. The full post explains exactly how to calculate it and what a healthy range typically looks like. Read the full guide →

Treating your recurring clients like a subscription base, rather than one-off jobs, changes how you plan cash flow, staffing, and growth targets. MRR gives you a predictable baseline to build on, separate from the lumpier one-time bookings that are much harder to forecast month to month. The full post explains how to calculate it for a pet sitting business specifically and why it matters more than total monthly revenue alone. Read the full guide →

First visit conversion rate tracks what percentage of your meet-and-greets actually turn into paying bookings. A low number here usually points to something specific and fixable — pricing presented at the wrong moment, a weak in-person pitch, or attracting the wrong kind of lead in the first place. The full post explains how to track it and what to look at when the number is lower than it should be. Read the full guide →

Client retention rate is one of the strongest predictors of whether a pet business survives and grows, because keeping an existing client is far cheaper than acquiring a new one. A business constantly replacing lost clients with new ones is working much harder than it needs to just to stand still. The full post breaks down how to calculate retention properly and what counts as a healthy benchmark for this industry. Read the full guide →

Revenue per active client is a simple number — total revenue divided by active clients — but it reveals your real growth ceiling in a way total revenue alone hides. Two businesses with identical revenue can have very different futures depending on whether that number is growing per client or only growing because of constant new client acquisition. The full post explains how to use it to spot opportunities to grow without needing more clients. Read the full guide →

Most owners hit the same handful of breaking points around the same size, usually somewhere between 10 and 40 sitters — scheduling that used to work on a spreadsheet stops working, quality control gets harder without the owner personally checking every visit, and communication that used to happen informally needs actual systems. The full post covers the specific lesson learned scaling to 40 sitters and what to put in place before hitting that wall. Read the full guide →

Underestimating quarterly tax payments is one of the most common and most painful mistakes new owners make, because the bill doesn't show up until it's already too late to plan around it. A rough starting point is setting aside 25-30% of net profit, though the right figure depends on your state, business structure, and other income. The full post walks through how to calculate a more precise number for your own situation. Read the full guide →

This classification isn't a preference — it's determined by how much control you actually exercise over how, when, and where the work gets done, and getting it wrong carries real legal and back-tax risk. Treating someone as a contractor while controlling their schedule and methods like an employee is one of the most common compliance mistakes in this industry. The full post explains the practical tests that determine which classification genuinely applies. Read the full guide →

Key and home access control is one of the highest-trust, highest-risk parts of running a pet care business, since a lost key or a badly labeled key tag is a real security and liability problem. A watertight SOP covers how keys are logged, labeled without identifying the address, stored securely, and returned or destroyed when a client relationship ends. The full post walks through building a system that still holds up as your team grows. Read the full guide →

There's a right way and a wrong way to communicate a price increase — giving real notice, briefly explaining the reason, and framing it around the value clients already receive tends to hold onto far more clients than a surprise change with no context. Clients rarely leave over a reasonable increase itself; they leave over how it was communicated. The full post covers the specific approach and timing that minimizes churn. Read the full guide →

If every booking, every problem, and every decision has to pass through you personally, you don't own a business yet — you own a demanding job with extra steps. Getting out of that trap usually means documenting how you actually do things so someone else can do them too, then deliberately handing pieces off even when it feels faster to just do it yourself. The full post covers where to start untangling that dependency. Read the full guide →

Scheduling is one of the core modules, built around how pet sitting and dog walking businesses actually book work — recurring visits, last-minute requests, and multiple sitters on the same day — rather than a generic calendar bolted onto unrelated software. The goal is to remove the manual juggling that spreadsheets and shared calendars create once you have more than a couple of sitters. The full post covers what the scheduling module handles specifically. Read the full guide →

A lot of tools claim to be all-in-one loosely, then still leave you exporting data between three other apps to actually run the business. The full post breaks down what six real modules under one login should cover — scheduling, client management, payments, communication, reporting, and team management — so you can evaluate any tool, including this one, against a real standard. Read the full guide →

Switching software mid-operation is disruptive to your team and your clients, so it's worth checking a specific list before committing rather than switching twice. That includes data migration support, whether your team can actually learn it quickly, and whether it handles your specific service mix, not just generic scheduling. The full post covers the questions worth asking any vendor before you commit. Read the full guide →

Free tools like spreadsheets, group texts, and free-tier calendar apps aren't actually free once you count the time spent manually reconciling them and the errors they create — double bookings, missed payments, and information falling through the cracks. Those costs are invisible on a bank statement but very real in hours lost each week. The full post breaks down what that real cost tends to look like as a business grows. Read the full guide →

There's a specific point where manual tracking breaks down — not because spreadsheets are bad tools, but because the coordination overhead of keeping multiple sitters, multiple clients, and multiple schedules in sync manually grows faster than the business itself. Past a certain size, the time spent maintaining the spreadsheet starts competing with the time spent actually running the business. The full post explains why that threshold tends to land around 15 clients and what to do instead. Read the full guide →

A client portal lets clients book visits, message you, and pay invoices without the back-and-forth texting that eats up an owner's evenings. It also gives clients a self-serve place to check visit updates and history instead of asking you directly every time. The full post covers how the portal is designed to work for a pet sitting or dog walking business specifically. Read the full guide →

Buyers look past top-line revenue to specific operational and financial signals — how dependent the business is on the owner personally, how clean the books are, and whether client relationships are documented or exist only in the owner's head. A business that runs the same with or without the current owner present is worth significantly more than one that isn't. The full post covers what actually moves a buyer's confidence. Read the full guide →

Valuation isn't just a flat multiple of revenue — profit margin, client retention, owner dependency, and the mix of recurring versus one-off work all move the final number. Two businesses with the same revenue can be valued very differently based on how healthy and transferable that revenue actually is. The full post explains how these factors combine in practice. Read the full guide →

Messy or commingled books are one of the fastest ways to kill buyer confidence, because they make it impossible to verify what the business actually earns versus what's being claimed. Clean financials signal that the business is run professionally and that the numbers being presented can be trusted. The full post explains what 'clean' actually means in practice and how far in advance to prepare it. Read the full guide →

The structure of the deal changes the risk and tax picture for both buyer and seller — an asset sale lets the buyer cherry-pick what they're acquiring and generally carries less liability risk for them, while a stock sale transfers the whole entity, history included. Most small pet service business sales lean toward asset sales for exactly that reason. The full post covers what's typical and why. Read the full guide →

Due diligence covers far more than the financials — it includes client contracts, staff classification (contractor vs. employee), insurance history, and whether the client relationships would actually survive an ownership change. Skipping any of these can turn a good-looking deal into a costly surprise after closing. The full post walks through what buyers actually dig into before signing. Read the full guide →

This depends on your goals, energy, and where the business is in its lifecycle — a business that's plateaued because it's maxed out under the current owner's involvement might be worth more to someone with fresh capital and energy than it is worth continuing to grind through alone. There's no universally right answer, only the right one for your specific situation. The full post walks through the decision framework. Read the full guide →

A handful of recurring issues scare off buyers or tank a valuation fast — commingled personal and business finances, no documented processes, key clients on informal handshake terms, and heavy owner dependency all rank near the top. Any one of these can stall or kill a deal that otherwise looks strong on paper. The full post covers the top five and how to fix them well before you list. Read the full guide →

Pet sitting businesses get valued a bit differently than other service businesses because so much of the value sits in sitter relationships and client trust rather than physical assets. Buyers weigh sitter retention and training documentation almost as heavily as the financials, since losing sitters after a sale can gut the business fast. The full post explains how that plays out in practice. Read the full guide →

A few specific metrics drive most of the number buyers land on: recurring revenue percentage, client retention rate, profit margin after true costs, and owner dependency. Businesses that score well across all four tend to command a real premium over ones that only look good on revenue alone. The full post covers which metrics to track well before you consider selling. Read the full guide →

Insurance is one of the first things that protects you personally from business risk — a single incident involving an injured pet, property damage, or an accident during a visit can create liability far beyond what most new owners expect. Without coverage, that risk sits entirely on your personal finances. The full post explains why it's genuinely non-negotiable, not just a nice-to-have. Read the full guide →

Bookkeeping mistakes compound quietly until tax time, when a year of small errors turns into a much bigger, more expensive problem to untangle. An accountant also catches deductions and structuring decisions most owners wouldn't know to look for on their own. The full post explains why this isn't a task worth doing entirely DIY forever, even for a small operation. Read the full guide →

The wrong software choice creates years of workarounds and manual patches that quietly cost hours every week, even if the sticker price looked cheap up front. Switching later is disruptive, so getting this choice closer to right the first time matters more than it seems early on. The full post covers what to actually look for before committing to a vendor. Read the full guide →

There's a point where DIY bookkeeping starts costing more in missed deductions, time, and error risk than a CPA would cost to hire — usually once you have employees or contractors, multiple revenue streams, or are approaching a level of complexity a spreadsheet can't cleanly handle. The full post covers the specific signs it's time to make that switch. Read the full guide →

A P&L tells you far more than just whether you made money — it shows which services are actually profitable once real costs are allocated, and where expenses are quietly creeping. Most new owners only check the bottom line and miss the more useful detail sitting above it. The full post walks through how to actually read one, line by line. Read the full guide →

There's more than one type worth carrying, and the right mix depends on your specific services — general liability, professional liability (sometimes called care, custody, and control coverage), and often vehicle coverage if you're transporting pets. Missing any one of these leaves a specific, predictable gap. The full post breaks down what covers what. Read the full guide →

A short list of habits prevents most of the common financial messes — separating business and personal accounts, tracking every expense as it happens rather than reconstructing it later, and reconciling monthly instead of once a year at tax time. None of these require accounting expertise, just consistency. The full post covers the basics every owner should have in place from day one. Read the full guide →

It depends on your risk exposure and how you're structured, but most owners benefit from at least one attorney review of their core contracts and waivers, even if they don't need ongoing legal support. A single bad clause discovered after an incident is far more expensive than the review would have cost upfront. The full post covers when it's genuinely worth the spend. Read the full guide →

Coverage needs vary by service type, and gaps are common — a dog walking business and a boarding business have meaningfully different risk profiles and need different coverage to match. Buying a generic small-business policy without checking it actually covers pet care activities is a common and costly mistake. The full post breaks down what and why, service by service. Read the full guide →

Yes — a simple framework and calculator built to price your services so they actually reflect the value of your time, not just what feels reasonable to charge. It walks through the inputs most owners forget to account for, like travel time and prep. Free to download, no strings attached beyond the form itself. Get it free →

Yes — a worksheet built to help you set aside the right amount each quarter instead of guessing and getting caught short at filing time. It walks through the inputs that affect the number, so it's tailored to your actual situation rather than a flat percentage. Get it free →

Yes — a ready-to-use P&L template built specifically for a pet service business, with categories that actually match how this industry earns and spends, rather than a generic small-business template. It's designed to plug straight into monthly review. Get it free →

Yes — a template covering the essentials for engaging sitters as independent contractors, including the clauses that help support that classification if it's ever questioned. It's a starting point, not a substitute for a lawyer reviewing your specific setup. Get it free →

Yes — a release form template for using client and pet photos or video in your marketing, covering what you're allowed to use and where. Getting this in writing upfront avoids awkward conversations later when a great photo turns into a marketing asset. Get it free →

Yes — a foundation checklist covering the essentials to have in place before you take your first client, from business structure to insurance to basic paperwork. It's built to work alongside the START launch checklist rather than duplicate it. Get it free →

Yes — a pet sitting service agreement template covering the standard terms clients should agree to before their first booking, including cancellation policy and liability language. It pairs well with the separate liability waiver. Get it free →

Yes — a classification guide covering how to tell which applies to your sitters based on the actual control test, not just what's convenient. Misclassifying workers is one of the more expensive mistakes to fix after the fact, so this is worth reading before you hire. Get it free →

Yes — an IC hiring framework covering how to source, screen, and onboard contractors properly, including the paperwork that supports correct classification from day one. It's built to reduce the guesswork in your first few hires. Get it free →

Yes — a field-ready kit checklist covering what sitters should have on every visit, from basic pet first-aid items to the paperwork and access details they might need on the spot. Useful both for solo owners and for onboarding new sitters consistently. Get it free →

Yes — a checklist covering the essentials for launching your marketing, from Google Business Profile setup to the first-review push that gets local search working in your favor early. Built to be worked through in order rather than all at once. Get it free →

Yes — a dashboard template covering the core metrics worth tracking, including several of the ones referenced throughout the Playbook, like utilisation rate and client retention. Meant to replace scattered spreadsheets with one place to check business health. Get it free →

Yes — a new client onboarding checklist covering what to gather and confirm before the first visit, from pet medical details to house access and emergency contacts. Designed to prevent the most common early-relationship problems before they start. Get it free →