What you are actually buying
A training business website has a harder job than most pet sites, because it serves two different people. One has a twelve week old cockapoo and wants a puppy class starting soon. The other has a two year old rescue that lunges at other dogs on the lead and wants somebody qualified to help, quickly. They arrive with different urgency, different budgets and different questions, and both want to know your methods before they hand over a card.
The bands below are what the market charges to build something that separates those two routes and books both.
Band 1: the booking platform's page, or a builder template
TeamUp, Bookeo and Acuity all give you a public booking page with your class list on it. Squarespace and Wix give you a template with a photograph of a border collie catching a frisbee.
Cost: nothing to low hundreds, on top of the platform you already pay for.
You get: a way to take a class registration and a phone number.
You do not get: a domain of your own ranking for puppy classes plus your town, a page that explains your methods and qualifications, a behaviour route with an intake questionnaire, prices for consults and packages, or anyone to call when the timetable stops updating.
Right for: a trainer in their first season, filling classes from the vet noticeboard and a local Facebook group.
Band 2: a template site, $800 to $2,500
A theme with your branding, a page about classes, a contact form and a link out to booking.
You get: something presentable with your name on it.
Usually missing: a live class timetable rather than a PDF; behaviour consults treated as their own service with intake; a methods and qualifications page that survives a sceptical read; prices for consults and packages; speed on a phone; hosting in your name.
Right for: a trainer whose classes fill from word of mouth and who wants a business card online.
Band 3: a purpose-built training business site, $2,500 to $6,000
Built around the two routes. Two clear entries on the first screen, one for classes and one for behaviour help. A class timetable pulled from TeamUp, Bookeo or Acuity showing the next start dates, places left and the venue, with registration in the same flow. Behaviour consults booked as appointments with an intake questionnaire attached, so the history arrives before the session does. A methods and qualifications page written plainly, with your assessments, memberships and continuing education named. Prices for classes, consults and packages. Trainer profiles. Online consults and courses where you offer them. Google reviews near the buttons. Fast on a phone, structured data, tracking, everything in your name.
You get: a site that ranks locally, answers the methods question before it is asked, fills a course of six weeks in a single evening and turns a behaviour enquiry into a booked consult with the history already collected.
Not usually included: photography and copy unless the quote says so.
Right for: an established trainer or a small school running classes at one or two venues alongside one to one work.
Band 4: multiple venues, schools and academies, $8,000 and up
Several venues with separate timetables, more than one instructor with their own diary, membership or course-based access to online material, or a training business attached to daycare and boarding where the site has to sell two very different things to the same owner.
After launch
- Hosting: managed WordPress at $20 to $50 a month, or often free on a framework host, in your name.
- Domain: small, annual.
- Booking platform: whatever you already pay TeamUp, Bookeo, Acuity or Square Appointments.
- Maintenance: a care plan at a modest monthly fee, which is where course dates, prices and profiles get kept current.
- Photography: half a day at a class and at a consult, with owner consent for the dogs. Real photographs of your hall, your equipment and your handlers do more for a training site than any stock image, because a nervous owner is trying to picture the room.
Where the band 3 money goes
- The timetable as live data, showing next start date, places left and venue, rather than a PDF that is three courses out of date.
- Two booking routes, class registration and behaviour appointment, tested separately on a phone including the Instagram in-app browser.
- The intake questionnaire attached to the consult booking, covering the dog, the history, the vet and what has been tried.
- The methods and qualifications page, which is the single page that wins the clients you want and filters out the ones you do not.
- Prices for classes, consults and packages, held as editable records.
- Speed, local search foundation and tracking of registrations, consult bookings and call taps by page.
Judging a quote
Ask six things. Is the class timetable live from my booking system or a file I have to replace. Are behaviour consults a separate route with an intake form. Is there a methods and qualifications page. Are prices for classes, consults and packages included and editable by me. What is the mobile speed target. Whose name is the domain and hosting in. A quote that cannot answer those is a template quote whatever the number says.
Where this sits
Our dog training and behaviour websites sit in band 3 at a fixed price, with the two routes, the live timetable, the intake questionnaire and the methods page included, and the wider approach is on the pet business page. If your site is in band 1 or 2 and every behaviour enquiry still arrives as a long email with no history in it, the number to weigh against a rebuild is how many of those enquiries became consults.