The unit you are actually selling
A groomer sells a groom. You sell a recurring slot in a van and a route. That difference is why so many dog walking prices pages read badly: they publish one number for a walk, then leave the owner guessing about the things that decide what they actually pay each month, which is how many walks a week, whether the dog goes in a group or on its own, and what happens in school holidays.
Build the page around the real unit. Start with the per-walk rate, then show what a normal week costs, then handle the exceptions.
The table that does the work
One table, sizes of commitment down the side, walk type across the top.
Down the side: a single ad hoc walk, two walks a week, three, four, five. Across the top: group walk, solo walk, and puppy visit or shorter lunchtime call if you run one. Fill the cells with the price per walk at that frequency, and put the weekly total in small text under it.
Owners do the sum in their head badly and then panic. Doing it for them is the single highest-value thing on the page. Someone comparing three walkers wants to know whether five group walks a week is a figure they can live with, and they want to know it on a phone before they fill in anything.
State the walk length beside each column. A sixty minute group walk and a thirty minute solo walk are different products and the price only makes sense next to the duration.
Group and solo, priced and explained
Do not just charge more for solo. Explain in two sentences each what the dog gets. Group: how many dogs maximum, how they are matched, transport, where they go. Solo: one dog, lead work, reactive or elderly dogs, dogs still settling. Then the price.
The maximum group size belongs in the table itself, not buried on another page. It is the number nervous owners screen on, and stating it plainly filters out the owners who wanted a two-dog cap when you run four.
Packages, and why blocks beat contracts
Most walkers sell either a lower per-walk rate for a set weekly commitment, or a block of walks bought up front. Both work on a website. What does not work is a page that implies a contract without saying so.
If a discounted rate depends on a minimum number of weeks, say so in the same cell as the price. If a block of ten walks expires, say when. If regular clients hold a fixed slot and ad hoc clients fit round them, that is a genuine benefit of committing and it deserves a line.
The extras, priced separately
Under the table, a plain list with a price against each:
- Bank holidays and Christmas period, with the surcharge and the dates
- Additional dog in the same household
- Key collection, key cutting or a lockbox
- Solo transport for a dog that cannot travel with others
- Vet runs or an emergency visit
- Travel outside the core area, if you charge for it
Every one of these is a conversation you currently have by text. Written down once, it stops being a negotiation.
Say what changes the price
Three or four sentences near the table. Dogs that need a solo walk after assessment. Puppies on shorter visits until a certain age. Two dogs walked together at a household rate rather than double. A minimum notice period for cancelling a regular slot without charge. Owners are not put off by this; they are put off by finding out in month two.
Make the site and the software agree
Set the services and rates up in Time To Pet, Pet Sitter Plus, Scout or Precise Petcare first, then write the table from what is in the software. An owner who reads a price, has the meet-and-greet, and then receives a first invoice that matches has had the whole relationship confirmed before you have walked the dog twice.
Where your tool bills monthly in arrears against completed visits, say that on the page. Monthly billing is a selling point against walkers who chase cash weekly, and it removes the most common enquiry of all, which is how do I pay you.
Keep the table editable
Rates move, usually once a year and usually in January. A price table hard-coded into a page needs a developer, so it goes stale and the site quotes last year while you charge this year. Built as records with a field for frequency, walk type and price, you edit the cells yourself and the page updates. Announce the change with a dated line above the table for a month, and the increase lands as information rather than a surprise.
What to leave off
Do not publish a per-mile travel formula; nobody works it out. Do not publish rates for services you would rather not sell. Do not write "prices on request", because the owner reading it has two other tabs open and one of them has a table.
Where this sits
The frequency table, the group and solo split, the extras list and the editable price records are all part of a dog walker website as we build it, and the same pricing pattern runs through our other pet business websites. The packages that include it are on pricing. The table will not stop every price enquiry. It will stop the ones where the owner was never going to book anyway.