What a fees page has to answer
An owner choosing between two practices and a yard manager budgeting for eighteen horses ask different questions of the same page. The owner wants to know what a vaccination visit costs on their own doorstep. The manager wants to know how a shared visit is split and what happens at eleven at night.
A page that answers both is four blocks: the visit fee, routine work, emergency charging, and yard terms. Build them in that order.
Block 1: the visit fee, by area and route day
This is the number owners cannot find anywhere and the one that decides the booking. State it as it is actually charged: a visit fee for the journey, whether it changes by postcode area or distance band, and whether it drops when you are already in the area on a route day.
That last line is the one that changes behaviour. An owner who reads "the visit fee is lower when we are in your area, and we are around Long Marston on Tuesdays" books a Tuesday, which is exactly what the route wants. Put the route-day map or the list of areas and days beside the fee rather than three pages away, and link it to the booking so the choice is one tap.
Say what the visit fee covers and what it does not: the journey and the time on the yard, not the procedures. Owners guess, and are annoyed either way when they guess wrong.
Block 2: routine work, priced or banded
Vaccinations, dentistry, routine bloods, passport work, shoeing sets, trims, remedial packages. Where the work is genuinely fixed, publish the number. Where it varies, publish a band with the reason beside it, because a band with an explanation reads as honesty and "price on request" reads as a phone trap.
The shape that works is a table with the service, the fee or band, and a short note. For a farrier, a set of shoes, a trim, front shoes only, studs, remedial or surgical work, hot versus cold shoeing where you offer both. For a vet, a first vaccination course against a booster, a routine dental against one needing sedation, a five stage vetting against a two stage.
Two things to keep straight. Say whether prices include tax, and say whether medicines and consumables are included or added. Sedation is the single most common surprise on an equine invoice, so give it its own line.
Block 3: emergencies and out of hours, charged honestly
This is the block most sites skip, and it is the one that generates the worst conversations. State the out-of-hours callout fee, or the band it falls in, and when out of hours starts. Say whether the fee differs at weekends and on holidays. Say whether non-registered horses are seen and what that costs. Say how payment works at the time, because an owner who has to find a card at two in the morning should know beforehand.
Then link the block to the emergency page rather than repeating the guidance. The fees page states the money; the emergency page states the route.
Block 4: yard accounts and shared visits
Give yard managers their own block, or their own page if the practice has more than a handful of yards. How a shared visit fee is divided when four horses on one yard are seen in one call. Whether the yard is invoiced as one account or each owner separately. Payment terms, what happens when an owner leaves the yard owing money, and who signs. This is the difference between a yard manager forwarding your link to eighteen owners and ringing three practices instead.
Build it as records, not a hand-typed page
Fees move, usually once a year and sometimes twice. A table typed into a page needs a developer, so it goes stale and the site quotes last year's number while the invoice says something else. Build each fee as a record with fields for the service, the amount or band, the tax treatment and the note, and let the page render from them. Someone in the practice edits a field and the page updates.
Keep the source of truth in the practice software, ServiceM8 or Jobber for farriers, Provet Cloud or ezyVet for vets, then write the site's table from it rather than the other way round. When the estimate on the site and the invoice from the system agree, the money conversation is over before it starts.
What not to do
- A single "from" number with no visit fee.
- Fees on a downloadable PDF, which nobody opens on a phone in a stable.
- Prices that contradict the practice management system.
- A fees page with no link to book, so the owner has to go looking.
- Claims about being cheaper than named competitors.
Regulator expectations on transparency and fair advertising differ by country, and the RCVS in the UK and state veterinary boards and AVMA guidance in the US all speak to honest client communication. Treat that as orientation rather than legal advice, and have your own adviser check the wording of terms and cancellation lines.
Where this sits
Stated visit fees, routine work priced or banded, honest out-of-hours charging and yard account terms are four of the things we build into an equine vet and farrier website, and editable price records run through the rest of our pet business websites too. Our own packages are on pricing. A yard manager cannot budget on a number you will not publish, so they budget with someone who will.