What you are actually buying
A pet sitting website has a harder job than most small business sites. It is not selling a haircut. It is asking a stranger to hand over a house key and the family cat for a fortnight while they are on a plane.
So the site has to do three things at once: prove you are safe to let into a home, state what a visit costs and what it includes, and get the meet-and-greet in the diary before the owner goes back to the search results. The bands below are what the market charges to do that.
Band 1: a free page, or a social profile
Your pet care software gives you a client portal link. Facebook gives you a page. A builder gives you a template with a photo of a labrador in a field.
Cost: nothing, or a few pounds a month on top of software you already pay for.
You get: a way for people who already know you to reach you.
You do not get: a domain that ranks for cat sitting plus your town, prices per visit type, insurance and vetting stated where an anxious owner will find them, a sample visit report, or area pages.
Right for: a sitter in the first few months, filling the diary from a village group and word of mouth.
Band 2: a template site, $800 to $2,500
A theme with your logo, an about page, a services list and a contact form.
You get: something presentable with your name on it.
Usually missing: prices per visit type rather than one "from" figure, a trust page that answers the key question in writing, a sample visit report, area pages for the villages you actually cover, booking that goes anywhere except an inbox, and hosting in your own name.
Right for: a sitter who is full most of the year and wants a business card.
Band 3: a purpose-built pet sitting site, $2,500 to $6,000
Built around how an owner chooses a sitter. A pet sitting business website at this level carries:
- A trust page with insurance, vetting checks, pet first aid, references and how keys are handled, stated plainly.
- Prices per visit type, held as editable records: cat visits, dog visits, small animals, overnights, house sitting, with what each one includes and any limits.
- Area pages for the towns and villages you cover, so you appear for "cat sitter near me" style searches.
- Meet-and-greet booking online, then scheduling through Time To Pet, Pet Sitter Plus, Scout or Precise Petcare.
- A sample visit report, so the owner can see what lands on their phone while they are away.
- Separate overnight and house sitting pages, because the arrangement and the trust level are different.
- Google reviews near the buttons, real photography, speed on a phone, tracking, everything in your name.
Right for: an established sitter, or a small team of sitters, that wants enquiries from search rather than referral alone.
Band 4: a sitting team or franchise, $8,000 and up
Several sitters with their own profiles and coverage areas, a recruitment section, a client portal deep-linked per sitter, and reporting that tells you which area page fills which sitter's week.
After launch
- Hosting: managed WordPress at $20 to $50 a month, or often free on a framework host, in your name.
- Domain: small, annual.
- Pet care software: whatever you already pay Time To Pet, Pet Sitter Plus, Scout or Precise Petcare, typically a monthly fee that scales with clients or sitters.
- Insurance and checks: an annual cost of the business, not the website, but the site is where they earn their keep.
- Maintenance: a care plan at a modest monthly fee, which is where prices, areas and availability get kept current.
- Photography: half a morning on real visits, with owner consent for the animals and no house exteriors or door numbers in shot.
Where the band 3 money goes
Most of it goes into two things that owners will not book without.
The first is the trust page. Writing insurance, vetting, first aid, references and key handling in the owner's language, and laying it out so the nervous reader gets to the end. That is copy work, and it is the single highest-value page on a sitter's site.
The second is the price and visit structure. Not a list, but records: visit type, duration, what is included, what is not, holiday surcharges if you charge them, and how the meet-and-greet works. Editable by you in January without ringing anyone.
The rest goes on area pages, the booking route into your software, the sample report, speed on a phone, and tracking so you can see which page produced the enquiry.
Judging a quote
Ask six questions. Does the site state insurance, vetting, first aid and key handling on a page of its own. Are prices per visit type, and can I edit them myself. Are there area pages for the places I cover. Does the meet-and-greet book online, and does it hand over to my scheduling tool. Are the photos mine. Whose name is the domain and hosting in.
A quote that cannot answer those is a template quote whatever the number on it says.
Where this sits
Our pet sitting websites sit in band 3 at a fixed price, with the trust page, visit type pricing, area pages and meet-and-greet booking included, and the wider approach is on the pet business page. If your site is in band 1 or 2, the number to weigh against a rebuild is how many holiday enquiries you answered by message last summer, and how many of those went quiet.