Free Pet Sitting Rate Calculator

Overnight pet sitting in the client's home typically costs $75–$150 a night in the US, averaging about $95. The sitter stays through the night (usually 10 to 12 hours), which is why it is priced per night rather than per visit. In the lowest cost-of-living states the same night models out closer to $60–$120; in the most expensive ones it runs past $150. In-home boarding at the sitter's own place is usually lower at $35–$75 a night, and the calculator adds 30% on top for holiday and peak dates. Set the service to Overnight in the calculator above to see the typical overnight rate for your state.

A full week of overnight pet sitting runs about $525–$1,050, based on the typical $75–$150 a night across seven nights. In the lowest-cost states that models out closer to $420–$840, and a holiday week adds 30% to the nights that fall on peak dates. If the pet does well with visits instead, two drop-ins a day for a week is far cheaper at roughly $308–$532 (14 visits at $22–$38 each). Many owners mix the two: drop-ins on most days and overnights only for the nights they want a sitter in the home. Use the calculator to set a per-night rate, then multiply by the nights in the booking.

A standard 30-minute drop-in visit runs $22–$38 across the US, averaging about $28. A full hour is $30–$50, averaging about $38. Those are the national figures: a state with a high cost of living pushes them up by about a third, and the lowest-cost states pull them down by about a fifth. The visit length you sell matters more than most sitters think, because the travel time either side of it is the same whether you stay 30 minutes or 60.

It depends on which service the day is made of. Doggy daycare is $25–$50 a day (about $35 on average). Two drop-in visits, morning and evening, comes to roughly $44–$76 a day at the typical $22–$38 per visit. An overnight is priced separately, per night, at $75–$150. When a client asks for a day rate, ask what the dog actually needs first: a day of daycare and a day of two visits are very different amounts of your time.

Boarding a dog in your own home typically runs $35–$75 a night, averaging about $50. That is lower than the $75–$150 an overnight in the client's home commands, because you are not giving up your own bed or travelling to a second address, and you can take more than one booking at a time. Boarding scales with your space and licensing; in-home overnights scale with your evenings, which is why they carry the premium.

Substantially. The calculator scales the national figures by a state cost factor that runs from about 0.80 in the lowest-cost states (Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma) to 1.35 in Hawaii, with California, New York and Washington DC at 1.30. That is a spread of roughly 70% between the cheapest and the most expensive state for the same service. Those factors are cost-of-living style multipliers applied to national figures, not surveyed per-state prices, so treat the output as a planning starting point and sanity-check it against two or three active sitters in your own town.

Around 12% below your local average while you build reviews, which is the factor the calculator applies to the 'just starting out' tier. On a $95 overnight that is about $84. Frame it to clients as an introductory rate so the later increase is expected rather than a surprise. Once you are insured, experienced or handling medication and special-needs care, the calculator moves you 18% above the local average instead, which is about $112 on that same overnight.

Start from the typical rate in your state for the service, then adjust for your experience, insurance, and demand. The calculator above suggests a starting range; established, insured sitters can comfortably price toward the top of their local band.

Yes, most professional pet sitters add a holiday or peak-period surcharge, commonly 20–50% (the calculator uses +30%). Major holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's are the busiest, highest-demand windows of the year, so a clear holiday surcharge is standard and expected. Many sitters also charge a flat per-day holiday fee on top of their normal rate.

Usually the base rate covers one pet, and sitters add a per-additional-pet charge for extra animals in the same household, commonly +15–25% per pet, or a flat add-on per visit (the calculator uses +20% per extra pet). The reasoning is that more pets means more feeding, cleanup, supervision and risk, even when they share a home.

They are typical national figures synthesised from public 2024–2026 sources: Rover's rate guides, Time To Pet's rate calculators, the Pet Sitters International 2024 survey (which put overnights near $96.66 a night), and the HomeGuide, Thumbtack and Care.com price guides. The state numbers are those national figures scaled by a cost-of-living style multiplier, not surveyed per-state prices. Real rates vary by city, by demand and by the individual sitter, so this is a planning tool, not a quote.