[Debzdogs]

Hi there .
Since setting up my pet sitting business i have had a few one off visits but no regular bookings.
One of my clients tho has asked if i can start visiting her dogs on a regular basis. This would be one visit per day monday to friday. One dog is older but the other is approx 4-5 mths old. What i charged previously for the two is £10 per visit . If i offer a discount of 10% making it £45 per week does that sound reasonable ?.

 

[terrierist]

For 2 dogs, 5 visits a week, I would charge £50. Thats for an hour each day though.

 

[Robbb]

Hi there .
Since setting up my pet sitting business i have had a few one off visits but no regular bookings.
One of my clients tho has asked if i can start visiting her dogs on a regular basis. This would be one visit per day monday to friday. One dog is older but the other is approx 4-5 mths old. What i charged previously for the two is £10 per visit . If i offer a discount of 10% making it £45 per week does that sound reasonable ?.

How long will you be round there?

Here is how I would work it out:

What is a good wage that you would be comfortable on if you were working for someone? £6 per hour? Remember that you won't be getting hour blocks booked every hour of every day, so i'd round it up to £10.

How much petrol does it take to drive their and back? How much does that cost? (Let's say it's £5 round trip)

So £15 is the minimum you should charge for any amount of dogs. If you feed them your own food or anything, then you should stick this charge on top too.

So i'd charge £15 for one dog (Rounded up) then any dog on top of that is an extra bonus for me.

£15 for one dog
£20 for two dogs
£3 for each extra dog after that.

Now because anything more than £15 is profit, you have a bit to play around with. As that client is guaranteeing you will get work for the next few days, you can drop it to anything above £15.

(I don't know how much it actually costs to have your pet 'sat' (?) for an hour. That's just my guess!)

--EDIT--
£45 works out at £9 a day- is this enough to pay for the petrol and give you a comfortable wage?

 

[BoredomBusters]

I discount quite heavily for mon-fri bookings, it works out the fifth day I only charge about a 25% *but* the final rate for the whole week is well within the earnings I'm happy with.

Not sure where you are, or how long that visit is, but usually it takes almost an hour to get a half hour job done with travel.

You can get an information sheet on 'pricing a service' which might be worth you getting and working out - when I started 4 years ago I had to take a minimum of £15 per hour every hour I worked (to allow me to pay my expenses for the business, pay my personal bills and hopefully have some spending money left over) including hours I wasn't being paid for (excluding work at home ie the paperwork). The charged for rates have to cover the 'free' stuff - ie to do our regular two hour long dog walks a day takes around 5 hours. The two hours that are chargeable have to cover the whole five hour shift.

So if I had one dog on each walk, I'd need to charge £37.50 for each dog! If I took 4 dogs on each walk that's £9.38 I need to charge to get the same earnings at the end of the five hours.

 

[hazyreality]

I charge £10 for 1 dog and then £2 for each additional dog - thats an hour. Its £6 for 1/2 hour (then the £2 per extra dog)
I don't take on Mon-Fri regulars tbh, as my OH has weekdays off not weekends so it just wouldnt work for us, but I would say offering a 10% discount is fair - I would state that payment of the £45 is to be made each Monday though, to cover your travelling expenses for the week
I stick to a 5 mile radius aswell, and charge 50p a mile one way for anything over that - so 10 miles away will cost them an extra £2.50 each trip.

*Heidi*

 

[Debzdogs]

Hi, thanks for the replies . Just had to buy a new laptop as my old one died on Sunday .

The client i mentioned initially is only within walking distance so no travel costs included. They are half hour visits so i didn't think it was too bad, just wanted other peoples opinions .
I too have a five mile travel limit but if its only a mile or so over then i don't tend to add it on.
I am just hoping to get another regular soon and then i can hopefully give up my part time job . Was only ever supposed to be temporary but i've been there 3&half years

 

[rona]

Hi, thanks for the replies . Just had to buy a new laptop as my old one died on Sunday .

The client i mentioned initially is only within walking distance so no travel costs included. They are half hour visits so i didn't think it was too bad, just wanted other peoples opinions .
I too have a five mile travel limit but if its only a mile or so over then i don't tend to add it on.
I am just hoping to get another regular soon and then i can hopefully give up my part time job . Was only ever supposed to be temporary but i've been there 3&half years

I am charging £8 for half an hour visiting two dogs.

 

[Debzdogs]

Right guys i need you expert advice again re a new client .

I posted a thread last night (see below)

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/267772-lleaving-pups-their-own.html

I'm going to ring her today but am struggling to work out a price to give them .
Its a 12 mile round trip and they are approx 4mths old so i am suggesting that they need two visits per day, but i don't want to scare them with a price . I'd desperately love the job but i still can't do it for nothing so what would you suggest i charge ?. I could do 4 days and offer 1 free so that would be £80
Normally i would charge £10 for the two per visit to include travelling but that works out to £100 a week which i'm not sure how they would react.
Do i stick to it tho (i'm a bit of a soft touch really ). Its business at the end of the day so do i need to toughen up a bit

 

[BoredomBusters]

Firstly I wouldn't take a job 12 miles away, because you can't charge enough to make it worth your time - unless they are determined nobody is good enough but you, and are willing to pay whatever it takes. (ETA sorry realised it was a 12 mile round trip, that's not so bad).

Secondly I won't take on puppies under 6 months who are left for more than 6 hours unless they have two visits. If they don't want to pay that, then of course they are welcome to find somebody else.

I don't charge per dog for home visits, but for time, so it wouldn't make any difference to me how many dogs were.

mon-fri two visits per day I also charge £80, discounted from £100, but that's only within my regular working area.

 

[Debzdogs]

Thanks for that .
Her husband just rang me back to say that he will be coming home 3 lunchtimes a week and then i would do the others. I have agreed but am still not happy that they are being left so long . I will see how it goes but at least i know they will get some company whilst i'm there.
I quoted him the £80 for two daily visits but he said that was quite a lot.

perhaps i'm doing the wrong thing but i'd rather see they are ok on two days of the week than leave them as they won't get anyone else to do it for a cheaper price (unless they live next door).