Best Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Software for 2026 (Compared by Business Type)

For solo dog walkers and small pet sitters, Time To Pet and Scout are strong all-round picks, with Time To Pet starting from around $25/month (as published) and Scout adding client-facing report cards. Precise Petcare and Pet Sitter Plus scale well for staffed mobile teams, while Gingr and PetExec are built for daycare and boarding facilities rather than field visits. Choose by business type, not feature count. Software pricing and features change often, so check each vendor's site for current details before you buy.

What pet sitting and dog walking software actually does

"Pet care software" is a catch-all term that hides two very different product categories. Mobile-service software (for sitters and walkers who go to the client's home) is built around scheduling visits, dispatching staff across a map, and proving the visit happened. Facility software (for daycare and boarding) is built around check-in, kennel runs, capacity limits, and add-on retail. Buying the wrong category is the single most common and most expensive mistake pet-care owners make, so it is worth knowing the core feature blocks before you compare brands.

• Scheduling and recurring visits. The engine of any sitter or walker tool. Look for drag-and-drop calendars, automated recurring schedules (a Monday/Wednesday/Friday midday walk that books itself out months ahead), and conflict detection when a sitter is double-booked or off.
• GPS-tracked visits. Staff check in and out at the home, the app records arrival and completion location, and many tools track the full walk route on a map. This is your proof of service and your defense in a billing dispute.
• Client portal and pet profiles. A self-service dashboard where clients request services, see upcoming visits, read sitter notes, view photo updates, and store pet details (feeding, meds, vet, gate codes, microchip).
• Invoicing and payments. Auto-invoicing off completed visits, card-on-file charging, and integrations with Stripe, PayPal, or a built-in processor. The good tools also sync to QuickBooks.
• Staff management. Assigning visits, time-off requests, permissions, pay reports, and (for walkers) route optimization. This is what separates solo tools from team tools.
• Automated communications. Visit-complete texts with photos, appointment reminders, and review requests. For facilities, this becomes the "pet report card" that drives retention.

If you are still deciding whether to launch at all, the operational backbone matters more than the brand. Our guide to starting a pet sitting business walks through where software fits into licensing, pricing, and your first clients, and the companion dog walking business plan covers the numbers a tool subscription has to earn back.

The best pet sitting and dog walking software, compared

The table below summarizes the eight tools we reviewed. Prices are the publicly listed starting points as published in mid-2026 and typically change with active-staff count and over time, so treat them as a starting floor, not a quote, and confirm the current figure on the vendor's site. "Active staff" pricing (used by tools such as Time To Pet, Precise Petcare, and Pet Sitter Plus) generally means you pay for sitters who worked a billable visit in that cycle, which can be fair for seasonal teams but may climb in peak season. Feature lists also change, so verify specifics with the vendor.

Time To Pet: the default choice for sitters and walkers

Time To Pet is the tool most pet-sitting businesses end up comparing everything else against, and for good reason. It covers the full mobile-service loop: scheduling with recurring visits, GPS check-in and check-out, separate polished apps for clients and staff, text messaging, invoicing, and a QuickBooks integration. Per its published pricing, plans start from around $25/month for a one-person company and move to roughly $15 per active staff member per month on team plans, with custom pricing past 25 staff. Pricing can change, so check the vendor site for the current rate.

Best for: solo sitters who want room to grow, and small-to-mid teams. Limitations: there is no free plan, so the smallest side-hustle operations pay from day one, and the depth of features means a short learning curve for non-technical owners. It is also overkill if you run a fixed-location daycare, where facility tools handle kennels and capacity better.

Scout: the client-experience pick for walkers

Scout (scoutforpets.com) leans hard into the part of the job clients actually see. Its report cards bundle GPS route maps, photos, and visit notes into a single update that lands on the pet parent's phone after every walk, which is a genuine retention lever. Under the hood it typically automates billing, payroll, scheduling, and reporting, and it includes a file vault for vaccination records and staff documents. Scout does not publish a flat price but positions itself in the middle of the market and, as published, backs purchases with a 60-day money-back guarantee, which is unusually generous in this category. Confirm current pricing, terms, and the guarantee directly with the vendor.

Best for: dog-walking operations where the polished client update is part of the brand. Limitations: opaque pricing means you have to request a quote, and facilities running overnight boarding will find it thinner than purpose-built kennel software.

Precise Petcare and Pet Sitter Plus: built for staffed teams

These two are the workhorses for sitting and walking businesses that have outgrown a solo calendar and now run multiple sitters across a city.

Precise Petcare

Precise Petcare (precisepetcare.com) is the customization champion. Standout features include full-walk GPS tracking with arrival and completion markers, an "ongoing schedule lookahead" that auto-books recurring visits far in advance, client-facing pet care journals with photos, and auto-invoicing that plugs into Stripe, PayPal, Payeezy, or Authorize.Net. Its pricing, as published, runs from about $15/month for the smallest plan up to around $390/month, with the Team plan near $299/month and staff capped at 25 (extra staff beyond that are typically free). A free trial is offered. Confirm current pricing and trial terms on the vendor site, as these can change.

Best for: growing teams that want to bend the software to their exact workflow. Limitations: the breadth of settings can overwhelm a brand-new solo sitter, and the top tier is a real cost line for a small business to carry.

Pet Sitter Plus

Pet Sitter Plus (petsitterplus.com) targets established staffed businesses. It typically offers multi-option scheduling with a drag-and-drop calendar, GPS visit reporting, time recording for team check-in/out, invoicing with card and ACH processing, a QuickBooks integration, and a client portal. Pricing is per active staff (generally any staff with at least one scheduled service in the billing period), with a cap around 25 active staff, plus a free trial and, at times, first-year promotions. Confirm current pricing, the staff cap, and any promotion directly with the vendor.

Best for: multi-sitter operations that bill heavily and need clean team time tracking. Limitations: the interface is functional rather than flashy, and it is more software than a one-dog-a-day side hustle needs. If you are mapping out staffing and overhead, weigh the subscription against the rest of your fixed costs in your dog walking startup plan.

PetExec and Gingr: for daycare and boarding facilities

If you run a brick-and-mortar facility rather than mobile visits, the feature set you need flips. You are managing capacity, kennel runs, check-in lines, retail, and overnight stays, not GPS routes. Two tools own this space.

PetExec (petexec.net) is a cloud kennel-management platform for daycare, boarding, grooming, and training. It typically handles online booking, waitlists, automatic daycare fee calculation by hours or days, digital contracts with signature capture, feeding and medication scorecards, and a centralized vaccine/vet record vault. Pricing is tiered by capacity, starting from around $29/month for up to 50 boarders and climbing to roughly $129+/month for larger operations, with custom enterprise plans (as published). It has a long-standing reputation for US-based support. Confirm current pricing and feature details on the vendor site.

Gingr (gingrapp.com) is the polished, retail-and-marketing-forward option. Its plans map to facility type: Spa for groomers and trainers, Play for daycares, and Stay for boarding, running roughly $105 to $155/month as published. Features typically include Gingr PreCheck (clients complete forms before arrival), a pet-parent mobile app, photo-driven report cards sent by SMS or email, memberships with automated renewals, integrated payments with deposit collection to help cut no-shows, and multi-location support. The trade-off versus PetExec is cost: Gingr's floor is higher, and the membership/marketing layer is more than a single-location daycare may use. Verify current plans, pricing, and features on the vendor site. If you are scoping a facility build, run these numbers through your doggy daycare business plan before committing.

Easy Busy Pets and Doggie Dashboard: the all-in-one and the free option

Easy Busy Pets (easybusypets.com) is the all-in-one swing. Beyond scheduling, payments, and pet/client profiles, it typically bundles a drag-and-drop website builder with online booking and SEO tools plus automated email and SMS marketing and review collection. It supports walking, sitting, daycare, grooming, training, and boarding, billed month-to-month with no long contract. That breadth is the appeal for an owner who wants one bill instead of a software stack, and the catch: a do-everything tool is rarely the deepest at any single job, so heavy field-GPS users or large boarding facilities may still prefer a specialist. Confirm current pricing and the exact feature set with the vendor.

Doggie Dashboard (doggiedashboard.com) is an honest free starting point. As published, the free tier covers up to 10 pet profiles with client/pet records, signable online waivers, invoicing, employee logins, and over 50 PDF reports. Premium is listed at a flat $40/month, month-to-month, when you outgrow the free cap. It is not a GPS-route tool and it will not run a busy multi-sitter dispatch board, but for a brand-new sitter validating demand without spending a dollar, it is a credible free option in the category. Confirm the current free-tier limits and Premium price on the vendor site.

How to choose by business size

Match the tool to your stage and service type, not to the longest feature list. Here is the decision logic we would use.

• Brand-new solo sitter or walker (validating demand): start on Doggie Dashboard's free tier. Move to Time To Pet's solo plan the moment recurring clients and invoicing become a chore.
• Solo or two-person mobile service that is profitable: Time To Pet or Scout. Pick Scout if photo-rich client report cards are central to your pitch; pick Time To Pet for the broadest feature set and QuickBooks.
• Growing staffed team (3 to 25 sitters/walkers): Precise Petcare for maximum customization, or Pet Sitter Plus for clean team time tracking and billing. Both cap pricing at 25 staff, which protects you as you scale.
• Daycare or boarding facility: PetExec for cost-efficient capacity and kennel management, or Gingr if retail, memberships, and a slick pet-parent app drive your retention strategy.
• Mixed operator who also needs a website and marketing: Easy Busy Pets, to consolidate the stack into one platform and bill.

One more cost note that gets missed: software is only one line in your overhead. Before you commit to a subscription, make sure it sits alongside the right coverage. Compare options in our pet sitter insurance comparison, because most clients (and many facility contracts) expect both.

How we sourced this

Feature lists and pricing were verified against each vendor's official site (Time To Pet, Precise Petcare, Pet Sitter Plus, Gingr, PetExec, Easy Busy Pets, Doggie Dashboard, and Scout) in mid-2026, cross-checked against current category listings on Capterra and GetApp. Pricing in this category changes often and scales with active staff or facility capacity, so every figure here is a published starting point. Always confirm a live quote for your exact headcount before you buy.