What to charge, and how to raise it

Two things make pricing hard in pet care. Nobody publishes what they actually earn, and the work is treated as something anyone could do, so asking for more feels like asking for a favor.

The second one is worth naming. Researchers who study care work keep finding that because patience and calm get read as personality rather than skill, the jobs needing them get labeled unskilled and paid accordingly. That is a fact about how the work is seen, not about how hard it is.

Start from what a day costs you, not from what others charge

Copying the rate of the person next to you copies their mistakes. Work out your own floor first.

• Add up your real costs for a job: driving, parking, your phone, insurance, anything you supply.
• Count the unpaid time honestly. The meet-and-greet, the messages the night before, the drive, writing things up.
• Decide what you need per working day, then divide by the number of days you can actually work without wrecking yourself. That last number is smaller than people think, and pretending otherwise is how the year goes wrong.

Raise it on new clients first

Raising a price is easiest on somebody who never knew the old one. Set the new rate for new enquiries now, keep existing clients where they are, and let the mix move over a few months. By the time you tell longstanding clients, most of your book is already at the new number and the conversation is much easier.

The script, for when you do tell them

Short, dated, no apology and no justification. Justifying invites negotiation about the justification.

"Hi Sam, a quick note that my rate goes to $X from the first of March. Nothing else changes, and I would love to keep looking after Bella. Happy to answer anything."

Some people will leave. That is the mechanism working, not a failure. If nobody ever leaves over a price rise, the price was too low.

What actually justifies it

You have something most sitters do not: a record. Every dose signed with a time on it, every walk, every photo. When somebody questions a rate, that record is the answer, and it is a more concrete answer than years of experience.