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Pet care marketplace development

For founders and regional operators launching a platform where owners find walkers, sitters, boarders and day-care carers, and who need carer onboarding, pet profiles, availability, meet-and-greets, bookings, visit updates, cancellation rules, commission and payouts designed around the services they actually offer.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A pet care platform usually begins as a founder matching a few dozen owners with local walkers over messages.

  • An owner asks for a dog walker twice a week; the founder remembers who lives nearby, forwards a phone number, and the two arrange it between themselves.
  • The platform has no idea whether the walks happen, what was charged, or whether the dog that pulls on the lead was ever mentioned.
  • The carer's insurance document was photographed once and saved in a chat; nobody knows when it expires.
  • A boarder takes in a reactive dog that was never flagged because the owner's notes were in an email, and the first the founder hears of it is a complaint.

Where it gets harder

Money is the usual mess: carers are paid directly by owners, the platform tries to collect a commission afterwards by asking nicely, and late cancellations are argued over in messages with no policy anyone can point to.

  • Owners away for a week want to know the sitter actually visited and the cat is fine, and the only reassurance is whatever the sitter happens to send.
  • When a dog comes home injured there is no record of the visit times, the notes or the meet-and-greet that was supposed to cover exactly this.
  • The operator cannot see bookings by service, carer utilisation, cancellation rates or who has an insurance document about to lapse.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom pet care marketplace build normally covers:

  • Carer onboarding with identity Insurance and any pet-care qualification recorded as supplied with a document and date, or as returned by a connected check provider, plus home details for boarders such as garden, other pets and children
  • A pet profile per animal with species Breed, age, vaccination dates, medication, behaviour notes, vet details and emergency contact, drawn from the shared pet-base capabilities
  • A service catalogue of walking Drop-in visits, house sitting, boarding at the carer's home and day care, with carers setting their own prices per pet and per service within bands you allow
  • A carer availability calendar with capacity for boarding and day care
  • A meet-and-greet step that can be required before a first booking
  • Booking with payment captured and held until the service is completed
  • Visit updates with check-in Notes and photos sent to the owner
  • A cancellation policy per service with windows and refund rules
  • Reviews after completed bookings
  • A dispute route for missed visits and incidents
  • Commission taken on release with payouts to carers on a schedule

How discovery works

Discovery follows one owner and one carer through a boarding stay with you: which services you launch with, whether a meet-and-greet is mandatory, what carers may set themselves and what the platform fixes, which documents you require from carers, what owners must record about each pet before booking, how visit updates are expected to work, what the cancellation policy says for each service, and how commission and payouts are calculated. Each answer becomes a named stage in the scope document: onboard, profile, search, meet, book, visit, release, review.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Veterinary records beyond what the owner supplies, insurance claims, and employment of carers

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A regional operator wants boarding and day care only, with boarders limited to a number of dogs set per home, compulsory meet-and-greets, a photo update required at set times each day, and owners able to book repeat stays with the same boarder. That is a different build from a city walking platform with per-walk bookings and group walks, and the scope document says which one is being built.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following one boarding stay and one recurring walk from search to payout
  • A written scope document naming each stage from onboarding to review, with what is out of scope
  • Design of the carer profile and home details, the pet profile, the search and booking flow, the visit update screen and the operator dashboard, on mobile for owners and carers and desktop for the office
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of carer records, recorded documents, owner accounts and pet profiles from your current tool or spreadsheets, where relevant
  • Training for the office and support roles, with a short written guide for disputes and incidents
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts, your service list, current carer records, the documents you require and the cancellation policy you apply today.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the founder, whoever handles support and two experienced carers; the scope document, the commission and payout model and the milestone plan are agreed.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the carer profile, the pet profile, search and booking, the meet-and-greet step and the visit update, reviewed with carers on their own phones.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: carer onboarding and pet profiles first, then services, availability and search, then meet-and-greets, bookings and held payments, then visit updates, reviews, disputes and payouts.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    Your team runs a fortnight of real bookings with invited carers and owners, including a boarding stay with daily photo updates and a test cancellation inside the window.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Price bands, capacity rules, update prompts and refund wording are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Carers and pets migrated, payment hold and payout runs tested on accounts you control, update notifications tested, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    Bookings and visits run on the new platform; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card payment providers with capture-and-hold and split payout to carers
  • Identity and background check providers, recorded as a result and date
  • Push, SMS and email notification providers for booking confirmations and visit updates
  • Mapping and postcode services for search radius and check-in location
  • Image storage and processing for visit photos
  • Calendar feeds so carers see bookings on their own phone
  • Accounting software for commission, refunds and payouts

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A boarding-first operator with daily update rules

The situation

A regional operator wanted to launch with home boarding and day care only, and to be able to promise owners a daily update without relying on each boarder's habits.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because capacity across overlapping stays, the mandatory meet-and-greet gate and the operator-visible update compliance are rules of the business, not settings a generic booking script exposes.

The scope we would propose

  • Boarder profiles with home details and a capacity set per home that the calendar enforces across overlapping stays
  • A compulsory meet-and-greet booked through the platform before the first stay with either side able to decline afterwards
  • Stays booked with payment held and released the morning after check-out
  • An update prompt to the boarder at times the operator sets, with the owner seeing a timeline of photos and notes and the operator seeing which boarders missed a prompt
  • A cancellation policy with separate windows for stays and day care
  • A repeat-stay shortcut for owners to rebook the same boarder with the pet profile already attached

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Which services launch: walking, drop-ins, sitting, boarding, day care
  • Carer-set pricing within bands versus platform-set rates
  • Mandatory meet-and-greet gate and boarding capacity rules
  • Check-provider integration and document expiry tracking
  • Visit updates with photos, prompts and operator compliance view
  • Payment holding, cancellation refunds and the payment provider involved
  • Commission and payout schedule
  • Volume of carer, owner and pet records to migrate
  • Native carer app alongside the mobile web platform
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Pet care marketplace package

Carer profiles with recorded documents, pet profiles with vet details, walking, sitting, boarding and day-care services with carer-set prices, meet-and-greets, bookings with held payments, photo visit updates, cancellation rules, reviews, commission and payouts.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Would the package do, or do we need a custom build?

A platform offering walking, sitting and boarding with carer-set prices, meet-and-greets, held payments and photo updates is usually covered by the pet care marketplace package through configuration. A custom build is the honest answer for boarding capacity across overlapping stays, operator-enforced update schedules, or group walks with route tracking. Discovery is where we tell you which.

Are carers checked by the platform?

No. The platform records identity, insurance and qualification documents as supplied by the carer and any result returned by a connected check provider, with dates and expiries, and shows owners what was recorded and when. Admitting a carer is your decision, and the wording never implies the platform has confirmed anyone.

How do commission and payouts work?

The owner pays at booking and the platform holds the payment until the service is completed. On release the commission you set is retained and the carer share goes into a payout run on your schedule. That money is your platform collecting from owners and paying carers through your payment provider, and is separate from what you pay us.

What happens if a pet is hurt or a visit is missed?

Either side raises a dispute from the booking. Your support role sees the pet profile, the meet-and-greet record, check-in times, every update and every message on one timeline, and records a decision, including any refund from the held payment. The platform organises the evidence; it does not adjudicate on your behalf or handle insurance claims.

Who owns the platform afterwards?

You do. Source code and your data, including carer records, pet profiles, bookings, visit updates and payout history, are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

Get a project quote for pet care software

Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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