← Dog boarding & daycare pricing calculator
The fastest way to price a dog boarding stay is to see what other local facilities charge and pick a similar number. It is also the most common way, and it names no product or company this page could be affiliated with -- it is a habit every independent facility owner already has, not a piece of software. This page compares that habit to using this calculator's cost-and-occupancy model instead.
A flat rate copied from a competitor answers one question: what does the market seem to tolerate? It cannot answer a different one, which is the one that actually decides whether the business works: does this rate cover what a stay of mine actually costs, and does my own occupancy at that rate add up to a month that pays?
| Question | Flat competitor rate | This calculator |
|---|---|---|
| What does the market seem to tolerate? | Answers it directly. | Does not know your competitors' rates at all. |
| Does the rate cover my own staff time, supplies, and overhead? | No way to check -- it is one number with no arithmetic behind it. | Builds the rate from your own cost inputs, so the answer is always yes by construction. |
| Is a second dog on the same reservation priced right? | Usually just doubled, or discounted by feel. | A named multi-dog discount percentage, applied consistently. |
| Should a long stay be discounted, and by how much? | Often a flat percentage off the whole stay, which gives away margin on nights that cost the same as a short booking. | A threshold-based discount: full rate up to a set night count, discount only beyond it. |
| Does my facility's occupancy at this rate actually break even? | Not answered by a nightly rate at all -- that is a whole-facility, whole-month question. | Computes the break-even occupancy percentage and profit or shortfall at a projected occupancy. |
This tool needs no account and names no competitor: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and your reservation and facility numbers stay on your device -- nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Nothing is wrong with landing on one number to quote -- that is what every facility does in the end. What a flat rate picked by matching a competitor's posted price does not do is tell you whether that number covers your own staff time, supplies, and overhead, whether a second dog on the same reservation is priced right, whether a long stay should be discounted and by how much without giving away margin on the nights every stay has in common, or whether your facility's occupancy at that rate actually breaks even in a real month. A flat rate is an answer with no arithmetic behind it; this calculator supplies the arithmetic and lets you land on whatever number you want afterward.
It tells you what the market will tolerate, which is real information -- but it says nothing about whether that rate covers your specific costs. Two facilities charging the same $35 a night can have completely different margins if one pays more per hour for staff, carries higher rent, or runs at a lower occupancy. Matching a competitor's rate without checking it against your own cost stack and occupancy is how a facility ends up busy and unprofitable at the same time.
No, and it is not trying to. It has no data on what any other facility charges, does not recommend a market rate, and does not know your local competition. It takes the costs and assumptions you supply -- staff time, wage, supplies, overhead, discounts, occupancy -- and does the arithmetic honestly. The rate you land on, and whether it beats or matches a competitor, is your decision.
Because a per-stay price only covers the cost of the dogs you actually have. Fixed costs -- rent, utilities, insurance, software -- keep accruing whether a run is filled or empty, so a rate that comfortably covers cost per dog-day can still leave the facility unprofitable for the month if too many runs sit empty. A flat nightly rate answers "is this one stay priced right?"; it cannot answer "is this month going to work?", which is a question about occupancy across the whole facility, not about any one reservation.