Best Dog Walking Software in 2026: Side Hustle Tools vs. Business-Building Tools

Are you picking up walks, or building a business?

Both are real work and real money. The right software is different for each.

Think of it like short-term rentals. Listing a room on Airbnb is a legitimate way to earn: the platform brings the guests, handles the payment, takes a cut, and the guest's relationship is with Airbnb, not with you. Owning the building is a different business. It's slower to fill and nobody sends you tenants, so you do your own marketing. But every lease is yours, the rent is yours, and the value compounds under your name. A walker on Rover is renting a room on someone else's platform. A walker with a site, a client list, memberships, and a referral program of their own is building the building.

This guide is for the walker who wants the second thing, and it prices what the second thing costs.

Building it takes a specific set of tools. A client record that holds the vet, the emergency contact, where the key is, the alarm code, the meds, and a signed waiver. A standing schedule and a card that's billed on its own, so you stop chasing payments by text. A website that comes up when a new neighbor searches "dog walker near me." Campaigns that go out without you: a welcome message, a nudge to the client you haven't seen in a month, a holiday-coverage reminder in November. Memberships that turn three walks a week into one predictable monthly charge. A loyalty program and a referral link, so your best clients bring you the next ones.

The pet apps do the first two well. The rest is where they stop or start charging, and that's the gap this guide prices.

How does dog walking software compare in 2026?

Six options a solo walker shops: three built for pet care, one marketplace, one generalist, and Lilo. The website and marketing columns show what's included at the listed price, and what the add-on costs when it isn't.

Verified October 2026Confirm competitor figures on each provider's site.

Software	Monthly price	What payments cost you	Website	Marketing, loyalty, referrals	GPS and report cards
Lilo Booth	$20 flat	No commission; card processing through Stripe	Included, on your own domain	Included: memberships, email campaigns and automations, loyalty, referrals	No
Time To Pet	$25 (Lite) / $50 (Solo)	3% + 30¢ per card payment	$15/month add-on, single page	Manual email campaigns on Solo ($50); no loyalty or referral rewards program	Yes
Scout	$39 ($390 billed annually)	Runs on Stripe; rate not on pricing page	$1,499 upfront, then $499/year after the first	One-off targeted emails; no loyalty or referral program listed	Yes
PetPocketbook	$25 ($285 billed annually)	5% service fee ($1 minimum), paid by the pet parent by default	None listed	Group email announcements; no loyalty or client referral program listed	Yes
Rover	$0 subscription; one-time $49 to $79 profile review fee	20% of each booking; 30% on new clients in three pilot metros	Rover profile only	Promo code for owners new to Rover; no loyalty or campaign tools listed	Yes, in Rover's app
Square	$0 (Free) / $49 (Plus) / $149 (Premium)	3.5% + 15¢ on cards on file, on every plan	Free site on a square.site address; your own domain on Plus	Email, text, and loyalty on Plus ($49)	No

A few reads on the table. The three pet apps are built for the walk: scheduling, invoicing, and client messaging, with GPS and report cards as the thing that sets them apart from a generic calendar. All three will invoice a recurring client and charge the card automatically. All three can send an email to your client list, though Time To Pet holds that for its $50 plan. None lists automated campaigns, a loyalty program, or a client referral program.

The website is where the prices jump. Scout's pricing page shows a website add-on at $42 a month, and its Sites page spells out the bill: $1,499 upfront to design and build it, then $499 a year after the first. That's $1,998 across the first two years, against $480 for Lilo's whole plan over the same stretch. Time To Pet sells a single-page site for $15 a month on top of its subscription. PetPocketbook doesn't list one.

PetPocketbook's fee model is the unusual one. The pet parent pays a 5% service fee ($1 minimum) on top of your price when they pay online. It covers the card processing, so by default you keep your full rate and your client sees a bigger number. Rover has no subscription, charges new sitters a one-time profile review fee of $49 to $79, then takes 20% of each booking. And Square's Free plan stops short of the growth tools: email marketing, text marketing, loyalty, and your own domain all sit on the $49 Plus plan. Our Lilo vs. Square Appointments comparison goes line by line.

What does Lilo Booth include for $20 that the others sell separately?

Everything below is on the $20 plan, with a 30-day free trial and no card required to start. Lilo Booth wasn't built as a pet app. It was built for a business of one that intends to grow, which is the walker this guide is for.

A website on your own domain

You get a branded site with your services, prices, photos, testimonials, and a booking button, on a Lilo subdomain or a domain you own. That's the page Google can index when someone in your zip code searches for a walker, and a client who finds you there books you directly with nobody else on the page. Scout charges $1,499 upfront for a site and $499 a year after the first. Time To Pet charges $15 a month for a single page. Square gives you a free site on a square.site address and holds your own domain for Plus. PetPocketbook doesn't list one.

Memberships that bill on their own

This is what "charged automatically" means on Lilo. After the first walk, you set the client up on a monthly plan, say 12 walks a month, and Lilo bills the card on file every month without you sending an invoice. The three-walks-a-week client pays once a month instead of per walk, and you know what the month is worth on the first. Recurring appointments keep the standing walks on your calendar, so nobody rebooks week to week. See how memberships work.

Intake forms and waivers you build yourself

Vet and emergency contact, key and alarm instructions, vaccination dates, medication, behavior notes, your liability waiver with a signature line: you decide the fields. Lilo sends the form on its own, either to every new client or along with a booking, and the signed copy is attached to the client's record. New clients can fill it out before you ever meet the dog. The pet apps keep good pet profiles too. On Lilo the form is yours to build, and it's on the $20 plan.

Campaigns that run without you

Email marketing with 1,500 sends a month included. Build a campaign once and send it to your whole list or a segment of it, now or on a date you pick: the holiday-coverage reminder goes out the week before Thanksgiving whether you remember or not. Automations cover the rest, with a welcome message after a new client's first walk and a reminder to book when a regular goes quiet. Time To Pet holds its email campaigns for the $50 Solo plan and doesn't list automations. Square holds email, text, and automated campaigns for the $49 Plus plan. On Lilo they're in the $20.

Loyalty and referrals

Loyalty points build with every paid walk, so the client who shows up every week earns a reward for it. Referrals give every client a link they can send with one tap, and Lilo tracks the reward when a neighbor books. Square's loyalty program sits on the $49 plan. None of the three pet apps lists a loyalty program or a client referral program; Time To Pet's own help center suggests applying referral credits by hand.

Lilo AI, an assistant that knows your book

Ask it a plain question, like "Which clients haven't booked in three weeks?" or "What did I make in September?", and it answers from your own client list. Then put it to work: have it text an owner to set up their next walk and book it once you approve, or find your open times on Tuesday. The plan includes 5,000 AI credits a month. Your data is kept separate from every other business's and is never used to train an AI model.

No commission, and no lock-in

Lilo takes no commission on your bookings and charges no exit fee. Card processing is separate and runs through Stripe; the current rates are on our pricing page, so add them to the $20 before you compare. Migration from your current app is free, and a Lilo specialist moves your clients over for you. If you ever leave, your client list goes with you: ask and we'll send it.

What does it cost to rent your clients instead of owning them?

Rover is a fast way to fill a calendar from zero. Its marketplace sends you people, and in month one that's worth a lot. The question is month twelve.

Run it on a modest full-time book: four walks a day, five days a week, at $29.50, the 2024 US average for a 30-minute walk on Time To Pet's rate calculator. That's about 80 walks a month and $2,360 in bookings. Rover's help center states the standard fee plainly: "Rover applies a 20% service fee per booking, which means you take home 80% of your earnings." On this book that's $472 a month, or about $5,660 a year, and it applies to every booking, repeat clients included. In Rover's pilot metros (Seattle, Chicago, and Dallas) the fee on a new client starts at 30% and steps down to 15%, then 10%, as that client's history with you grows. It never reaches zero.

Lilo Booth on the same volume is $240 a year plus card processing, which comes to under $1,500 a year all in. That's more than $4,000 a year that stays with you.

There's a second cost that doesn't show up as a line item, and it's the Airbnb problem. A client who books you on Rover is inside a marketplace built to show pet owners the sitters and walkers near them. Every time they open the app, the other walkers in the neighborhood are right there. If you run late once, or a new walker with a lower rate shows up, the alternative is a tap away. The relationship lives in the app.

Rover also expects the clients it sends you to stay on Rover. Its help center says booking and paying through Rover is a requirement of its Terms of Service, and that taking payment outside the platform can get an account suspended. So the clients a marketplace finds for you aren't a book you can pick up and move. The clients who are yours are the ones who find you on your own site, book on your own link, and send their neighbors. Our view: if you use a marketplace to get going, build your own book alongside it from day one, with a site, a referral link, and a membership for every client you bring in yourself.

What about GPS tracking and report cards?

Lilo doesn't do them, and the pet apps do. Time To Pet, Scout, and PetPocketbook map the walk with GPS, send the owner a report card with photos when it's done, and keep pet-level profiles. All three also handle staff scheduling when you grow past one walker. Lilo's client record holds whatever your intake form collects, but there's no map of the route and no automatic "Biscuit did great" card.

If your clients expect a mapped report after every walk, buy that feature from a pet app. Plenty of walkers send a text and a photo themselves and put the software budget into being found and keeping clients, which is the part the pet apps leave to you. The two aren't exclusive, either: a pet app for the walk and Lilo for the site, forms, memberships, and marketing is a reasonable stack at $20.

Lilo Booth is $20 a month with a 30-day free trial and no card: see everything on the plan.