Time To Pet vs BooknBuddy: prices and features, side by side
Time To Pet is one of the best-known tools for dog walkers and pet sitters, and it earns that reputation. This page puts it next to BooknBuddy with real prices for a solo walker and for a growing team, so you can see which one costs less for a business like yours.
The short version
Time To Pet suits you if
- You work alone and want the lowest bill. Lite is US$25 a month.
- You want the same bill every month, whatever kind of month you had.
- You only do in-home care: walks, sits and drop-ins.
BooknBuddy suits you if
- You use part-timers or weekend cover. On Time To Pet each one adds $16 a month, and person two moves you from $25 to $72. We charge nothing per person.
- You also board, run a daycare, groom or train. It is all one account.
- You want card on file, Tap to Pay and payments that land on the right invoice by themselves, through your own Stripe or Square.
What each one costs
The two are priced in completely different ways. Time To Pet charges for each person on your schedule. BooknBuddy charges by how big your month was, and never per person.
- Lite, one person
- $25/mo
- Solo, one person
- $50/mo
- Team
- $40/mo + $16 per person
- From the 26th person
- $5 per person
- Facility (daycare, boarding)
- $79/mo
- Card payments
- 3% + 30¢
A person counts if they had at least one visit that month. Office managers and admins always count. Annual billing on Lite and Solo gives 12 months for the price of 10. In-home and Facility are separate products, with a bundle price from their sales team.
- Clients pay by card through us
- $29.99/mo + fee
- Fee on the first $3,000
- 1.5%
- Fee from $3,000 to $7,000
- 0.75%
- Fee above $7,000
- 0.5%
- Clients pay you some other way
- $29.99 to $149.99
- Staff, walkers, sitters
- No charge
When most of a month's payments go through your own Stripe or Square account, you pay $29.99 plus the card fee. Otherwise the month is priced by revenue: up to $3,000 is $29.99, then $59.99, $89.99, $124.99 and $149.99 above $30,000. Canadian prices start at CA$39.99. Every feature on every plan.
Real-world months
| The business | Time To Pet | BooknBuddy, cards | BooknBuddy, other payments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo walker, $2,500 a month | $25 (Lite) | $67.49 | $29.99 |
| Owner + 2 walkers, $6,000 a month | $88 | $97.49 | $59.99 |
| Owner + 2 full-time and 3 part-time walkers, $12,000 a month | $136 | $129.99 | $89.99 |
| Owner + 6 walkers, $15,000 a month | $152 | $144.99 | $89.99 |
| Walking plus a daycare | In-home plan + Facility, bundle price on request | Same plan as above. No second product. | |
Software fees only, in US dollars. "Cards" means most of the month was paid by card through the software. Card processing is extra on both: Time To Pet Payments charges 3% + 30¢ per card payment, and with BooknBuddy you pay Stripe's or Square's own rate on top of the fee shown.
Most walking companies are one person, or an owner with a few walkers. If that's you and every client pays by card through the software, Time To Pet usually costs a little less. Two things turn it around: part-timers, who cost $16 each on Time To Pet however few walks they do, and clients who pay by Zelle, e-Transfer or cash, which we never charge a fee on.
Try your own numbers
Move the sliders to match a normal month. Count everyone who walks at least once in the month, part-timers too.
BooknBuddy costs $7.01 less a month.
Software fees only. Card processing is extra on both. Time To Pet's figures are its in-home plans; a daycare or boarding facility is a separate product. Prices as listed October 12, 2026.
Features, side by side
Both run the basics well: clients request visits from an app, you approve them, and invoices go out on their own. The differences are in how they handle a team, and what happens when your business is more than walks and sits.
| Feature | Time To Pet | BooknBuddy |
|---|---|---|
| Services | Walking, sitting and drop-ins in the in-home product. Daycare, boarding and grooming in the separate Facility product. | Walking, pack walks, sitting, drop-ins, daycare, boarding, grooming, training, board and train, dental and facility rental, all in one account |
| How you're charged | Per person on the schedule | By the month you had. No per-person charge |
| Free trial | 14 days, no card | 30 days, no card |
| Contract | Month to month | Month to month |
| Client app requests | Yes | Yes |
| Recurring clients | Templates that schedule and invoice regular clients | Weekly walk plans priced by walks a week, or billing on each client's own schedule |
| Planning the team's day | Bulk reassign visits to another staff member | A walk board: one column per walker. Drag dogs and packs, copy a day, repeat it weekly, with warnings for full walks and dogs that clash |
| Walk updates for owners | Updates and photos from the staff app | A walk report with the route map, time, distance, weather, notes and photos |
| Pickup routes | Not listed on their scheduling page | Start a run and pickups are put in order by live traffic |
| Walker pay | Payroll tools | Pay by walk type, with a day-by-day list of every dog walked |
| Card processing | Time To Pet Payments, 3% + 30¢. ACH 1.3% + 30¢ | Your own Stripe or Square account, built in. Rates below |
| Messaging clients | In-app messaging and updates | Free, unlimited in-app messaging with photos. Texting is an optional add-on |
| QuickBooks | Yes | Yes |
| Priced in Canadian dollars | No, US$ | Yes, CA$ or US$ |
Time To Pet features are taken from their own website and help centre. Where a row says "not listed", we could not find it on their site; it may still exist.
Where BooknBuddy is different
Part-timers don't cost you extra
On your own, Time To Pet Lite is $25 a month. The day you add a second walker you move to Team: $40 plus $16 for each of you, so $72, and another $16 for every person after that. A part-timer who covers two weekend walks counts as a full person that month, so an owner with two full-timers and three part-timers pays for six people.
BooknBuddy doesn't count people at all. Add the second walker, the weekend cover and the summer student; the price is the same. And the app is laid out for a team from the start: the walk board puts every walker's day side by side, so dispatching five people takes the same few minutes as one.
One account for walking and a facility
Plenty of walking companies add daycare or boarding once they grow. On Time To Pet, that's a second product. On BooknBuddy, the same account already has kennels, daycare, grooming and training, and your clients book all of it from the same app.
A walk report owners actually open
When the walk ends, the owner gets the route on a map, how long and how far, the weather, quick tags like "went pee" and "met other dogs", the walker's note and the photos.
It's the thing clients screenshot and send to their family, which is better marketing than anything you'll pay for.
Most walks are paid card-not-present
Nobody is standing at a counter when a dog gets walked. Most walking and sitting clients pay with a saved card or an online invoice, so the rate that matters is the card-not-present one. Here is what each option charges for it, and what you get with it.
| Time To Pet Payments | BooknBuddy + Stripe | BooknBuddy + Square | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saved card or online payment | 3% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ card on file, 3.3% + 30¢ online |
| In person | Not listed | From 2.7% + 5¢ | 2.6% + 15¢ |
| Software card fee on top | None | 1.5% on the first $3,000 a month, 0.75% to $7,000, 0.5% after. Never on cash, Zelle or e-Transfer | |
| Card on file, invoices paid automatically | Charge saved cards from the dashboard | Yes. The client saves a card once and signs the authorization; invoices are paid from it as they are created | |
| Tap to Pay on your phone | Not listed | Yes, on iPhone and Android | Square reader or Terminal |
| Payment lands on the right booking and invoice | Yes | Yes, by itself. Tips go to the walker who earned them | |
| Whose account is it? | Time To Pet's processor | Yours. Keep it if you ever leave | Yours. Keep it if you ever leave |
US rates for each processor's standard plan, from their own pricing pages, checked October 12, 2026. Stripe and Square set their own rates and can change them.
The quiet win is reconciling. When a walk is paid through BooknBuddy, the money goes on the right invoice by itself, so nobody spends Friday afternoon matching Venmo screenshots to walks. And if a client still wants to pay by Zelle, cash or e-Transfer, that's fine: no fee from us, and you mark it paid in a tap.
Lower card rates are on the way. We're working on a lower-cost card processing option for BooknBuddy businesses, to bring the card side of your bill down. Until it's ready you use Stripe or Square at their standard rates, and we'll tell every customer when it's available.
Where Time To Pet is stronger
It's cheaper for a solo walker who takes cards. Lite at $25 a month is hard to beat if it's just you and every client pays by card.
Your bill is the same every month. Some owners prefer that, even when it means paying more in a quiet month.
It's been around a long time. Over 4,500 businesses use it, and it's rated 4.9 out of 5 from 271 reviews on Capterra. BooknBuddy is newer and smaller. You deal directly with the people who build it, but there's no big company behind it.
It's built around in-home care. If walks and sits are all you'll ever do, you'll never miss the boarding and daycare tools.
Switching without the risk
- Start the 30-day trial. No card needed, and you keep Time To Pet running.
- Bring over a few regular clients and set up their weekly walk plans.
- Run one real week on the walk board with one walker.
- Move everyone when you're ready. Send us your client list and we'll help bring it in.
See it with your own walkers
30 days free, no card. From US$29.99 or CA$39.99 a month after that, with no charge per walker.
Start your free trialQuestions people ask
How much does Time To Pet cost?
For in-home businesses: Lite is US$25 a month and Solo US$50, both for one person. Team is US$40 a month plus US$16 for each active person, dropping to US$5 each from the 26th. Facility, for daycare and boarding, is US$79 a month. Card payments are 3% + 30¢ in the US and Canada.
Is BooknBuddy cheaper than Time To Pet?
For a solo walker or a small full-time team taking every payment by card, Time To Pet is usually a little cheaper. With part-timers or weekend cover, or when clients pay by Zelle, e-Transfer or cash, BooknBuddy usually costs less, because it never charges per person.
Can one account run dog walking and a daycare?
On BooknBuddy, yes. Walking, sitting, drop-ins, daycare, boarding, grooming and training all run from one account and one plan. Time To Pet sells in-home and Facility as separate products.
Do I have to use BooknBuddy's card processor?
BooknBuddy doesn't have its own processor yet. You connect your own Stripe or Square account, which gives you card on file, automatic invoice payments, and Tap to Pay with Stripe. Cash, cheques, Zelle and e-Transfers never carry a fee from BooknBuddy. We're working on a lower-cost processing option.
Related reading
- Dog walking software: walk plans, GPS walks and pickup routes
- Pack walk software: the walk board and walker pay
- BooknBuddy vs Gingr, MoeGo and KennelBooker
- How to leave Rover and start your own pet care business
Sources, checked October 12, 2026: Time To Pet pricing, Time To Pet billing and subscription pricing, Time To Pet credit card rates, Time To Pet scheduling, Time To Pet mobile apps, Time To Pet on Capterra, Stripe pricing, Square fees. BooknBuddy prices are from our terms, section 7. Time To Pet is a trademark of its owner; this page is not affiliated with it. Spotted something out of date? Email info@booknbuddy.com and we'll fix it.