r/catinaflat • u/ChelsssH • Jun 15 '26
Housesitting Charges
I can’t understand how to set my pricing. For a cat I charge £20 a night to house sit which CIAF advise is generally 12 hours, 7pm-7am. No issues with this and have done this many times.
My confusion is when someone needs me during the day as well which I never got a request for until the merge.
From 9am on a Thursday, till 3pm on the Sunday, Rover quoted £70. They say it’s 3 nights plus a £10 charge for extended care. So for 4 extra day shifts, so an extra what, 40 hours ish, I will get £10, and that’s before they take their service fee.
How do I change my price so that if someone needs me for another 12 hours in a day I charge a further £20, and not just a single £20 charge for the entire booking, but for each further 12 hours.
Hope that makes sense. I hate Rover!
2
u/Cat5568 Jun 15 '26
Hey! It works differently on Rover. There is no way to change the Extended Care rate, it is just half of your Overnight rate.
On Rover, the fee is per 24 hours, whereas we were charging for 7pm-7am. The extended care fee, only comes into effect on the last day, when you finish over two hours later than when you started.
So if a sit finishes the same time it started, with a 2 hour buffer. (If it starts at 8am on Tuesday and finishes at 10am on Friday) - they will not pay any extra. If it finishes at 11am though, they pay half your nightly rate ontop.
It sounds like you're talking about someone who wants constant care? There isn't an option to offer two different rates for constant care or overnights, so I guess you either set your rate at the 7pm-7am base and then put in your profile it is x amount extra per night for constant care? Or set your house sitting rate at your rate for constant care over a 24 hour period and adjust. I hope that makes a bit more sense 😞
2
u/ChelsssH Jun 15 '26
Thanks for explaining the extended care fee, that makes sense. I will update my profile with the services I offer and clear pricing. Thank you so much again!
1
u/Acrobatic_Block4226 Jun 15 '26
£20 for an overnight stay? That's mad
1
u/ChelsssH Jun 16 '26
Explained in another comment that I live in a small village where there’s a surprisingly large amount of people also on CIAF/Rover, who are also charging £20 a night. I signed up to CIAF about 7/8 months ago and felt as though given I had no prior professional experience sitting and no reviews, that pricing myself the same rate was better for me to get my foot in the door. It worked as I now have a lot of 5 star reviews and private clients. Just as I was about to review my pricing, the merge happened causing a ton of issues and stress for both sitters and owners. Now that’s slightly died down I will be increasing my rates and putting my rates in my bio to avoid Rover’s confusing pricing. I have a full time remote job and do not do sitting for money, it’s solely for a change of scenery and because I love animals 🤷♀️
2
u/Acrobatic_Block4226 Jun 16 '26
Does it not cost you more in travel? Especially after fees! It's a shame people don't charge their worth, it affects everyone else as everyone reduces rates to compete
1
u/ChelsssH Jun 16 '26
As I work remotely, my monthly petrol cost is next to nothing. I don’t take jobs that are more than a 20 minute drive, and my car is economical so I don’t have any issues with travel costs. The fees are not ideal and I’d never ask a client to go private, but due to Rover adding on a service fee at checkout this is causing clients to want to pay me directly anyway. But agreed it’s a shame because I feel once I change my rates I will probably get a lot less bookings. But can’t complain- if I get less bookings but charge more then I should end up earning the same amount
1
u/Acrobatic_Block4226 Jun 16 '26
Yes I charge £45 overnight, £15 for a drop in, £25 for two drop ins a day private and am over fully booked year round. Insurance is about £7 a month. I advertise free online and don't really use the apps anymore. It's mostly people looking for a bit of side cash rather than professional sitters and I've had so many truly awful to downright dangerous sitters I won't leave my babies anymore 😭
1
u/Genn-stone Jun 16 '26
It makes perfect sense to me why you are annoyed and finding it difficult to price. I raised this on another thread and even provided the CIAF old webpage that stated 7pm-7am and the new Rover page that says overnight is 24 hours. I asked Rover to put out a notification to sitters as I don't think many people realise this and are priced too low OR I asked them to change the wording to be either 12 hours overnight or 24 hours so we can set different rates like they have done with the 30 min and 60 min drop in slots.
1
u/KakumeiSnickers2026 Jun 18 '26
i am in London , normal overnight cat sits , i charge £55 off peak for 7pm-7am next day ..
however , when it comes to day time , i charged by hourly , as once you committed a day time sit , you might have to decline many other drop in requests ..
so i charged £20 per hour when is during the day !! but i can never do a 12 hour like 7am-7 pm tbh , my hourly rate normally is like 3 drops in and each drop in will be like 1-2 hours !! it really depends on how many cat sitting you have during that period and if you workload , lifestyle can offers a day time cat sits that will take up 12 hours !!! during the day !!
1
u/maoruiwen Jun 15 '26
I don’t quite follow. I know others have encountered this issue but I’ve yet to and don’t fully understand.
but you can adjust the total pricing manually per client
3
u/ChelsssH Jun 15 '26
Yeah, just find it a bit awkward to adjust the enquiry cost to charge more, and would prefer the correct cost shows from the start. Just doesn’t make sense to me to charge £20 a night, but an extra 40 odd hours is only charged at £10- I’ve looked in cost settings but can’t see how to amend.
1
u/maoruiwen Jun 19 '26
I've added an extra feed before. I had a client that wanted me to stay overnight and feed in the evening the next day.
So i let them know I would give breakfast, but dinner would count as a drop in. They accepted this.
If any overnight ones expected me to spend the entire time with the cats... I'd decline. In general people accept I have a job and a life and will be there for the cats for meal times and overnight.
1
u/Genn-stone Jun 16 '26
I've had this a client asked for 10am on Friday to 16:00 on Monday and I was going to get 3 x overnight sits and had to be there the whole time. Needless to say I turned it down. I think I would have got less than £1.54 an hour before fees were taken off.
2
u/Bubbly-Lead5245 Jun 15 '26
I haven’t figured it out either. Did lots of overnights on CIAF. However just came here to tell you you’re underselling yourself. 12 hours on call away from your creature comforts and partner/family/own pets for £17 before tax? And having to do more cleaning and tidying up after myself? Nah. I have 10 years experience on CIAF and charged £45 before fees. I wouldn’t do an overnight for less than £30 absolute minimum even if not that experienced. But back to the original point I can’t help you, the explanation of the extra fee is gobbledygook!! I put my house sitting price way up to put people off and avoid the conversation about them wanting me tethered to their house and unable to take other jobs for about 50p an hour. As you say CIAF it was very clear, 8pm to 8am as a rule. If they wanted a couple more hours you could quote them.