Pet services
Pet Sitting Profit Calculator
Works sitting profit, where the route and the overnight commitment decide it.
Result
Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Revenue less sitter cost including travel, mileage, insurance and overhead, per booking and per sitter hour. Overnights and visits have to be assessed separately, since their cost structures and their margins differ substantially.
What moves the number
- Travel between visits.
- Mix of overnights and drop-in visits.
- Additional animals and special care, if priced.
- Holiday period rates.
Where this one goes wrong
Visits clustered geographically are profitable and scattered visits are not, which is the same arithmetic as dog walking and the same reason a sitting business should grow by filling in areas rather than by accepting every enquiry. Build density. Overnights are the other half, and their margin depends entirely on whether the price reflects the whole period rather than the active hours, which is where sitters most often underprice themselves.
Before you quote
- Assess overnights and visits separately.
- Measure profit per sitter hour including travel.
- Check that overnight pricing reflects the whole commitment.
Questions
About this calculator
Which pet sitting work is most profitable?
Geographically clustered visits and properly priced overnights. Scattered visits lose to travel, and overnights priced against active hours rather than the whole commitment are where sitters most often underprice themselves.
Should overnights and visits be measured together?
No, because their cost structures differ substantially. An overnight occupies a whole period while a visit occupies twenty minutes plus travel, and blending them conceals which part of the business is actually working.
How should a sitting business grow?
By filling in areas it already covers rather than accepting every enquiry. Density is the economics, and a booking across town can consume more of the day in travel than it produces in revenue.
The formula
gross profit = revenue - direct costs
Put this calculator on your site
Free to embed. Paste this where you want it to appear. It stays up to date automatically because it loads from BDEVY.
Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Revenue ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $33,000.
- Direct labour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $16,000.
- Product and equipment ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,200.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $33,000 |
| Direct labour | $16,000 |
| Product and equipment | $11,000 |
| Other direct costs | $2,200 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit main result | $3,800 |
| Gross margin | 11.5% |
| Total direct cost | $29,200 |
| Profit per working day | $172.73 |
That is $3,800 at a 11.5% margin, about $172.73 for every working day. Overhead still has to come out of it.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only revenue, this is what happens to gross profit. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Revenue ($) | Gross profit |
|---|---|
| $16,500 | -$12,700 |
| $24,750 | -$4,450 |
| $33,000 example above | $3,800 |
| $49,500 | $20,300 |
| $66,000 | $36,800 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Revenue ($)
- A money amount, starting at $33,000.
- Direct labour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $16,000.
- Product and equipment ($)
- A money amount, starting at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,200.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Total direct cost | A money figure. |
| Profit per working day | A money figure. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.