Time To Pet Alternative for Boarding and Daycare Facilities
The best Time To Pet alternative for boarding and daycare facilities is software built around a physical location, not just in-home visits. Franpos pairs occupancy-based boarding and daycare scheduling with retail and grooming POS in one platform starting at $199/month, while Time To Pet's Facility plan starts at $79/month for scheduling alone and still needs a separate payment processor bolted on. For solo, in-home pet sitters and dog walkers with no facility to manage, though, Time To Pet's $25–$50/month Lite and Solo plans remain purpose-built and hard to beat on price — this guide breaks down exactly which situation fits which tool.
What is Time To Pet, and who is it actually built for?
Time To Pet is scheduling, invoicing, and client-communication software for pet care businesses, and its roots are in-home: pet sitting and dog walking. Its pricing reflects that history. Lite ($25/mo) and Solo ($50/mo) are one-person plans. Team is $40/mo plus $16/mo per active staff member — $120/mo for a 5-person crew, more as you hire. A Facility plan exists at $79/mo for daycare and boarding operations, and a custom "Large Team" tier covers 25+ staff. Every tier includes GPS tracking, a client portal and app, and "Time To Pet Payments" for cards, ACH, and digital wallets. There's a 14-day free trial and no long-term contract.
Where does Time To Pet fall short for boarding and daycare facilities specifically?
The Facility tier gets you scheduling and client communication for a location-based business, but it stops there. There's no retail point of sale for the food, leashes, and treats a boarding or daycare lobby sells every day, no built-in grooming module if you add that revenue stream, and no franchise or multi-location management if you're running more than one site. Payment processing is a separate line item rather than something baked into a single system. And because Time To Pet's core architecture is staff-based pricing, costs climb steadily as a facility adds front-desk and kennel staff — a boarding business scaling from 5 to 15 employees moves from the Team plan's $120/mo toward several hundred dollars a month before retail or POS needs are even addressed. User reviews on Capterra and GetApp echo this: sitters and facility owners flag that per-staff pricing gets expensive with growth, and some report notification and mobile-app reliability issues that matter a lot when a dog's pickup time depends on a push alert actually arriving.
Franpos as a Time To Pet alternative: how do price and features compare?
| Feature | Franpos | Time To Pet — Facility | Time To Pet — Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $199/mo (single location) | $79/mo | $40/mo + $16/mo per staff |
| Best fit | Boarding/daycare facilities, incl. multi-location | Single-site daycare/boarding | In-home sitting/walking teams |
| Retail POS | Included (Cloud POS + Mobile Register) | Not included | Not included |
| Payment processing | Included, interchange-plus ~2.63% | Separate add-on (Time To Pet Payments) | Separate add-on |
| Live occupancy/room tracking | Yes, across playrooms, suites, kennels | Basic scheduling views | Basic scheduling views |
| Photo/video updates to pet parents | Yes, camera integration + SMS/push | Yes | Yes |
| Grooming add-on module | Yes, integrated | No | No |
| Multi-location/franchise tools | Yes, with royalty automation | No | No |
The real dividing line isn't Franpos versus Time To Pet in the abstract — it's whether your business has a front door. A facility with a lobby, retail shelf, and kennel run needs POS and occupancy tools a scheduling app doesn't have. A one-person dog-walking route doesn't need any of that, and paying for it would be waste.
How should a boarding or daycare business choose between the two?
- Do you have a physical location with retail or add-on sales? If pet parents buy food, toys, or grooming add-ons at pickup, a system without POS means a second tool and reconciling two sets of numbers.
- How many staff do you have today — and in 18 months? Per-staff pricing that looks fine at 5 employees can double or triple by 15. Model your growth, not just today's headcount.
- Do you run, or plan to run, more than one location? Franchise and multi-site royalty automation isn't something you can bolt onto scheduling software later — it's worth checking before you commit.
- Is payment processing already included, or a separate contract? A bundled rate is easier to audit than a scheduling subscription plus a standalone payments vendor.
- Do you also groom, or want to? If grooming is or could be part of the business, an integrated module beats a third piece of software.
- Are you actually a solo, in-home sitter with no facility? If so, don't overbuy — Time To Pet's Lite or Solo plan is priced and built for exactly that job.
Does Franpos work for solo pet sitters and dog walkers?
Not as well as Time To Pet does, and it's worth saying so plainly. Franpos is built around a point-of-sale core — a location, a register, inventory, staff on shift. A solo sitter driving between clients' homes with no storefront doesn't need occupancy tracking or a retail till; they need lightweight route scheduling and an app their clients can check. That's Time To Pet's original use case, and its Lite ($25/mo) and Solo ($50/mo) plans are priced accordingly. The honest recommendation: pick based on whether your business has a physical facility, not on brand loyalty to either vendor.
Frequently asked questions
Is Time To Pet good for boarding and daycare, or just pet sitting?
Time To Pet started as in-home pet sitting and dog walking software and added a Facility plan ($79/mo) for daycare and boarding operations. The Facility plan covers scheduling and client communication but doesn't include retail POS, integrated payments, or multi-location tools — features a growing boarding or daycare business typically needs.
How much does Time To Pet cost for a boarding facility?
The Facility plan is listed at $79/month. If a facility instead uses the staff-based Team plan, pricing starts at $40/month plus $16/month per active staff member, which grows quickly as headcount increases — a 10-person facility would run roughly $200/month before payment processing or retail POS are added.
What's the best Time To Pet alternative for a multi-location pet business?
Franpos is built for multi-location and franchise pet businesses from the ground up, with automatic royalty calculation and a shared dashboard across sites. Time To Pet's per-location, per-staff pricing wasn't designed with franchise operations in mind.
Does Franpos include payment processing, unlike Time To Pet's add-on?
Yes. Franpos includes interchange-plus payment processing (around 2.63% plus a small per-transaction fee, with no monthly, annual, or PCI fees) as part of the platform, rather than as a separate contract with a payments provider.
Can I switch from Time To Pet to Franpos without losing client data?
Client, pet, and scheduling history can be exported from Time To Pet and imported during onboarding — most facilities switching software plan for a short parallel-run period rather than a hard cutover, so staff and pet parents adjust smoothly.
Ready to see how Franpos fits a boarding or daycare facility specifically? Compare full plans on the pricing page, explore the daycare and boarding features built for occupancy-based operations, or book a demo to see it against your current schedule.
