Here's a scene that plays out in almost every independent kennel at least once a year. A new client calls and asks your nightly rate. You tell them $38. There's a pause. They say "great" a little too quickly, and you hang up the phone wondering if you should have said $42. Or $45. Or honestly, you're not sure, because the last time you thought seriously about your pricing was two years ago when you opened — and back then you just looked at what the kennel down the road was charging and knocked off five dollars.

You're not alone. Pricing is the thing most kennel owners spend the least time on and lose the most money from. Not because the math is hard, but because it feels uncomfortable. You got into this business because you love animals, not because you wanted to build spreadsheets and argue with yourself about whether a $3 rate increase will drive clients away.

It won't, by the way. But we'll get to that.

The Real Cost of Running a Boarding Kennel

Before you can set a rate that makes sense, you need to know what it actually costs you to board one dog for one night. Most kennel owners have never calculated this number. They know their rent, they know their payroll, and they have a rough idea of what food costs — but they've never divided it all out to see the per-night cost of keeping a single run occupied.

Let's walk through it.

Fixed costs are the expenses that don't change much regardless of how many dogs you're boarding. These include your rent or mortgage, insurance, utilities, loan payments, software subscriptions, and any salaried staff. If you're paying $3,200 a month in rent, that's $3,200 whether you have two dogs or twenty.

Variable costs scale with occupancy. Food (if you supply it), cleaning supplies, laundry, waste disposal, wear and tear on runs and bedding, and hourly staff wages all go up as you take on more animals.

Your time is the one most owners forget. If you're working the floor — cleaning runs, doing intake, handling feeding — that's labor. Even if you're not writing yourself a paycheck, your time has a cost. If you wouldn't do the work for free at someone else's facility, it's not free at yours.

Here's a rough framework. Take your total monthly costs — all of them, including a reasonable salary for yourself — and divide by the number of run-nights you sold last month. If your costs are $14,000 and you sold 400 run-nights, your cost per run-night is $35. That means if you're charging $35, you're breaking even. Not building a reserve, not saving for a new HVAC system, not paying yourself fairly. Just keeping the lights on.

Most independent kennels need to clear at least 25–35% above their cost-per-night to be sustainable. That's not greedy. That's what lets you replace equipment, survive a slow month, and eventually take a vacation without worrying that the business will collapse while you're gone.

Why You're Probably Undercharging

There's a specific kind of guilt that comes with raising prices at a small business, and kennel owners feel it more acutely than most. Your clients are trusting you with a family member. Charging them more can feel like you're taking advantage of that trust.

But here's the thing: undercharging doesn't make you generous. It makes you unsustainable.

You're benchmarking against the wrong competitors. If you're setting your rate based on the cheapest kennel in your area, you're competing in a race to the bottom. That bargain kennel might be operating out of a converted barn with no climate control and one part-time employee. You have separate indoor/outdoor runs, a proper ventilation system, trained staff, and vaccination requirements. You're not the same product. Stop pricing like you are.

You haven't raised rates in over a year. Your food distributor has raised prices. Your insurance renewed at a higher premium. Minimum wage went up. If your rate hasn't changed, your margin has — in the wrong direction. A lot of kennel owners wait until they're in financial pain to raise prices, and by then they need a big jump that shocks clients. Small, regular increases are easier for everyone.

You're afraid of losing clients. This is the big one. The fear that a rate increase will send your regulars running to the competition. In reality, most studies on small service businesses show that a 5–10% price increase results in losing fewer than 5% of clients — and the revenue from the increase more than covers it. The clients you lose to a $3/night increase were never going to be loyal anyway. The ones who value your care will barely notice.

You're not charging for what you actually do. Many kennels include services in their base rate that should be add-ons: administering medications, mid-day play sessions, bath before pickup, photo updates. Every one of those costs you time and resources. If you're including them for free, you're subsidizing your clients' convenience with your own margin.

How to Set Your Base Rate

Start with your cost-per-night number from the exercise above. Add your target margin. That's your floor — the minimum you should charge for a standard overnight stay in a standard run.

Now look at your market. Check the rates of three to five kennels within a 30-minute drive of your facility. Don't just look at price — look at what's included. If a competitor charges $45 but that includes a play session and a bath, and you charge $40 with nothing included, you're actually more expensive once a client adds those services at your place.

Position yourself in the top third of your local market. Not the most expensive, but not the cheapest. The cheapest signals "we cut corners." The most expensive only works if you have luxury suites and a webcam in every run. The top third says "we're professional, we're worth it, and we don't apologize for charging fairly."

Here's a pricing framework that works for most independent kennels in the 8–40 run range:

Standard run: Your base rate. This covers a clean, climate-controlled run, basic supervision, and standard feeding (owner-supplied food).
Premium run / suite: 20–40% above your base rate. Larger space, maybe a cot or raised bed, a window, or a quieter location. If you have any runs that are bigger, nicer, or more private, charge accordingly.
Puppy or senior rate: Same as standard, or slightly higher to account for extra monitoring and more frequent potty breaks.
Multi-dog discount: 10–15% off for second and third dogs from the same family in the same run. Not more than that — two dogs in one run still require feeding, cleaning, and supervision for each animal.

Seasonal Pricing: The Money You're Leaving on the Table

If you charge the same rate on July 3rd that you charge on a random Tuesday in February, you're leaving real money on the table.

Seasonal pricing isn't about gouging your clients during the holidays. It's about reflecting reality: when you're at 100% capacity, every run is worth more. When demand exceeds supply, the price should reflect that. Airlines do it. Hotels do it. There's nothing exploitative about it — it's how service businesses stay profitable during the periods that have to carry the slow months.

Peak season at most boarding kennels includes the week around Thanksgiving, the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's, the week of July 4th, spring break, and Memorial Day / Labor Day weekends. During these windows, a surcharge of 15–25% above your standard rate is normal and expected.

Off-peak incentives are the flip side. January, February, and September are slow at most facilities. A 10% discount for stays booked during those months isn't cutting your rate — it's filling runs that would otherwise sit empty. An empty run earns nothing. A discounted run still earns.

Minimum-stay requirements during peak periods are also reasonable. If you have 20 runs and someone wants to book one for a single night on Christmas Eve, that run is unavailable for the client who needs a full week. A two- or three-night minimum during peak weeks protects your revenue and simplifies your scheduling.

The key to seasonal pricing is communication. Post your holiday rates early — at least 6–8 weeks before the peak period. Put them on your website, mention them at check-in during the weeks leading up, and include them in any booking confirmation. Surprises destroy trust. Transparency builds it.

Add-On Services: Where Your Real Margin Lives

Your base boarding rate covers your costs and gives you a modest margin. Add-on services are where you build real profitability — and they're also what separates your facility from the bare-bones kennel down the road.

Common add-ons that kennel owners underutilize:

Medication administration: $3–8/day depending on complexity. Oral meds at the low end, injections or complex multi-drug schedules at the high end. This takes staff time and carries liability. Charge for it.
Extra play or exercise sessions: $8–15 per session. A 20-minute one-on-one play session in the yard is a premium service. Owners love it. Dogs need it. Price it accordingly.
Grooming or bath before pickup: $15–40 depending on breed and service level. Sending a dog home clean is a fantastic experience for the owner and an easy revenue add.
Daily photo or video update: $3–5/day, or bundle it into a "VIP" package. This is nearly zero marginal cost if you have a system for it, and clients will pay gladly for the peace of mind.
Late checkout / early check-in: $10–15. If your standard checkout is 12 PM and someone needs to pick up at 4 PM, that's an extra half-day of run occupancy you can't sell to someone else.
Special dietary preparation: $3–5/day for dogs that need home-cooked meals warmed up, food toppers mixed in, or multi-step feeding routines.

A well-structured add-on menu can increase your average revenue per stay by 20–35%. On a 14-run kennel running at 70% occupancy, that's the difference between scraping by and building a healthy reserve.

How to Announce a Price Increase Without Losing Clients

This is where most kennel owners freeze up. You've done the math, you know your rate needs to go up, but you can't bring yourself to send the email. Here's a framework that works.

Give 30–60 days' notice. Don't surprise anyone. Send a simple, honest message — email, text, or a posted notice at your front desk — letting clients know that rates will increase on a specific date. Honor existing reservations at the old rate.

Be direct, not apologetic. You don't need to write a three-paragraph explanation about inflation and supply chain issues. Something like: "Starting June 1, our standard boarding rate will be $42/night (up from $38). This helps us continue providing the quality of care your pets deserve." That's it. No groveling, no discounts to "ease the transition," no lengthy justification.

Increase annually in small increments. A $2–4 increase every year is barely noticeable. A $10 increase every three years feels like a gut punch, even though the math is similar. Train your clients to expect a modest annual adjustment, and it becomes routine.

Don't negotiate. If a long-time client pushes back, listen and be empathetic, but don't create a special rate for them. Once you start making exceptions, you've created an administrative nightmare and signaled that your prices are flexible. They're not. You've set them based on real costs, and they apply to everyone.

Lead with value. If you've made recent improvements — new flooring, better ventilation, upgraded outdoor play areas, a new booking system — mention them. Not as a justification for the increase, but as a reminder of why clients chose you in the first place.

Stop Competing on Price. Compete on Trust.

The kennels that thrive long-term aren't the cheapest ones. They're the ones that deliver consistent, reliable care and communicate well with pet owners. If a client leaves you over a $3/night increase, they were shopping on price — and price shoppers are the clients most likely to no-show, dispute invoices, and leave negative reviews when anything less than perfection occurs.

The clients you want — the ones who book every trip, refer their friends, and trust you with their anxious rescue dog — are choosing you because of how you make them feel. They want to know their dog is safe, fed correctly, and genuinely cared for. They want updates. They want a clean facility. They want staff who remember their dog's name.

Those things cost money. Your pricing should reflect that.

Getting the Numbers Right (Without the Headache)

Tracking occupancy, revenue per run, and seasonal trends by hand is possible, but it's slow and error-prone. Most kennel owners who do it with spreadsheets eventually stop — not because the math is hard, but because updating a spreadsheet after a 10-hour day of cleaning runs and managing intake isn't anyone's idea of a good time.

This is one of the reasons we built Goodstay. It tracks your occupancy in real time, shows you which runs are earning the most revenue, and makes it easy to set up seasonal rate adjustments and add-on pricing without maintaining a separate price sheet. When a client books, they see exactly what they're paying for — the base rate, any add-ons, any peak-season surcharges — and you get a clean invoice with no surprises.

You can also see your revenue trends over time, which is critical for knowing whether that rate increase actually moved the needle or whether you need to adjust further. It's the kind of visibility that most kennel management software either doesn't offer or buries behind a $150/month enterprise plan.

Goodstay starts at $29/month. No contracts, no setup fees, no demo required. If you've been meaning to get a handle on your pricing but keep putting it off because the tools are too expensive or too complicated, take a look. It was built for kennels your size, by people who understand what you're dealing with.