Dog Boarding Cost Calculator: Kennels vs Sitter Prices

Work out what your dog's holiday care will actually cost before you ring round. Put in your nights, how many dogs you have and where you live, and this dog boarding cost calculator prices the four real options side by side: boarding kennels, licensed home boarding, an overnight sitter in your house and a live-in house sitter. The result most owners get wrong is the multi-dog one. Kennels and home boarders charge per dog, while a sitter usually charges one fee for the household, so the cheapest option flips once you have two or three dogs.

How this calculator works

The four options are priced from the rates UK owners are typically quoted: roughly £20 to £40 a night per dog for kennels, £25 to £50 for licensed home boarding, £35 to £70 a night for a sitter who stays at your house, and £40 to £85 for live-in house sitting. Your area and the time of year then move those figures, because London and school holidays sit at the top of every range and quiet rural areas at the bottom. The calculator shows a low to high band as well as a single budgeting figure, since two boarders on the same street will quote differently.

Three assumptions are worth knowing, because they are where the real money hides:

• Day counting. Many kennels charge for the drop-off day and the collection day, so a seven night stay is billed as eight days. That is switched on by default and you can see what it costs you. Home boarders more often quote per night, so the tick box applies to the kennel figure only.
• Extra dogs. Kennels and home boarders charge per dog, with a common discount of about a quarter off the second and any further dog sharing a pen. Sitters charge for the household, so the calculator adds only a small nightly amount for each extra dog.
• Extras. Collection and drop-off is treated as a single return fee, and the optional individual walk is charged per dog per day, which is why it grows fast on a long stay.

Take the answer as a shortlisting tool rather than a quote. Ring two or three local places, ask each of them the same three questions (does the price include VAT, does it include food, and how do you count the days), and you will find the spread between them is wider than the spread between the options here.

Which option should you actually pick?

Price is only half of it. A confident, sociable dog that likes other dogs is often perfectly happy in a good kennel, and kennels are the cheapest route for a single dog on a stay of a few nights or more. An anxious dog, an elderly dog or one on medication usually does better in home boarding, where it lives as a family pet in someone's house. If you have several dogs, or a dog that cannot cope with leaving home at all, a sitter in your own home stops being the luxury option and starts being the sensible one, which is the comparison our guide to boarding versus house sitting goes into.

Whatever you choose, book early for peak weeks, get the licence number and check it with the council, and sort the paperwork first: our list of vaccinations your dog needs for boarding covers what will be asked for at the door. If you are still choosing a place, start with how to choose a boarding kennel or cattery, then find boarding kennels and pet sitters near you in our directory. To fold this into the bigger picture, the annual dog cost calculator adds boarding to food, insurance, grooming and vet care.