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Two weeks ago we shipped the Autumn Release: Business Flex, the Pricing Assistant, 2-Way SMS, the Photo Gallery, and 30+ other features in one go. Most teams would slow down after a release that big. Instead, the back half of April brought another 27 features and improvements, headlined by a complete chronological story for every pet you care for, capacity analytics that show you where the gaps are, and a transaction summary that makes end-of-month a breeze. This is the end-of-April round-up: everything that shipped between 16 and 27 April that was not in the Autumn Release post. 1. Transaction Summary & Pre-Auth Alerts The Feature Two changes in payments and revenue, all about giving you clearer visibility over money flowing through Petboost. Transaction Summary. A dedicated transaction summary view in Reporting & Intelligence. Filter by date range, by payment type (card, cash, bank transfer), and by transaction category (appointment, package, quick sale, cancellation fee). Export to...

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The Summer release in February set a high bar: 7 analytics tabs, 60+ insight cards, geographic intelligence, and a complete forecasting engine. Two months later, the Autumn release matches it in a completely different direction. Where Summer was about understanding your business through data, Autumn is about acting on it. A new pricing tier that removes friction for BYO-terminal businesses. An AI assistant that remembers your conversations and escalates to humans when needed. A pricing tool that uses your booking data to recommend what you should charge. And a communications stack that finally lets you have real two-way conversations with your customers. Here is everything that shipped between mid-February and mid-April 2026. 1. Business Flex Plan The Feature A new plan tier between Business Pro and Business Max, designed for businesses that already have their own payment terminal and want to keep using it alongside Petboost. The key difference from Pro: $0 fees on cash, bank...

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We have heard the same thing from dozens of businesses over the past six months: "I love Petboost, but I already have a Square terminal and I do not want to pay extra every time a customer pays cash or taps their card on my own machine." Fair enough. Today we are launching Business Flex, a new plan tier designed specifically for businesses that have their own payment terminal and want to keep using it alongside Petboost. What Business Flex is Business Flex sits between Business Pro and Business Max. It includes every feature that Pro and Max include. Online bookings, automations, packages, courses, paperwork, policies, reporting, Grazi AI. Nothing is locked away. The difference is in the pricing model: - $0 fees on non-card payments. When a customer pays cash, by bank transfer, or taps on your own Square, Tyro, or bank EFTPOS terminal, Petboost charges nothing. Pro charges a per-appointment fee on these payment methods. - Higher limits. More appointments and SMS per month than Pro,...

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Pricing is one of the hardest decisions in any service business. Raise prices too aggressively and you worry about losing clients. Keep them too low and you are working harder for less. Most pet business owners set their prices once, maybe adjust them annually, and otherwise try not to think about it. The process is manual, time-consuming, and stressful. Update each service one at a time, hope you did not miss anything, and then deal with the awkward conversation when a regular notices. The Pricing Assistant changes that. What the Pricing Assistant does The Pricing Assistant lives under Services in your Petboost dashboard. It gives you four ways to adjust service prices across your business in one go. 1. Fixed Amount Add or subtract a fixed dollar amount across selected services. Want to add $5 to every grooming service? Select the services, set the amount, preview the changes, and apply. You can filter by service category and type (initial, regular, add-on, lesson, stay) so you only...

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One of the most common questions we hear from businesses evaluating Petboost is: "What will I actually pay each month?" It is a fair question. Software pricing pages are often designed to look simple, but the total cost depends on how you use the product. Your appointment volume, how many customers pay by card, and how many SMS reminders you send all affect the final number. So we built a calculator that does the maths for you. What the Pricing Calculator does The Pricing Calculator is a free, interactive tool on the Petboost website. Enter your business details and it shows your estimated monthly cost on each plan. You provide: - Your estimated monthly appointment volume - The percentage of customers who pay by card (vs cash, bank transfer, or your own terminal) - Your monthly SMS usage The calculator shows: - Total estimated cost on Business Pro, Business Flex, and Business Max - A breakdown of each cost component: subscription fee, booking fees, Stripe processing fees, SMS charges,...

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If you have 50 pets in your system, updating records one by one is tedious. If you have 500, it is practically impossible. We have heard from groomers, daycare operators, and boarding kennels that data entry is one of the most time-consuming parts of running their business. Whether it is onboarding from another system, cleaning up incomplete records from online bookings, or simply keeping weight and breed information current, the process of clicking into each pet profile, editing, saving, and moving to the next one adds up. Bulk Edit changes that. How it works Navigate to CRM & Pets and select Bulk Edit. Your pets appear in a spreadsheet-style grid with columns for: - Pet name - Breed - Weight - Gender - Desexed status - Birthdate Click any cell to edit it directly in the grid. Changes are highlighted so you can see what you have modified before saving. Finding gaps in your data The most useful feature for many businesses is the missing data filter. Toggle it on and the grid shows...

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When a dog has a seizure at daycare, the first question is not "what do we do?" Most pet professionals know exactly what to do. The first question is "who do we call?" If the owner is not answering, does the team know which vet to contact? Is there a backup number for the owner's partner? Is the vet's number in the booking notes, on a paper form somewhere, or only in someone's memory? Emergency contacts on pet owner profiles solve this. What you can store Every pet owner profile in Petboost now supports emergency contact information: - Vet or clinic details: Name, phone number, and address of the pet's regular vet - Backup phone numbers: Alternative contact numbers for the owner - Alternative contact people: A partner, family member, or neighbour who can be reached if the owner is unavailable Where it appears Emergency contact information is displayed prominently on: - Pet owner summary cards in the CRM - Pet profile summary cards when viewing individual pets - Appointment view when...

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When a regular client brings their dog in after three months, do you remember what blade length you used last time? What the coat condition was like? Whether the owner asked for something different? Most groomers rely on memory, paper notes, or scrolling through past appointments to piece together a pet's grooming history. It works when you have 30 clients. It falls apart when you have 300. The Grooming History Timeline puts every completed grooming appointment on the pet's profile in one visual timeline. What you see For each completed grooming appointment, the timeline shows: - Date of the appointment - Services performed (e.g. full groom, wash and blow dry, nail trim) - Team member who performed the groom - Session notes recorded during or after the appointment - Photos attached to the appointment The timeline is ordered chronologically so you can see the complete care history at a glance. Seasonal filtering Australian seasons affect coat condition, shedding patterns, and grooming...

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We believe you should always know exactly what you are paying for. That is why we built a detailed billing history into Petboost that breaks down every cost component so there are no surprises. Where to find it Navigate to Settings, Billing in your Petboost account. The Billing History tab shows your costs over time. What you see Your costs are broken down into clear categories: - Subscription fee: Your monthly plan charge (Pro, Flex, or Max), including whether a subscription waiver was applied - Booking fees: The percentage-based booking fee on transactions processed through Petboost - Stripe processing fees: Card processing fees charged by Stripe on each transaction - SMS charges: Any SMS credit pack purchases or overage charges beyond your plan's monthly allowance Each category is displayed as both a dollar amount and a proportion of your total costs for the period. Views and time periods Switch between three views: - Monthly: See your costs for any individual month - Quarterly:...

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You started your pet business because you love animals. Not because you love chasing invoices at midnight, missing calls while you're elbow-deep in a grooming session, or spending your Sunday writing social media posts instead of resting. Sound familiar? If you run a small pet services business in Australia, you already know the reality: you're the groomer, the receptionist, the bookkeeper, the marketer, and the compliance officer. All at once. And when you're caring for someone's dog, every other part of your business stops. Here's the thing. It doesn't have to be this way. Where the pet industry is heading We've been building Petboost since 2020. Every year, we've watched the gap widen between what small pet businesses need and what the available software actually delivers. Most platforms help you manage bookings. Some help with payments. But none of them work for you. None of them pick up the phone when you can't. That's about to change. We're investing everything we have into...

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Most pet businesses don't think twice about how they display pricing. "$60 + GST" feels clean. Professional. Standard. But here's the reality: for customer-facing bookings, it creates friction, confusion, and in some cases, compliance risk. And it quietly costs you conversions. Quick Version - Customers expect to see the final price upfront - "+ GST" adds mental load and reduces trust - Australian Consumer Law requires clear, total pricing for consumers - Simpler pricing = higher conversion, fewer questions, better client experience The Problem With "+ GST" Pricing On paper, it makes sense. In practice, it creates three problems. 1. It Breaks the Booking Flow A customer sees: $60 + GST Now they have to: - Calculate the total - Question what the final price is - Hesitate before booking That hesitation matters. Under Australian pricing rules, customers should be able to see the total price they'll pay before committing. If they have to do maths, you've already introduced friction. 2. It...

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Every pet software platform in the world says "all-in-one." Open any competitor's website and you will find the same claim: "One system for grooming, daycare, training, walking, and boarding." The words are identical. The promise is identical. But the question nobody asks is: how did they get there? Did they start with one business type and stretch it across the others? Did they add "boarding" by relabelling an appointment as a multi-day event? Did they support "training" by letting you create a recurring booking and calling it a course? Or did they sit inside each business type, understand its unique workflows, and design purpose-built features before bringing them all together? This is the story of how we built Petboost. Not as an origin myth, but as a verifiable account of the design decisions that shaped every corner of the product. Because when someone says "all-in-one," the follow-up should always be: show me how you earned it. The Problem with "All-in-One" The pet services...

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On 31 March 2026, the Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed that card payment surcharges will be banned from 1 October 2026. If you run a pet business in Australia and accept card payments (which is virtually everyone), this affects you. But the good news is: it does not materially change anything for Petboost businesses. The adjustment is small, the timeline is generous, and we will guide you through it. We will be formally notifying all Petboost businesses on 1 July 2026, giving you three full months to review and adjust before the ban takes effect on 1 October. Here is what is actually happening, what it means for your business, and what you need to do. What the RBA Announced The Payments System Board published its Conclusions Paper confirming that surcharging on debit, prepaid, and credit cards will end across the eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa networks. The ban covers all card types on these networks. American Express, Buy Now Pay Later services, and mobile wallets are currently...

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Two weeks after the Autumn Update, we are closing out Q3 with another batch of features that solve real, daily operational problems. No fluff. Every feature here came directly from conversations with groomers, daycare operators, and mobile pet professionals across Australia. 1. Vaccination Alerts on the Scheduler The Problem A dog arrives for its groom. The groomer starts prepping. Halfway through, someone checks the file and realises the C5 vaccination expired two weeks ago. Now you have an awkward conversation, a disrupted schedule, and a pet owner who wishes someone had flagged it earlier. The Solution Vaccination alerts now appear directly on appointment cards in your scheduler. If a pet's vaccination is expired or approaching expiry, you see a visual badge on the appointment card before the pet even arrives. The alert shows which vaccination is affected and when it expired. Your team can see at a glance, across their entire day, which appointments have vaccination concerns. No...

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Every pet business in Australia deals with the same headache at least a dozen times a year: public holidays. Is Easter Monday a closure day or a premium-rate day? Does your state observe the Queen's Birthday in June or September? Did anyone remember to block out Boxing Day before online bookings started filling the calendar? It is a small administrative task, but the consequences of getting it wrong are real. A client books a groom on a day you are closed. A walker's roster shows availability when the whole team is off. You charge standard rates on a day you should be charging penalty rates (or not working at all). Petboost now handles all of this automatically. How It Works Automatic Holiday Population Navigate to the new Public Holidays page and Petboost fetches every upcoming public holiday for your state or territory. Not a generic national list: the actual holidays that apply to your jurisdiction, including state-specific ones like Melbourne Cup Day (VIC), Recreation Day (TAS),...

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A vaccination check should not happen at the grooming table. It should not happen when the dog is already in the play yard. It should not happen after the owner has driven 30 minutes to drop off. By the time you discover an expired vaccination during an appointment, every option is bad: turn the pet away (angry owner, lost revenue), proceed anyway (liability risk, safety concern), or have an awkward conversation while the pet is mid-groom. Petboost now surfaces vaccination alerts before any of that happens. How It Works When you look at your scheduler, appointment cards for pets with expired or soon-to-expire vaccinations display a visual alert badge. The badge is visible across both the standard scheduler view and the timeline view. The alert shows: - Which vaccination is affected (C5, kennel cough, rabies, etc.) - When it expired or when it is due to expire - The pet's name so you can quickly identify who needs attention You do not need to click into each appointment to check. The...

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When we launched Petboost, SMS was simple: send reminders, send confirmations, done. Over the past six months, it has evolved into a complete communication platform. The feature set has grown significantly, and we have had multiple requests for a single guide that covers everything. This is that guide. The SMS Stack at a Glance Here is everything Petboost can do with SMS today: Description Automated SMS before appointments Automated SMS when a booking is made Ad-hoc SMS to any client Threaded inbox with client replies Your own Australian number Client confirms appointment via SMS reply Client cancels appointment via SMS reply Send to multiple clients at once Send invoice payment links via SMS Collect cancellation fees via SMS Send Google review links via SMS Re-engage abandoned bookings via SMS 1. Messaging Pro: Your Own Number & 2-Way Conversations Messaging Pro is the foundation. It gives your business a dedicated Australian phone number and unlocks 2-way...

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Your team takes photos during every appointment. At the beach, in the grooming salon, mid-training session, during boarding playtime. Those photos end up in report cards, which pet owners love. But until now, there was no single place where a pet owner could see all their photos across all appointments. That changes today. Photo Gallery: Every Photo, One Beautiful Place The pet owner portal now has a dedicated Photos page. Every photo from every appointment, across every pet, collected in one gorgeous gallery. !Photo gallery showing appointment photos in a grid layout Here is what pet owners get: - All photos from all appointments displayed in a clean grid, organised by date - Filter by pet using the pet selector at the top, so multi-pet households can browse photos for just Bella, just Max, or everyone - Filter by date range to find photos from a specific period - Multiple grid sizes so pet owners can see more photos at once or zoom in for detail - Favourite photos by tapping the...

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We recently joined Varnit on the Pet Brand Podcast to talk about building Petboost, what we learned from spending time inside real pet businesses, and why small operators in the pet industry have more going for them than they probably realise. Varnit interviews founders and CEOs building real pet businesses, and his questions cut straight to the strategy, systems, and decisions that actually drive growth. It was a great conversation. Here are 7 lessons from the episode that every pet business owner should hear. 1. Talk to Your Customers Before You Build Anything Before Petboost existed as a product, it existed as a question: what do pet businesses actually need? Back in 2018, we helped start a pet business doing hydrotherapy and dog daycare. We quickly realised there was great software for massive kennel operations and great software for human service businesses like hair salons and personal training. But nothing built specifically for small pet businesses. So we did what any good...

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Are we getting lazier? Or are we simply expecting more? If you have used any modern software tool in the past year, you have probably noticed a pattern. You reach for the search bar before you reach for the menu. You type what you want instead of clicking through three pages to find it. And if the software does not let you do that, you feel the friction immediately. This is not laziness. It is a raised baseline. Every tool we use, from Slack to Spotify to our banking apps, has trained us to expect instant access to anything through a single input. The era of "navigate to the right page, find the right section, click the right button" is ending. And if your business software still works that way, it feels like a step backwards. Today, we are shipping a feature that brings that same expectation to Petboost: the Quick Command Centre. What Is the Quick Command Centre? Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) anywhere in Petboost. A search dialog opens. Start typing. That is it. That is the...

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Every pet business owner has had this conversation. Maybe it was with your accountant. Maybe it was with a mate who runs a cafe. Maybe it was at a trade show where someone handed you a brochure for a shiny new EFTPOS terminal. The question always sounds the same: "What rate are you paying?" And just like that, the entire decision gets reduced to a single number. 1.1%. 1.4%. 1.6%. 1.7%. Whoever has the lowest number wins, right? Not even close. The transaction rate is one line in a much longer financial story. And if you are making your payment provider decision based on that number alone, you are almost certainly costing yourself thousands of dollars a year in ways that never show up on a merchant statement. Let us talk about the real cost of processing payments in an Australian pet business. The Cost Nobody Talks About: The Admin Tax Before we compare a single provider, we need to name the elephant in the room. Your accountant might call it "reconciliation overhead." Your bookkeeper...

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Spoiler alert: if you set this up properly, you will never manually create or send an invoice again. We recently had a conversation with one of our pet business owners who was about to sign up to Xero. They were staring at the pricing page, trying to figure out whether they needed the entry-level plan or the next tier up. The main difference? Invoice limits. And the price gap was forty dollars a month. Their question was simple: "Do invoices go out through Xero, or through Petboost and Stripe?" It is a brilliant question, and one that every Australian pet business owner should understand before they hand over their credit card to an accounting platform. The answer saved them nearly five hundred dollars a year. The Short Answer You do not need Xero to send invoices to your clients. Petboost handles that side of things entirely. When you create an appointment in Petboost, the system automatically generates the invoice line items attached to that appointment: the services, the add-ons,...

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This is the one you have been waiting for. From day one, the most requested feature on our roadmap has been the same thing, every single time: "Can I text my clients back?" Today, the answer is yes. And it is so much better than you imagined. Petboost Messaging Pro is a complete 2-way SMS messaging system built from the ground up for Australian pet businesses. Your own dedicated phone number. A full threaded inbox. Delivery tracking on every message. Smart credit management that never lets you run dry. And zero inbound SMS fees, so when your clients text you back, it costs you nothing. This is not a bolted-on SMS gateway. This is a communication platform purpose-built for the way pet businesses actually work. Your Own Dedicated Number Let's start with the thing that changes everything: your own Australian phone number. When you activate Messaging Pro, Petboost provisions a dedicated phone number just for your business. Not a shared pool. Not a random number that changes. Your number....

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We have been building towards this for a long time. And now it is here. Grazi AI is an artificial intelligence assistant built directly into Petboost. Not a chatbot that gives you generic answers. Not a search bar with better autocomplete. An actual AI that understands your business: your bookings, your clients, your pets, your revenue, your team, your services. All of it. Ask it a question in plain English, and it answers with real data from your account. No spreadsheets. No reports to build. No waiting for the end of the month to understand how your business is tracking. This is the beginning of something transformative for pet businesses. What Can Grazi AI Do? Grazi AI is accessible from the sidebar in your Petboost dashboard. Open it, type a question, and get an instant answer. Here are some examples of what you can ask: Business Performance - "How many appointments did I have last week?" - "What is my revenue this month compared to last month?" - "Which team member has the most...

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We recently sat down with Chenelle from the Pet Industry Mentor podcast for an hour-long conversation about what it actually takes to run a pet business. Not the Instagram version. The real version. Chenelle is a former pet business owner who grew her operation to multiple six figures before selling it in 2025. She now mentors pet professionals who want to build sustainable, profitable businesses. So when she talks about the hard parts, she is not guessing. She has lived them. Here are the 9 takeaways that could change how you think about running your pet business. 1. Passion Gets You Started, Professionalism Keeps You Going This was the very first thing Chenelle said, and it set the tone for the entire episode. "I genuinely believe that loving animals is not enough to run a safe, sustainable pet care business." It sounds harsh. It is also completely true. Passion for animals gets you started. But systems, processes, policies, pricing, and professionalism are what keep you going. The...

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This Is Not a Normal Calendar Problem A dentist books patients into chairs. A hair salon books clients into stations. Simple. But a dog daycare? Before confirming a single booking, the system needs to check vaccination records, temperament assessments, breed compatibility, weight limits, staff-to-pet ratios, play area capacity, and whether Biscuit the Rottweiler has been cleared to play with small dogs. That is not a calendar problem. That is a constraint satisfaction problem wrapped in fur. Pet industry scheduling is a category unto itself. Every business type has different rules, different constraints, and different workflows. A solo mobile groomer might need three booking rules. A 15-staff daycare facility might need eighteen. Understanding where your business sits on that spectrum is the first step to choosing the right system. We call this the Uno to Monopoly framework: some businesses need a few simple rules (like a game of Uno), while others need an intricate rule system where...

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This is the announcement we have been bursting to make. Every single pet business on Petboost now has its own free, fully branded, SEO-optimised microsite. Not a booking link. Not a form. Not a sad little widget you embed on your existing website and pray someone finds it. A proper, gorgeous, standalone microsite that showcases your business to the world. We are calling it the Business Showcase Page, and it is, without exaggeration, the most powerful online presence tool ever built specifically for Australian pet businesses. !Petboost Business Showcase Page showing a beautifully branded microsite with services, pricing, and booking Forget Everything You Know About Booking Forms Let's be honest: pet business "online booking" has been stuck in the dark ages. A clunky form. A phone number. A "DM us for pricing" caption on Instagram. Maybe, if you are lucky, a WordPress site from 2019 that takes 8 seconds to load on mobile. That era is over. Your Business Showcase Page is a booking form...

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More Than a Booking Form Many pet business solutions provide a booking link: a URL that opens a form. No context, no branding, no search engine presence. Pet owners need your direct link to find you. Your showcase page is different. It is a complete, branded microsite designed to support pet owners in discovering your business, researching your services, and booking online, all from one page. Every Petboost business gets one. Free. No extra cost, no setup fees, no monthly charges. What Pet Owners See When a pet owner visits your showcase page, they get the full picture: Branded Hero Your logo, your brand colours, your fonts. A hero video from YouTube, Vimeo, or Instagram showing your space, your team, and the care you provide. Quick stats showing your service count and instant booking badges. Full Service Catalogue Every service displayed with images, descriptions, pricing, and duration. Organised by category with instant filtering. Badges for vaccination requirements, mobile...

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February 2026 has been, without question, the most productive month in Petboost history. We shipped more features, more intelligence, and more value in the last few weeks than some platforms ship in a year. This is the update we have been building towards since day one. If you have been using Petboost, you are about to see your dashboard come alive in ways it never has before. If you have been thinking about switching, there has never been a better time. Let's break down everything that just landed. 1. Reporting & Intelligence: 7 Analytics Tabs, One Unified View The Feature This is the headline act, and it's a big one. Petboost now ships with a full-blown Reporting & Intelligence suite that gives you seven dedicated analytics tabs: Overview, Appointments, Customers, Team, Services, Financial, and Map. Each tab delivers real metrics, real charts, and real insight cards powered by your actual booking data. The Overview tab alone gives you revenue trends, completion rates, top...

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Petboost already handles your day-to-day appointment communications: booking confirmations, reminders, updates, report cards, and payment receipts all go out automatically without you lifting a finger. That's operational messaging, and it's taken care of. But you might be wondering: does Petboost do email marketing too? We don't. And if you're doing email marketing to clients (seasonal promotions, holiday reminders, referral campaigns, newsletters) you should think carefully about how you're doing it. There's absolutely a place for marketing emails in a pet business. A well-timed message about booking early for the Christmas rush, a reminder that it's flea season, or a "we miss you" nudge to lapsed clients can all drive real revenue. But here's the problem: with recent changes to Gmail, Outlook, and most major email providers, it's harder than ever not to end up in spam. Google started actively rejecting non-compliant emails in late 2025. Microsoft followed suit. Yahoo tightened its...

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Every successful pet business has one thing in common: they show up consistently. Not just when they remember, not just when business is slow, but regularly, predictably, and with purpose. The pet industry in 2026 is more competitive than ever. Global spending is projected to exceed $320 billion, and the businesses capturing that growth are the ones with a plan. The difference between businesses that "do marketing" and businesses that grow through marketing is almost always one thing: a calendar. This is the content calendar we wish existed when we started. So we built it. Why Most Pet Businesses Struggle With Marketing in 2026 Most pet business owners are reactive marketers. They post on social media when they remember. They send an email when bookings are slow. They run a promotion when a competitor does something that makes them nervous. If you have ever sat down after a long day of grooming, walking, or sitting and thought "I really should post something," you already know the...

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Your pet business generates geographic data every single day. Every booking has a customer address. Every customer lives in a suburb. Every suburb has a revenue story to tell. Until now, that data has been invisible. It lives in booking records and customer profiles, but nobody stitches it together to show you the big picture: where your money comes from, where your team spends its time, and where your next growth opportunity is hiding. That changes with Geographic Intelligence, a new capability inside Petboost Reporting and Insights. Here is what it does, and more importantly, 12 practical ways you can use it to run a smarter, more efficient pet business. What Geographic Intelligence Actually Shows You The Map view inside Reporting and Insights takes your booking, payment, and customer data and plots it geographically. There are six distinct views: - Revenue mode: Suburb-level bubbles sized by total revenue, coloured by average appointment value - Customer mode: Individual customer...

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For pet businesses, social media is not just for cute puppy videos. It is a digital storefront. However, targeting "everyone who likes dogs" in a 20km radius is a fast way to burn through your budget on people who will never walk through your door. On Meta (Facebook and Instagram), the rules for location targeting have become broader. The default setting now captures not just residents, but also visitors. To win locally, you need to go deeper than a simple city search. Here is an advanced guide to mastering hyper-local targeting on Meta, with real-world examples for pet businesses. 1. Mastering the "Living In vs. Recently In" Dilemma As of 2026, Meta's default (and often only) option is targeting "People living in or recently in this location." This is a major hurdle for local service providers. The Problem You own a boutique dog hotel near a major highway or airport. With the default setting, your ad for "Long-Term Boarding" could be shown to a family driving through on a road trip....

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As a pet business owner, your "territory" is everything. If you're a dog groomer in Sydney, a click from someone in Perth isn't just useless: it's costing you money. Google Ads is a powerhouse for finding new clients, but only if your ads show up where your four-legged customers actually live. Based on the latest best practices and Google's own technical guides, here is how to set up your geo-targeting so you only pay for local leads. 1. The "Where": Choosing Your Target Areas In the world of pet services, "close to home" is the number one reason clients choose a provider. Google offers three main ways to define your boundary: Radius Targeting (The "Service Area" Hero) Perfect for mobile dog walkers or groomers. You can set a 5km or 10km radius around your business address. This ensures you are not spending 45 minutes in traffic just to get to one appointment. Specific...

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The Complete Dog Grooming Business Checklist You got into grooming because you love dogs. Not because you love ABN registrations, insurance certificates, and cancellation policy documents. But here's the truth: the groomers who last aren't just the most skilled with a blade. They're the ones who treated it like a business from day one. They got their foundations right before worrying about which booking app to use. This guide is the checklist we wish existed when we started. It covers everything, from the boring-but-essential business registration stuff, through to the operational decisions that most groomers figure out the hard way, and finally into going digital with a system that actually understands how grooming works. Whether you're just starting out or you've been grooming for years and want to tighten up your operation, work through this at your own pace. Skip what you've already sorted. Linger on what makes you think "yeah, I probably should sort that out." > Important...

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The Complete Daycare Business Setup Checklist Most booking software thinks daycare is counting heads. Ten spots available, ten dogs booked, done. But you know that's not how it works. You've got a small dog yard and a large dog yard. Indoor play and outdoor space. Morning drop-off chaos and afternoon pickup logistics. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost step-by-step for daycare operations. Quick Setup Checklist Play Areas (Resources) Setup: - [ ] Create "Small Dog Play Area" resource (e.g., capacity 8) - [ ] Create "Large Dog Play Area" resource (e.g., capacity 12) - [ ] Set working hours for each area - [ ] Assign daycare services to appropriate areas Services Setup: - [ ] Create Full Day Daycare service - [ ] Create Half Day - AM service - [ ] Create Half Day - PM service - [ ] Create Temperament Test as Initial service - [ ] Set "Require Initial Service" on regular daycare Packages Setup: - [ ] Create 10-Day Daycare Pack - [ ] Create 20-Day Daycare Pack (better...

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The Complete Boarding Facility Setup Checklist Double-booking a kennel during peak season is every boarding facility's nightmare. Most software shows you a daily count, not which specific kennels are occupied on which specific nights. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost step-by-step for boarding operations. Quick Setup Checklist Kennels (Resources) Setup: - [ ] Create each kennel as a resource (capacity: 1) - [ ] Organise by type (Standard, Deluxe, Suite) - [ ] Set working hours (often 24/7) - [ ] Assign boarding services to kennels Services Setup: - [ ] Create Boarding service (Type: Stay) - [ ] Configure 24-hour billing periods - [ ] Set up tiered pricing (stay longer, save more) - [ ] Create add-ons (extra walks, grooming) Compliance Setup: - [ ] Enable vaccination requirements (Bordetella, etc.) - [ ] Configure expiry reminders - [ ] Set up document upload capability Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable Pre-Hold Funds - [ ] Enable Auto-Start/Complete - [ ] Configure care...

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The Complete Dog Training Setup Checklist Here's the challenge with training: A single session rarely changes a dog's behaviour. Real results come from a program. But most clients book one session at a time and never return. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost to lock in that commitment. Quick Setup Checklist Services Setup: - [ ] Create Initial Consultation service - [ ] Create 1-on-1 Training Session service - [ ] Set "Require Initial Service" on training - [ ] Create location-based services if mobile Packages Setup: - [ ] Create 6-Session Training Pack - [ ] Create 12-Session Training Pack - [ ] Enable self-service purchase Session Notes Setup: - [ ] Configure note templates (goals, exercises, homework) - [ ] Set up client-visible vs internal notes Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable Pre-Hold Funds - [ ] Enable Auto-Start/Complete - [ ] Enable Auto-Pay Self-Service Setup: - [ ] Enable self-service on Initial Consultation - [ ] Keep packages staff-recommended initially - [ ]...

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The Complete Puppy School Setup Checklist You're not booking appointments. You're filling class spots. Six puppies need to be 8-16 weeks old. The class runs for six weeks. This guide walks you through Petboost Courses. Quick Setup Checklist Course Template Setup: - [ ] Create Puppy School service (for template) - [ ] Set lesson count (e.g., 6 lessons) - [ ] Set recurrence (weekly) - [ ] Set capacity (e.g., 8 puppies) Eligibility Setup: - [ ] Set age restrictions (8-16 weeks) - [ ] Configure vaccination requirements - [ ] Set enrolment cutoff date Resources Setup: - [ ] Create training room/area as resource - [ ] Assign to course service Publishing: - [ ] Go to Courses → New → Publish New Course - [ ] Select template and start date - [ ] System generates all lesson dates Self-Service Setup: - [ ] Enable self-service enrolment - [ ] Share course booking link 1. Course Templates: Design Once, Publish Many The Problem Creating a new puppy school class is tedious. You're making six or...

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The Complete Dog Walking Setup Checklist You're never in one place. Clients are across suburbs. Half your clients you might never see. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost for dog walking. Quick Setup Checklist Services Setup: - [ ] Create Group Walk service - [ ] Create Private Walk service - [ ] Set service areas (suburbs you cover) - [ ] Configure buffer time for travel Packages Setup: - [ ] Create 5-Walk Pack - [ ] Create 10-Walk Pack - [ ] Create 20-Walk Pack - [ ] Enable self-service purchase Team Setup (if applicable): - [ ] Add walkers as team members - [ ] Assign services to each walker - [ ] Set capacity per walker Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable Pre-Hold Funds - [ ] Enable Auto-Start/Complete - [ ] Enable Auto-Pay Self-Service Setup: - [ ] Enable self-service booking - [ ] Enable recurring patterns - [ ] Share booking link 1. Walk Packages for Predictable Revenue The Problem One-off walks are revenue rollercoasters. Some weeks you're slammed, others you're...

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The Complete Pet Concierge Setup Checklist You're doing home visits for cats, vacation check-ins for multiple pets, drop-in feeding. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost for pet concierge. Quick Setup Checklist Services Setup: - [ ] Create Home Visit service - [ ] Create Vacation Coverage service - [ ] Set service areas/zones - [ ] Configure visit duration Packages Setup: - [ ] Create Vacation Package (7-day, 14-day) - [ ] Create Regular Visit Pack (10-pack) - [ ] Enable upfront payment Documentation Setup: - [ ] Configure visit note templates - [ ] Set up photo requirements - [ ] Enable timestamped check-in/out Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable full lifecycle automation - [ ] Configure recurring visit patterns Self-Service Setup: - [ ] Enable self-service booking - [ ] Share booking link 1. Lifecycle Automation for Recurring Visits The Problem You've got clients with recurring needs: daily cat visits, twice-weekly check-ins, vacation coverage that spans weeks. Managing each...

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The Complete Canine Rehab Setup Checklist You're managing rehabilitation programs with medical documentation and equipment constraints. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost for canine rehab. Quick Setup Checklist Equipment (Resources) Setup: - [ ] Create Hydrotherapy Pool (capacity: 1) - [ ] Create Underwater Treadmill (capacity: 1) - [ ] Create Treatment Tables - [ ] Set maintenance windows Services Setup: - [ ] Create Initial Assessment service - [ ] Create Hydrotherapy Session - [ ] Create Land Therapy Session - [ ] Assign resources to each service Packages Setup: - [ ] Create 8-Session Rehab Program - [ ] Create 12-Session Rehab Program - [ ] Configure upfront payment Documentation Setup: - [ ] Configure treatment note templates - [ ] Set up progress tracking fields - [ ] Enable photo/video documentation Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable Pre-Hold Funds - [ ] Enable Auto-Start/Complete - [ ] Enable Auto-Pay 1. Treatment Documentation That Builds History The Problem...

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The Complete Multi-Service Facility Setup Checklist You're running daycare and grooming. Or all of the above plus boarding. This guide walks you through setting up Petboost for multi-service operations. Quick Setup Checklist Services Setup (All Types): - [ ] Create daycare services (sessions) - [ ] Create grooming services (by size) - [ ] Create boarding services (Stay type) - [ ] Create training services if offered Resources Setup (All Departments): - [ ] Create play areas for daycare - [ ] Create grooming stations - [ ] Create kennels for boarding - [ ] Assign services to appropriate resources Team Setup: - [ ] Add team members with skills - [ ] Tag capabilities (grooming, daycare, etc.) - [ ] Set capacity per person Packages Setup: - [ ] Create daycare packages - [ ] Create grooming packages - [ ] Enable cross-pet sharing Automation Setup: - [ ] Enable all lifecycle automations - [ ] Configure per-service as needed Self-Service Setup: - [ ] Enable self-service per service - [ ]...

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The Identity Crisis Nobody Warns You About "I'm a groomer." "I'm a dog walker." "I'm a trainer." That's how most pet business owners introduce themselves. And it's accurate. You started this business because you're brilliant at what you do. Clients love YOU. Your hands, your instincts, your relationship with their pet. But then the business grows. You hire someone. Maybe two people. And suddenly you're faced with a question that nobody prepared you for: Are you a groomer who runs a business? Or a business owner who grooms? The difference sounds semantic. It's actually existential. And navigating it is the hardest transition in pet business ownership. The Skills That Got You Here Won't Get You There You built this business on your technical ability. Your grooms are perfect. Your handling is calm. Your clients trust your hands. But running a team requires a completely different skill set: Business Owner Skills | | Teaching and delegation | Client experience design (systemic) | Team...

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Di Marco Family Office Backs Petboost heading into 2026 TechnologyOne founder Adrian Di Marco OAM continues to support Petboost's growth Adrian Di Marco OAM, founder of Australia's largest enterprise software company TechnologyOne ASX: TNE, has backed Petboost through his Read the full article →

Why Most Pet Businesses Don't Collect Feedback (And Why They Should) Most pet businesses rely on a simple heuristic: "If clients keep coming back, we must be doing OK." That's not wrong. But it misses three things: 1. The clients who leave don't tell you why. They just quietly switch to someone else. 2. The clients who stay might tolerate issues because switching feels like too much effort. 3. The clients who love you might refer more if you gave them an easy way to share that love publicly. Systematic feedback collection isn't about finding problems. It's about understanding what's working, what's not, and where the opportunities are. Three Simple Collection Methods 1. In-Person at Pick-Up The most natural and highest-quality feedback happens face-to-face at pick-up. What to ask: "How does [pet's name] look? Is there anything you'd like us to do differently next time?" Keep it conversational. Most clients will tell you honestly if you ask. The key is asking consistently, not just...

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What Does a "Healthy" Pet Business Actually Look Like? We started Hound Health Bondi in 2018 — a pet care business in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. We've lived the chaos of running a pet business firsthand: the missed calls mid-groom, the late-night invoice chasing, the spreadsheets that never quite synced. And here's what became clear: the pet businesses that thrive all share common characteristics. The ones that struggle share common problems. This isn't about revenue or location or how many Instagram followers you have. It's about operational health — the systems and structures that let you do great work, serve pets well, and actually enjoy running your business. Here are the 8 signs to look for. 1. One System of Record The problem: Most pet businesses piece together a patchwork of tools. Square for payments. Calendly for bookings. Google Sheets for tracking. Mailchimp for email notifications. QuickBooks for invoicing. It's common to see pet businesses running 8+ different tools just...

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Why Turnover Is So Expensive Losing a team member costs more than most pet business owners realise: - Recruitment costs: Advertising, time spent interviewing, trial days - Training costs: 2-4 weeks of reduced productivity while the new person learns - Client impact: Regular clients notice when their favourite groomer or daycare attendant leaves - Team morale: Remaining staff carry extra load during the gap A rough estimate: replacing a team member costs 3-6 months of their salary when you factor in all direct and indirect costs. With 79% of pet businesses struggling to find skilled staff, retention isn't a "nice to have." It's a survival strategy. The Daily Debrief: Five Minutes That Transform Communication The single most impactful team ritual we've seen in pet businesses: a 5-minute debrief at the end of each day. How it works: - Last 5 minutes of the working day, everyone stops - Three questions: "What went well today?" "What was tricky?" "Anything for tomorrow?" - No phones, no...

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Prepaid Packages That Actually Sell: Pricing Psychology for Pet Services Prepaid packages are one of the most powerful tools for building recurring revenue. When customers buy upfront, you get cash flow certainty, reduced no-shows, and sticky customers who keep coming back. But here's the thing: most pet businesses get packages wrong. They create packages nobody wants, price them confusingly, and hide them where customers can't find them. This guide shows you how to design packages that actually sell. Based on real psychology, real data, and what we've seen work across hundreds of pet businesses. Why Packages Work (The Psychology) Before we get into the tactics, let's understand why packages are so effective. 1. Commitment and consistency When someone buys a 10-pack, they've committed to 10 visits. Psychologically, they want to stay consistent with that commitment. They'll show up. 2. Sunk cost effect Money already spent feels different from money not yet spent. A prepaid customer...

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From "Pet Owner" to "Pet Parent" The language shift is subtle but significant. "Pet owner" implies property. "Pet parent" implies family. And that shift in language reflects a deep shift in spending, expectations, and behaviour. According to the 2025 AMA Pet Report, Australians now spend $21.3 billion annually on pet care, a 35% increase since 2022. Per-dog spending has reached approximately $3,300 per year (PIAA). The PIAA describes this as a shift towards "human-style" pet care, where pet parents prioritise premium nutrition, preventive health, and personalised services to give their companions the very best. For pet service businesses, this isn't just interesting. It's transformational. What Humanisation Changes About Your Business 1. Expectations for Personalisation Pet parents don't want a generic service. They want providers who know their pet by name, remember their preferences, and treat them as an individual. What this means practically: - Record detailed preferences for...

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5 Signs Your Dog Walking Business Needs Better Systems When you started your dog walking business, a notebook and your phone were enough. A few regular clients, text message bookings, cash payments. Simple. But as you've grown, that simplicity has become chaos. Your phone is full of booking requests. You're constantly checking who's scheduled when. Payments are trickling in (or not). Sound familiar? Here are the five warning signs that your systems aren't keeping up with your business. 01. You're Spending Evenings on Admin Instead of Rest The walks are done. The dogs are home. But your work isn't finished. You're sitting at the kitchen table updating spreadsheets, sending invoices, replying to booking requests, and confirming tomorrow's schedule. What should be your downtime has become your second shift. The reality check: If you're spending more than 30 minutes per day on admin, your systems aren't working hard enough. What better systems look like: - Bookings come in automatically...

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You Asked. We Listened. Here's What's Coming. Happy New Year! 🎉 2025 was a big year for pet businesses on Petboost. You told us what works, what doesn't, and what you desperately need to run your business without the chaos. We listened. And we spent the holidays building. 3 New Plans. 3 Different Business Sizes. Zero Guesswork. We've completely redesigned our pricing around real customer feedback, not arbitrary tiers that force you to pay for features you'll never use. Whether you're a solo groomer working from a home salon, a growing daycare with a small team, or a multi-location boarding facility, there's now a plan that actually fits how you operate. Simple. Transparent. Built for where you are and where you're going. See the new plans → The Conversations That Shaped 2026 Every feature on our roadmap started with a real conversation. Here's what you told us: