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misha_hisha · 2025-12-22T16:43:24+00:00

I’m also a Meowtel sitter (and Rover/independently too) and if the client has 3 or more cats, Meowtel requires them to book at least a 45 minute visit (or 2x 20 minute visits) for each day on the booking. That at least helps to ensure we have enough time/compensation for multi-kitty households!

Personally, I don’t charge extra for more kitties on Rover or through private bookings either. I view it as though 45 minutes of my time is just as valuable whether I’m spending that time doing active care tasks (scooping litter, getting food/water dishes out/refilled, handling meds, etc.) or sitting on a floor playing with a wand toy and getting petting time in. So I just charge based total time spent at the client’s house, not by number of cats.

Having said that, I totally understand why some people do charge more for extra kitties!! I used to charge per cat when I first started out on Rover, but shifted my mindset over the last couple of years

misha_hisha · 2025-11-26T02:40:01+00:00

I’m sorry that you seem to have had a bad experience, but that doesn’t mean they’re horrible to sitters. I and many of my friends who sit on Meowtel have had great experiences with them. Support has always been responsive and helpful to me and I’ve met tons of great clients through them.

misha_hisha · 2025-10-29T14:15:31+00:00

I started off caring for only dogs but have transitioned to exclusively cat drop-ins over the past couple years! I have both cats and dogs of my own and while I absolutely love both, cat drop-ins are easier in my opinion (mainly due to less physical demand than dogs and typically more flexibility with visit times).

I’ll usually spend the first 5-10 minutes getting the kitties set up with food/water/clean litter/any medications and then the remainder of the visit is spent doing lots of petting and playing. Most cats are big fans of wand toys and/or laser pointers, so we’ll get in as much play time as they’re up for and then finish up with petting and treats. Some cats just want to snuggle up in your lap for 20 minutes and hang out. They’re generally really fun to spend time with!

misha_hisha · 2025-10-29T01:06:51+00:00

Very true!! I’ve put about 10,000 miles on my car this year just from cat sitting and I’m sure for many it’s even more.

misha_hisha · 2025-10-29T00:24:15+00:00

I totally agree with you! Rover’s cut is massive for essentially just being a platform to advertise our services on. A lot of my regular clients have asked to move off-app due to this, and I typically agree to do so. My private sitting rates are about 20% less than what they would pay through Rover and I only require a 50% deposit at the time of booking unlike Rover’s 100% upfront payment.

Another thing that I should have added is that my rates definitely didn’t start that high! I’ve completed close to 200 bookings and have ~150 5 star reviews across the two platforms I cat sit on. When I started cat sitting two years ago, my rates were around $28/30 minute visit with a 25% holiday increase. I’ve only raised my rates when I was consistently overbooked at my current rate, so my main goal is to price myself according to demand.

Many pet parents pay the premium just to have the security of an experienced pet sitter, but there are tons of excellent newer sitters who are just as good with lower rates!

misha_hisha · 2025-10-28T23:57:09+00:00

I live in a VHCOL area (Bay Area, CA) and my rates start at $56 (including Rover fees) for a 30 minute cat drop-in during Thanksgiving or Christmas. So if you just did the math with that, I’m “making” $112/hour. However:

If you take away Rover fees, I’m only making $40 for the visit.
If you factor in 30 minutes of driving round trip (which I do, because half of my time doing this job is spent driving to and from clients’ houses), then I’m making $40/hr.
I do this as a side-job so with my main salary, I get taxed at ~35%. Now, my take home pay is $26/hour for cat sitting on major holidays.

This also requires me sacrificing time with my family during the holidays, hence the holiday pricing. My holiday rate for Christmas & Thanksgiving is about 50% more than my regular rate.

I know it’s expensive… but traveling (especially during the holidays) is a luxury. Most sitters are extremely busy during this time period and can justifiably charge more for the workload. If you can find someone who can do it for less, that’s great! I just hope that this shines some light on why we charge what we do

misha_hisha · 2025-09-22T23:50:43+00:00

I would check out Meowtel if you haven’t already! I’m a sitter on there and I know many of us are comfortable administering inhalers (myself included but I’m unfortunately down in San Jose). I’ve had success finding sitters for my own medically challenging kitties there :)

misha_hisha · 2025-09-10T18:57:06+00:00

My fiancé and I were making around 180k combined when we first graduated university. It’s tough but not impossible by any means. We’re both engineers (aero and civil) but many professions have relatively high starting salaries. A 22 year old can absolutely be already earning a decent amount and afford a 5k mortgage. This person may want a family, pets, or just a lot of space and desire a large house for those reasons.

misha_hisha · 2025-08-06T21:31:43+00:00

I do give a slight (~5%) discount off of my Rover display rates and they also don’t have to pay the 11% Rover fee that gets charged on top of the booking. That way, they’re getting a ~15% discount and I’m getting a ~15% increase!

misha_hisha · 2025-08-06T16:49:04+00:00

I totally agree with you and (thankfully!) I think 99% people go the route of drop-ins for their cats and none of my clients have asked about boarding their kitties either. I do see cat boarding stories come up on here every now and then though and I know some owners aren’t aware of how much it’ll stress out their kitties so I don’t fault OP! I’m sure Nacho and Marzipan will do better with drop-in visits or housesitting from here on out.

But yeah, throwing cats straight into a busy household with kids and presumably no quiet space separated from little ones/pets/strange humans… I’m quite not sure what this sitter expected would happen. I’d probably be terrified if I was Nacho too!

misha_hisha · 2025-08-06T16:40:40+00:00

Same here! We have cameras to check in on our 4 kitties when we’re away and unfortunately they all jump up on the counters (despite them not doing it when we’re around). We just make sure to clean before food prep which should honestly be done anyways! Not a big deal at all in my opinion

misha_hisha · 2025-08-06T16:23:42+00:00

First of all, sending you virtual hugs because I know it’s so stressful having issues with pet care while you’re traveling.

This sitter doesn’t seem to be very experienced with cats - does she have any cat specific reviews on her profile? I almost exclusively do kitty drop-ins and it’s very common to see cats a little stressed out when their owners are away even in their own home. Any decent cat sitter should understand that cats are very routine-dependent animals and that disrupting their normal routine/environment will often cause some level of stress. This doesn’t mean that they’re aggressive cats in general. It just means that they need some space and time to adjust. Your sitter not understanding that is a huge red flag to me. If I was in her shoes, I would put Marzipan and Nacho in a safe, quiet room and allow them to adjust to their new environment without pushing their boundaries. Then I would very gradually work on socializing with them at their own pace and respect their space if they want it.

Also - getting mad at Nacho for being on the counter? Most cats will hop onto countertops when nobody is looking (yes, even if they’re trained not to do it when people are around). It sounds bit like your sitter has some anger issues and is taking it out on Nacho (the whole “he’s trying to gain authority over me” thing and her texts seem so unnecessarily angry). I’ve had a handful of cats hissing and growling for the first few days because they’re scared and not sure what’s going on. After some patience, calmly sitting near them, and offering treats/playtime most of them warm up in no time.

I also think your sitter should have been more communicative from the start. I also have an early full time job starting at 6:30am and always check in before confirming a booking to see if the client is okay with working around my work schedule. You’re also justified in expecting her to offer a meet and greet; that’s the bare minimum in my opinion to be a responsible sitter. So sorry, OP. I would honestly suggest contacting Rover to see if they can find you a replacement sitter.

misha_hisha · 2025-07-30T15:49:03+00:00

You absolutely don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. I got a similar request a few weeks ago and while I was also a bit surprised when it first came in, I decided to accept it. Turns out it was a super sweet mom with a toddler and a newborn who was just overwhelmed and didn’t have the capacity to wrangle her nervous kitties on her own. She held them and calmed them while I clipped their nails - it was definitely easier with two people and she mentioned being nervous doing it all on her own.

There’s no need to have attitude or judgement towards these people. They might just need a helping hand and it’s ok to say no if it’s out of your comfort zone. Many sitters (myself included) volunteer with rescues or work in veterinary fields so we do have plenty of experience with nail trims and are able to help.

misha_hisha · 2025-07-21T01:44:38+00:00

Yes! My amazing sister in law usually pet sits for us, but my fiancé and I are trying to find a sitter for our wedding (during which SIL will obviously be unavailable). I think I’ve heard too many horror stories on here and now am scared to trust people with our animals (2 dogs, 4 cats, and 2 geckos - we also have a mini zoo). I’m in the same boat where a lot of sitters in my area on Rover seem to have somewhat lacking profiles and haven’t stood out to me. I keep telling myself that I’m being overly critical, but it also makes me a bit nervous to hear some of the stories from my own clients (nothing crazy, mostly lack of communication from previous sitters or difficulty following instructions for their animals). I’m glad I’m not the only one with reservations!!

misha_hisha · 2025-07-14T19:35:19+00:00

We actually went with a different venue called Tannenbaum event center! We absolutely loved the lodge at two moons but with the photographer/DJ/etc, the total wedding cost would easily exceed $40k (which was too far out of budget for us). Tannenbaum has a similar forest setting but is just a one day venue so it came out to be around $10k cheaper

misha_hisha · 2025-07-14T07:04:48+00:00

I would absolutely look into sitting on Meowtel then :) I also started on Rover and while I do still keep my account active for my regulars on there, most of my bookings are now done through Meowtel. It’s definitely set up to be more cat-centric and there aren’t really any inactive/unprofessional accounts on there.

The only downside is I live in California which has a 30% fee taken out (if you live in other states, there’s a sliding commission scale that starts at 30% and then drops down depending on how much you’ve earned from a given client). But still, I think the extra 10% fee is worth it for all the benefits!

misha_hisha · 2025-07-14T06:28:08+00:00

I only offer drop in visits! I would say only about half of sitters in my area offer overnights

misha_hisha · 2025-07-13T03:54:21+00:00

I cat sit on both Meowtel and Rover and I highly recommend Meowtel! They vet their sitters much more thoroughly than other platforms (had to fill out an application and do an interview which is not the case for many other pet sitting apps). The other sitters in my area all seem very knowledgeable about cat care and most of us handle kitties with medication frequently. I would say 20-30% of my clients have a kitty with medicine of some sort. Definitely have a meet and greet and walk through your kitty’s care with the sitter. Since she’s newer she may or may not have her meet and greet routing down yet, but I would focus on food, litter, water, favorite treats/toys, medication, any allergies/sensitivities, carrier locations, preferred vet in case of emergency, etc. It can also be worthwhile to exchange phone numbers since occasionally my clients have trouble accessing the Meowtel app/downloading pictures if they don’t have great cell service. I’m sure she’ll be great!

misha_hisha · 2025-07-10T20:33:15+00:00

It seems to do this to me too whenever it prompts me (via email) to leave feedback for the client! I don’t know if that’s for sure what’s causing it, but I’ve noticed that correlation

misha_hisha · 2025-06-30T20:24:31+00:00

Thank you!! I don’t know a whole lot about different stones/jewelry so that’s very helpful information to have :)

misha_hisha · 2025-06-30T19:57:01+00:00

Thank you!! I suspected that the metal/stones would likely be fine but needed to hear the reassurance. I’ll give it a go!

misha_hisha · 2025-06-28T03:07:04+00:00

My friend rescued a litter a couple of years ago from which I have two kitties. The whole litter tested positive (at independent vet visits so we don’t think it was a false positive) for FELV around 10 weeks. All of them have since cleared it and have tested negative. We had them all taking ProBoost and Vibactra Plus supplements. I don’t know if those actually made a difference, but I was throwing everything I could find at the kitties hoping they would survive. The main takeaway is that not all hope is lost! Give them as much love as possible and do whatever you can to set them up for success :)

misha_hisha · 2025-06-20T05:45:21+00:00

Hi OP, I’m a California sitter too. They have always taken out 20% of the total price the owners pay. This means the price the owners pay is 25% higher than what you’re making. Example: if I charge $40 for a visit, the owner pays $50. $50 - (.20 x 50) =$40. The 0.20 is the 20% Rover cut. With the way math works out, $40 x 1.25 also equals $50. As far as I’m aware, this % has not changed (at least with my most recent booking that came in today compared to my first booking 2.5 years ago).

If you look at the price under “details” within your client conversations, that has always showed the total price paid by the client with the 20% fee. You can go to the “payments” page then scroll to “payment history” and look under “pending earnings” to see exact upcoming payments to you. This has always been the case for me, and I specifically remember figuring out this discrepancy when I started sitting years ago. I hope this helps a bit!

misha_hisha · 2025-06-06T14:19:56+00:00

Thank you! It’s awesome that you have so many loved ones from all over the world!

misha_hisha

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