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Wag! and Rover are the two top dogs in petcare gig platforms. So here’s the question: is Rover or Wag better for you?
It depends on what you want out of the partnership. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and they tend to bring you pet parents with different needs.
In a head-to-head comparison of business models, screening processes, pricing, services, reach, and protections for pet care providers, Rover is our overall choice for a pet care business platform. But, depending on what you’re looking for, you may find value in using Wag!, Rover, or both.
Wag! vs Rover at a Glance
We’ll walk through the details of each important characteristic of these two companies. But, if you’re looking for the short version, here’s our summary in a muttshell.
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 |
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|---|---|---|
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Business Model |
You bid on clients or Wag matches you with clients. |
Clients find you through local searches. |
|
Number of Customers |
671,000 across 50 states |
2 million+ internationally |
|
Main Strength |
The Uber of dog walking On-demand dog walking makes this service ideal for speed, convenience, and ease of use. |
The private chauffeur of pet care Initial meet-and-greets make this service ideal for relationship-building and finding recurring clients. |
|
Price of Caregiver |
Free or $149 annual Pro account |
Free |
|
Fees for Caregivers |
40% commission |
20% commission |
|
Screening Process |
Average approval time: 14 business days |
Average approval time: 5-10 business days |
|
Bookable Services |
Dog walking (20, 30, or 60 minutes) |
Dog walking (30 or 60 minutes) *Rover pet sitters define their own specialty services like excursions and administering medicine |
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Most Used For |
Dog Walking |
Pet Sitting |
|
|
|
|---|---|
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Business Model |
Business Model |
|
Number of Customers |
Number of Customers |
|
Main Strength |
Main Strength |
|
Price of Caregiver Account |
Price of Caregiver Account |
|
Fees for Caregivers |
Fees for Caregivers |
|
Screening Process |
Screening Process |
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Bookable Services |
Bookable Services |
|
Most Used For |
Most Used For |
Rover vs Wag! Features for Pet Care Businesses
One of the best things about working with Wag or Rover—the freedom to set your hours and be your own boss—comes with extra responsibility, too. Both companies hire you as an independent contractor, so you’re on your own for insurance.
As an animal lover, you know the situation can go from “good boy” to “oh boy” in seconds when pets are involved. Insurance helps protect you against expensive vet bills and claims if Fluffy swallows a shoestring or Groucho Barks knocks over a pedestrian on your watch.
To help out the pet professionals in their networks, Wag! and Rover offer resources around managing risk. However, neither insure pet care providers or have a program primarily intended to keep you off the hook to pay for accidents, injuries, or damage.
Let’s look at how the opportunities, pros and cons, and risk-management programs stack up for pet care businesses.
Most Common Pet Business Services on Rover & Wag!
Is Rover or Wag better for your specific services? That depends.
Word of mouth on the Rover Q & A Community and Wag forums suggests that Rover users generally get the most pet sitting or boarding requests. Wag users get the most dog walking requests on the respective apps.
But we like hard data. And, since this is your business we’re talking about, we bet you do, too.
How many times people use Google to search for a pet care service plus the word Rover or Wag is public information. It’s not necessarily a measure of how many clients book these services, but it might give you an idea of the relative popularity and awareness about pet business opportunities on each platform.
| Rover's & Wag's Most Popular Services (Based on Google Searches) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Dog Walking |
Dog Sitting |
Drop-In Visit |
Doggy Daycare |
Dog Boarding |
Dog Grooming |
Dog Training |
|
Wag! |
3,600 |
390 |
20 |
50 |
210 |
90 |
70 monthly |
|
Rover |
9,900 monthly searches |
18,100 |
260 |
480 |
1,300 |
170 |
140 monthly |
|
| Rover's & Wag's Most Popular Services | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Dog Walking |
Dog Walking |
|
Dog Sitting |
Dog Sitting |
|
Drop-In Visits |
Drop-In Visits |
|
Doggy Daycare |
Doggy Daycare |
|
Dog Boarding |
Dog Boarding |
|
Dog Grooming |
Dog Grooming |
|
Dog Training |
Dog Training |
*We chose the search term for each service with the highest number of searches on our date of publication.
Note: since Rover has about 91% of the pet care market share between the two companies, their overall search numbers will be higher for general rather than local searches.
So what do Rover’s and Wag’s most popular searches tell us?
- Confirmed: In general, dog walking is the most searched-for service on Wag.
- Confirmed: In general, dog sitting is the most searched-for service on Rover.
- Dog walking, sitting, and boarding are the most searched-for services on both.
Keep in mind that a service’s popularity on each platform can vary by city—Google’s nationwide search numbers are just a general overview.
You might live in a Wag town or an area with more Rover users. Checking Wag’s top dog-walking neighborhoods and doing a Rover local search for your services will help gauge the prospects in your area.
Pros & Cons of Rover for Pet Business Owners
Rover gives pet professionals the space to tailor their services and connect with recurring clients who appreciate customized care, with:
- Meet-and-greets before your service
- A profile to promote your business
- Personalized rates
- Rover Guarantee with limited coverage for property damage and vet bills
Note: the Rover Guarantee might sound like insurance, but it’s not. Coverage is limited and only offered as a “last resort” when all other avenues are exhausted. Exclusions and missing coverages may leave important gaps in your financial safety net if you don’t have insurance—read up on the difference between Pet Care Insurance vs the Rover Guarantee.
How to Get Booked on Rover
Getting Rover bookings means promoting your profile and rates to be the pick of the litter from a search results list. Clients will view your business head-to-head with others offering the same thing in your area, so the trick is making your business stand out.
Customize Your Profile
Rover clients pick the provider they think best fits their needs based on pet caregiver profiles. A personalized profile will help you attract exactly the type of client you want, so make sure to include the following information:
- A bright, friendly profile photo of you with an animal: Show off your love of pets and let your personality shine with an approachable but professional photo.
- Specific pet care experience: Let clients know about unique skills and strengths that separate you from the pack. Do you have experience with rescue dogs from 5 years of volunteering at a fostering center? Have you cared for the special medical needs of senior pets? Be clear about your skills so the clients you want can find you.
- A descriptive, eye-catching tagline: Use your tagline as a snapshot to capture what makes you unique:
- 2 acres of fenced yard and lots of ❤️
- CPR-certified animal carer in veterinary shelter medicine
- Individual care for one-of-a-kind pets
- Paws, fins, and feathers welcome!
- Tiny 🐾, big fun—playdates for small dogs
- A service-centric photo gallery: Show your skills in action with photos that inspire FOTPMO (fear of their pet missing out). Try images of you walking dogs in beautiful places, grooming calm and relaxed pups, or signaling as pets complete training behaviors.
- Testimonials: Pet parents want the best for their fur babies, so quotes from happy customers or people who already trust your experience can put potential clients at ease.
- Clearly stated preferences and availability: Tell pet parents upfront about your schedule, plus any animal type, size, or breed restrictions (for example, if your apartment only allows small dogs.) It will reduce messages from jobs you can’t take.
Keep Rates Fair But Competitive
Rover allows you to set the rates for your services, so take the prices of similarly qualified local caregivers into account to get more bookings.
Make sure prices keep you profitable after expenses and Rover’s commission fee (Rover keeps 20% of each service you book through the app) but are still competitive.
Top Benefit of Using Rover for Pet Businesses
Rover is designed to help you build a client base of repeat customers.
Rover recommends that pet parents schedule a meet and greet before their first service to ensure you both think this is a good match.
While this means it takes a little longer to get to your gig, a meetup helps you spot concerning animal behaviors like biting up front. Plus, spending facetime with clients and their pets gives you a better chance to cultivate recurring jobs.
Think of Rover like a private chauffeur. While the experience of getting to your destination may be slower, the interaction is personal, tailored directly to the client, and both parties know what to expect because they know and trust each other.
The Rover Guarantee
More pet parents than ever require pet care insurance before trusting caregivers with their animals and homes.
The Rover Guarantee is a reimbursement program designed to protect pets and address owners’ need for safety. This free-to-you program may repay vet costs for your pet and the client’s pet or cover damage to their property if accidents happen on the job.
However, it’s important to remember that the Rover Guarantee isn’t insurance. It’s not designed to protect you in scenarios like these, where a plan like our comprehensive dog sitter insurance is built to respond:
- Property damage to the owner’s property by the owner’s pet: A client wants to charge you for a ruined antique rug when their cat has an accident on the carpet during your drop-in visit.
- Employee dishonesty: An employee in your pet grooming business steals from a client during in-house service.
- Personal and advertising injury: A client claims your profile falsely represented your experience with special-needs pets when a dog with a chronic illness has an episode during a stay with you.
- Equipment and inventory: The client’s Great Dane gets excited and bumps your arm as you take a client update photo, sending your work phone tumbling to the pavement.
- Jobs booked outside of Rover: A recurring Rover client calls you directly for emergency boarding and pays you in cash. Their cat falls ill during his stay and the client blames you.
- Lost keys: You accidentally lose the key to a house-sitting client’s condo and their building has to be rekeyed.
- Injury to third-party pets during service: Your client’s dog escapes her leash and injures another dog in the park during your walk.
It’s also important to note that the Rover Guarantee only kicks in after all other options are exhausted. That means you pay a $250 deductible, work with Rover to mediate with the pet owner, and have your insurance respond before the Rover Guarantee kicks in. As a result, it’s best to view this program as a helpful failsafe, but not your first line of defense.
Pros & Cons of Wag! for Pet Business Owners
Wag is full of features that automate and simplify the process of getting you to and through the job.
With its infrastructure to support fast bookings for on-demand dog walking (including lockboxes to get house keys, GPS tracking, and live chat for client updates), you may interact with your human client very little in person, if at all.
While Wag helps mediate between you and a pet owner during a dispute, the company doesn’t provide any liability protection for their pet caregivers or any reimbursement options for emergency vet care or property damage.
What they do offer is a Pet Wellness Plan for your personal pet and Wag! Compare to connect you with outside pet insurance providers.
How to Get Bookings on Wag!
Wag works on an auction model. Rather than clients always selecting a pet care provider directly, you bid on open client requests with the amount you would like to charge for that service. Then, Wag’s algorithm matches a pet owner with a pet care provider in their area and price range.
Part of the reason for this quicker matching process is that Wag also offers on-demand dog walking—a feature Rover doesn’t have. While clients can search profiles and request a specific pet caregiver or recurring service, many choose an app-promoted match for convenience.
This can get you from bid to booking in record time if you take a few things into account.
Set Competitive Rates (But Factor In the 40% Commission)
With Wag’s move to the Dynamic Pricing model in January 2024, the company now lets you set your pay rates rather than charging standard fees. You’ll want to check what other providers in your area with similar experience are charging to get matched with more clients.
Wag charges a meaty 40% commission fee for every service you book through the app—one of the biggest bites from your profits among competitors and twice Rover’s fee—so you need to factor that cost into your fees by raising prices. This can make staying competitive a delicate balance.
Priority Search With Wag! Pro
While there is no base membership fee, the platform offers a $149 Wag! Pro account with express onboarding, 6 months of special profile promotion, ongoing priority search placement, and other features.
The big callout here is priority search placement. Wag puts the profiles of Pro members higher on the results lists when pet parents search for local services. If Google has taught us anything, it’s that users have a major bias toward the top three search results, (which get over two-thirds of all clicks).
Pro account users can earn up to 10% more than those with a base account. Meanwhile, pet care providers with free memberships report staying competitive at Wag without paying for a Pro account is getting tough. Whether a paid membership is worth it for you might depend on how often you use the platform.
Top Benefit of Using Wag! for Pet Businesses
Wag makes it easy for pet business owners to book dog walks on demand.
Wag has been called “the Uber of dog walking” for good reason. Like a taxi service connects available drivers with passengers for quick rides, Wag’s on-demand dog walking feature connects clients looking for a walk now with pet caregivers looking for a job now. This means unbeatable flexibility to request a walk whenever spare time opens up.
Wag! Connect and the Pet Wellness Plan
Wag takes no financial responsibility for harm to pets, people, or property related to your service. Per their incident resolution guidance, the company will help mediate if there is an accident. But you are responsible for getting insurance or paying the bill yourself.
While Wag doesn’t provide insurance, it does have a free platform—Wag! Compare—for recommending pet insurance policies to caregivers.
Note that these are pet health insurance policies designed to protect your personal pets, not pet business insurance designed to protect your business. To keep your business covered, you need a dedicated plan, like pet sitter insurance from Pet Care Insurance (PCI).
Wag also offers the Pet Wellness Plan, a reimbursement program for pet caregivers’ personal pets. Fees start at $14.95 monthly and cover routine wellness visits, like vaccinations and flea meds.
This plan is designed to work with insurance, not replace it. For example, if your dog and a client’s dog injure each other during doggy daycare, this plan wouldn’t cover either injury.
Combining Rover and Wag!
As we discussed the pros and cons of working for Rover and Wag, you probably noticed a big opportunity. These businesses often appeal to pet parents who want different things—which means you can enjoy the benefits of both.
Many pet care pros create an account on both platforms to build different parts of their business.
What User Reviews Say About Wag! vs Rover
So is Rover or Wag better? Checking with current and former contractors who have already been there can give you a fuller picture of what to expect.
Wag! Reviews
Wag gets 3.7 stars out of 950 reviews on Indeed from pet caregivers, suggesting moderate approval with a few significant pain points.
Likewise, pet care providers give the Wag! Pet Caregiver App 3.9 stars out of 1.53K reviews on Google Play. Several reviews mention glitching and lack of human customer support as reasons for lower ratings.
Common positive comments from pet professionals about working at Wag include:
- Flexibility with setting your schedule
- A good environment for a side hustle or extra money on top of another job
- A system built for self-starters who want to request walks regularly
- An easy and convenient way to build experience for people interested in pet care
- The ability to request as many walks as you want, as often as you want
Negative reviews from Wag Caregivers tend to discuss the following:
- The 40% commission fee—pet caregivers agree this cut makes it tough for Wag to be a full-time job unless you live in a highly populated area
- Encountering aggressive pets
- A low cancellation payout for dog walkers that doesn’t recoup travel costs
- Difficulty getting in touch with a human representative for non-emergency questions
- A perceived decrease in available walks and an increase in competition for bookings
Rover Reviews
With 4.3 stars and 1.4K reviews on Indeed, working with Rover seems to be an overall positive experience for pet caregivers, with a few areas for improvement.
While the client side of the Rover app gets some criticism, reviews for the 4.6-star Rover Dog Boarding & Walking App are mostly positive from caregivers, citing responsive customer service and user-friendly design.
Positive feedback from Rover pet business owners often mentions:
- Freedom to choose your prices, schedule, jobs, and clients
- In-depth training
- Getting to work regularly with pets
- A safer environment due to client meet-ups, which help screen jobs before a booking
- Security that you will get paid since pet parents pay Rover upfront
- A good environment to gain experience if you’re starting out in the pet care field
Negative feedback from Rover caregivers tends to discuss:
- The 20% commission fee (reviewers concede that the fee hasn’t been raised in years)
- Inconsistent help hotline quality for pet care providers
- Competition for business and the difficulty of getting your first bookings
- Inconsistent workflow—best for those in cities and densely populated areas
- The Rover Guarantee is often hesitant to respond since it exhausts other options first
- The difficulty of making a living wage for pet caregivers who would prefer full-time work
Best Alternatives to Wag! and Rover
- Best Alternative for Beginners: PetBacker
- Best Alternative with Local Franchises: Fetch! Pet Care
- Best Alternative for Dog Walkers: Spot Dog Walkers
- Best Commission-Free Alternative: Care.com
- Best Alternative for Miami and NYC Dog Walkers: Swifto
Leader of the Pack: Which Platform Stands Out in 2024?
If you’re going to choose one of the two, Rover is Pet Care Insurance’s recommendation for a pet care provider platform in 2024.
With better reviews, more customers, a lower commission fee, a more personal approach, and less pay-to-play features, Rover is currently the stronger option for pet professionals looking to grow their client base.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t snag some last-minute dog walking and pet sitting gigs on Wag while also nurturing long-term clients on Rover. Each has its specialties, and either or both might get your tail wagging. Just don’t forget the pet business insurance coverage!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Wag! and Rover
The biggest differences between Wag and Rover are their business models and the number of people who use Rover. In 2022, Rover had 91% of U.S. sales between the two companies. Wag is known for providing quick, convenient, and on-demand dog walking, while Rover’s slower but more personalized service is best known for pet sitting.
The two most used apps for dog walking services in the U.S. are Rover and Wag! Both apps connect pet parents with thoroughly vetted and background-checked dog walkers available to book on a one-time walk or a recurring basis.
Dog walkers often earn more on Rover because it has a lower commission fee than Wag. However, dogwalkers set their own prices on both apps, so how much they can charge while making a profit often depends on these factors: location, competitor pricing, experience, special services, and availability.
To get bookings on Wag, optimize your profile and set locally competitive rates and availability for your services. Be sure to request walks regularly to get matched with clients, and consider a Wag! Pro membership to score priority search placement for your profile.
To get bookings on Rover, update your pet caregiver profile regularly and fill it with specific information about your services, experience, and what makes you stand out from other options. Offering more available times and doing meet and greets with clients can help you better fit their needs and open the door for recurring bookings.
