Time To Pet vs Nexa
The Real Comparison for Dog Walkers

Time To Pet
$25/mo ($300/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 11.2 months at Time To Pet's current price.

Bottom Line

Time To Pet costs dog walkers $300/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 11.2 months it has cost less than Time To Pet, and you own it after that. What it is not: hosted-for-you software with a support desk and a roadmap you can lobby. That is the trade, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it.

Can it pay for itself?

Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year, before you count the Time To Pet bill you'd stop paying.

It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.

The verdict for dog walkers: Time To Pet is solid software, but at $25/month it costs $900 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Time To Pet does for $279 once. For solo dog walkers and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.

Choose Nexa if:

  • You're done paying monthly forever
  • You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
  • You need scheduler, connect crm and invoicing in one tool
  • You're tired of price increases
  • You want to own your tools like you own your equipment

Choose Time To Pet if:

  • You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
  • You're deeply invested in Time To Pet's specific workflow
  • You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet

Sound Familiar?

My day is a route of fifteen to twenty dogs, some solo walks and some small groups of dogs who get along. I've learned every dog: the one who pulls, the one who's reactive to bikes, the senior who needs a slow half-hour, the puppy who needs a mid-day potty break more than exercise. Every house has its own key, code or lockbox, and its own rules about feeding, water and which door to use. After each walk I send the owner a quick update and a photo, because that's what they're paying for as much as the walk. Weather doesn't cancel anything; I walk in rain, heat and snow, and in extreme heat I shorten walks and watch for signs of trouble. The logistics are the hard part: fitting new clients into a route without breaking it, covering myself when I'm sick, and handling holidays when everyone travels at once and wants drop-in visits or overnights. Most clients are on weekly schedules billed in advance, and I keep emergency vet contacts for every dog.

Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.

None of that is a software problem you can buy your way out of in one click — it is why the tool you pick matters more than what it costs. Time To Pet solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.

What Time To Pet Actually Costs Dog Walkers

Today's list price is $25/month — $300 a year, from Time To Pet's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.

Three years at today's price

Year 1$300
Year 2$300
Year 3$300
Three years of Time To Pet$900

Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $621 less.

If Time To Pet raises its price, the three-year cost goes up; if it cuts it, the cost comes down. We don't guess which. Add-ons, extra seats and card-processing fees are not included, on either side.

Feature-by-Feature

FeatureTime To PetNexa
Invoicing—✓
Scheduling—✓
CRM—✓
Time Tracking—✓
Full Accounting—✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management—✓
Works offline—✓
Price$25/mo$279 once
or 3 × $99
3-Year Total$900$279
You own it?No — stop paying, lose accessYes — forever

✓ and ✗ for Time To Pet come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Time To Pet lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.

What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy

What Time To Pet Does Better

Straight from Time To Pet's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.

Time To Pet is the better call if you need their platform specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.

Where business tools fit — for a dog walker

Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every dog walker: find the work, manage it, bill for it, get paid. Each step has a tool — and the right single tool runs the whole loop, so the handoffs are automatic and you get back to the actual work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.

  1. 1
    Find the work

    Win the job

    ↓

    A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.

    • CRM / contacts
    • Estimates & proposals
    • Booking / scheduling
    then ↓
  2. 2

    The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.

    • Job / project tracking
    • Time tracking
    • Expenses, materials & add-ons
    then ↓
  3. 3

    The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.

    • Invoicing
    • Deposits & credits
    then ↓
  4. 4

    Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.

    • Card / online payments
    • Automatic reminders

You can stitch four separate subscriptions across these four steps, or run one tool that does the whole flow so a booking becomes a job becomes an invoice becomes a payment without re-typing. Either way the goal is the same: less time on the business of the business, more on the actual work. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)

Watch a job become an invoice

This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A dog walker's job already holds the services, the hours, the add-ons, and the materials — so the invoice builds itself from the work instead of you re-typing it at 9pm. Toggle an add-on or nudge the hours and watch it recompute.

The job Weekday walks, one month
Service 30-min solo walk 20 × $25 $500
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$600
Invoice total$600

You didn't write this invoice — the job did.

Calculate Your Full Stack

Time To Pet plus whatever else you're paying for:

Email yourself this comparison?

Switching from Time To Pet

1
Export your data — Settings > Data Export. Download as CSV.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import clients and data.
3
Parallel run — Run both 1-2 weeks to verify.
4
Cancel Time To Pet — Cancel before next billing cycle.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.

What This Means for Dog Walkers

The median dog walker earns $28,000/year. At $300/year, Time To Pet is a recurring slice of that — paid again every year, whether the year was good or not. Owning the same jobs outright is $279 once, and the slice stops.

Nexa is $279 once. Invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, accounting — all connected, built for dog walkers. You own it like you own your Leashes and harnesses (multiple sizes).

Is Nexa actually right for a dog walker?

An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.

Right for you if

  • You run solo or a small crew — like the 150,000 dog walkers in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
  • You're tired of paying every month for time-to-pet and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
  • You want to invoice, schedule, and track from the field — not from a back office.
  • You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Leashes and harnesses (multiple sizes).

Look elsewhere if

  • You run a 20+ dog walker fleet that needs enterprise dispatch and multi-crew routing — Nexa is built for 1–5, and a fleet platform will serve you better.
  • You need full payroll for a large team or deep, SKU-level inventory — that's not what Nexa is for.
  • You're genuinely happy paying monthly and don't mind stitching tools together. No tool fixes a workflow you already like.

The honest fit: if you're a solo or small dog walkers business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling past a handful of crews, a fleet platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.

Dog Walkers by the numbers — by place

What dog walkers charge, city by city

$40 /walkavg local price
+60%vs national
moderatesaturation
~4,254operators
4%growth
$43 /walkavg local price
+72%vs national
moderatesaturation
~3,321operators
7%growth
$35 /walkavg local price
+40%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,643operators
5%growth
$35 /walkavg local price
+40%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,074operators
10%growth
$31 /walkavg local price
+24%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,465operators
10%growth

Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.

Tax, licensing & seasonality where you operate

1-13.3%income tax
CSLB (Contractors State License Board)licensing

Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.

Register a business in California →

Noneincome tax
TDLR (Texas Dept of Licensing and Regulation)licensing

Extreme summer heat drives HVAC demand. Hurricane risk on Gulf Coast. Year-round construction. Rapid population growth in DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio creates sustained demand. Freeze events (like 2021) create emergency plumbing/HVAC surge.

Register a business in Texas →

Noneincome tax
DBPR (Dept of Business and Professional Regulation)licensing

Hurricane season June-November creates massive restoration demand. Snowbird season November-March boosts service volume 30-40%. Year-round construction. Pool service is year-round industry. Pest control peaks in summer humidity.

Register a business in Florida →

4-10.9%income tax
NYC DCA + NYS DOS + specialty boardslicensing

Harsh winters in upstate, moderate in NYC. Construction limited in winter upstate. NYC market is enormous but hypercompetitive. Brownstone/pre-war building maintenance is specialized trade. NYC licensing is notoriously complex.

Register a business in New York →

Where dog walkers actually talk shop

Your people are already online — swapping real numbers, tool picks, and war stories. Here's where to find them.

Recent in r/sweatystartup · Where solo service businesses swap real numbers and hard-won lessons.
Quit my six-figure corporate sales job to buy a home service franchise. On pace to do $2M+ this year. AMA. Three years ago I posted about starting a company with no construction experience. Here's what I've learned since. I run my business — it doesn't run me. I think AI search is about to change how local service businesses get found. Anyone else seeing this? Update: $12k/mo revenue after 1.5 years. What I'd do differently from day one.

Subreddits worth your time

r/dogwalking

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/RoverPetSitting

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/dogs

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/sweatystartup

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →

Facebook groups to join

Dog Walking Business Owners Professional Pet Sitters & Dog Walkers Rover & Wag Dog Walkers
Podcasts
🎧 Bella in Your Business Podcast🎧 The Pet Nanny Coach Podcast
Forums
PetSittingOlogy.com Forum

Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.

What dog walkers actually deal with

A day in the life of a dog walker

My day is a route of fifteen to twenty dogs, some solo walks and some small groups of dogs who get along. I've learned every dog: the one who pulls, the one who's reactive to bikes, the senior who needs a slow half-hour, the puppy who needs a mid-day potty break more than exercise. Every house has its own key, code or lockbox, and its own rules about feeding, water and which door to use. After each walk I send the owner a quick update and a photo, because that's what they're paying for as much as the walk. Weather doesn't cancel anything; I walk in rain, heat and snow, and in extreme heat I shorten walks and watch for signs of trouble. The logistics are the hard part: fitting new clients into a route without breaking it, covering myself when I'm sick, and handling holidays when everyone travels at once and wants drop-in visits or overnights. Most clients are on weekly schedules billed in advance, and I keep emergency vet contacts for every dog.

The tools a working dog walker actually owns

Why dog walkers leave the big platforms

Where dog walkers actually talk shop

Local dog walkers on Nexa

Real dog walkers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a dog walker? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every dog walker on Nexa →

The kit a working dog walker owns

The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.

Core kitEssential

Slip leads and spare leashes, working set

$40–$120
Core kitEssential

No-pull harnesses in multiple sizes

$60–$200
Core kitEssential

Treat pouch and high-value training treats

$15–$60
Core kitEssential

GPS tracker for client dogs

$50–$150
Core kitEssential

Waste bag dispensers and bulk bags

$15–$50
Core kitEssential

Portable water bottle and travel bowls

$15–$45
Core kitEssential

Pet first-aid kit

$25–$60
Core kitEssential

All-weather gear and reflective safety vest

$50–$180
Core kitEssential

Car with dog-safe setup (crates, seat covers, barrier)

$150–$700
Core kitEssential

Key lockbox for client keys

$20–$60
Upgrade

Multi-dog van kennel insert

$800–$3,000
Upgrade

Dash camera and route recorder

$60–$250
The core kit, bought once $440–$1,625

Here's the bar that matters: you spent $440–$1,625 on tools that last for years, and never thought twice. So why should the software cost more than your whole kit — every single year? Hold it to the same standard as a good tool: $279, once.

What Nexa does for a dog walker — and what it doesn't

The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a dog walker — here's where it wins, where the integration wins it anyway, and the things it genuinely doesn't do, with who to use instead. (No tool is best at everything; a guide that pretends otherwise is just an ad.)

Compare the essential business tools for dog walkers

The usual subscriptions vs. Nexa, side by side. Drag the time slider — every year you keep renting, the gap widens. Nexa is $279, one time.

The reason it wins the set: A recurring walk becomes a logged visit with the meds given and the photo update sent, becomes a monthly invoice the client pays, one record per dog instead of one subscription stacked on another. in one record — $279 once vs 3 subscriptions · ~$900/yr.

What Nexa takes off your plate

  • Scheduling & booking vs Calendly → Nexa holds all 10 to 20 recurring daily walks across different schedules in one place, so when a client wants an extra midday visit or the holiday surge hits you reshuffle without the last-minute chaos.
  • CRM & clients vs HubSpot → Mrs. Garcia's lunchtime medication and the Johnsons' changed door code live on the client record itself, so the detail you need is in front of you on the walk, not buried in a thread.
  • Invoicing vs FreshBooks → The walks you actually completed flow straight into the bill with no re-entry, so you stop paying Time To Pet 30 dollars and up a month for the photo and tracking features bolted onto a tool you also have to invoice out of separately.

What to hand to a specialist

  • When you run real payroll for a team → Gusto →
  • When you run big email campaigns & automations → ConvertKit →

Prefer to own a piece outright instead of renting? Free and open-source tools (GnuCash, Invoice Ninja and the like) each handle one job if you'll self-host them — a real option, listed because it's true.

Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.

How To Read This Page

How we put this guide together

We build a dog walker's guide the same way every time, and we'd rather you trust it than take it on faith. Nexa is our product, so the test we hold ourselves to is simple: a tool only "wins" a job here when it genuinely does that job better for a dog walker — and where something free, open-source, or buy-once does it better, we say so and link you to it. Where Nexa falls short (payroll is the honest example), we name the alternative outright.

Where the numbers come from

Found something out of date? Prices change and we don't catch every move the day it happens. This guide is published and maintained by the Nexa team; if a figure here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — getting it right matters more to us than the sale.

FAQ

Is Nexa really a Time To Pet replacement?

For solo dog walkers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Time To Pet may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.

What does Time To Pet do that Nexa doesn't?

Time To Pet has a mature ecosystem. For most solo dog walkers, these aren't dealbreakers.

How fast does Nexa pay for itself?

At $25/month, Nexa pays for itself in 11.2 months. After that: $300 saved every year.

Can I pay in installments?

Yes. Nexa is $279 as a one-time payment, or 3 payments of $99 ($297 total). Either way it's a one-time purchase — no subscription, no recurring fees ever.

$900 Over 3 Years. Or $279 Once (or 3 × $99).

Own your tools. Stop renting your software.

Get Nexa — $279 Once
or 3 payments of $99
✓ 30-day money-back — save $500 or full refund

More Comparisons for Dog Walkers