In short: If your goal is to earn from pet sitting, the platform you list on decides how much of your work you actually keep. Petme lets sitters keep up to 90% of every booking, Rover keeps 85% on non-recurring bookings, and Pawshake takes a flat 19% so sitters keep about 81%. Fees are not the only thing that matters, but for a working sitter they matter most.
There are plenty of guides comparing pet sitting apps for owners, including
our own UK comparison for pet owners. There are far fewer written for the people doing the work. This one is for sitters. It compares the main UK platforms on the things that change your income and your day to day: commission, owner-side fees, sign-up, verification, the type of profile you build, and what protection you get if something goes wrong.
What actually matters when you are the sitter
Owners and sitters judge a platform on different things. As a sitter, these are the levers that move your earnings and your experience:
- Commission. The share the platform keeps from every booking. This is the single biggest factor in your take-home.
- Owner-side fees. A surcharge added to the owner at checkout can suppress the rate owners are willing to pay, which hits you indirectly.
- Profile type. A static bio you write once versus a social profile owners follow changes how you win repeat clients.
- Verification and protection. What screening the platform runs, and what cover exists if a pet is injured in your care.
UK pet sitting platforms compared for sitters
| Platform | Sitter keeps | Owner fee | Profile | Protection |
|---|
| Petme | up to 90%, falls as you earn more, plus up to 5% cashback | 0% service fee | Social profile owners follow | Protection Plan, eligible vet costs up to £20,000 per booking |
| Rover | 85% non-recurring, more on recurring weekly | Service fee added at checkout, capped per booking | Static bio and rating | Rover Guarantee, conditions apply |
| Pawshake | about 81%, flat 19% commission | Booking fee structure | Static bio and rating | Pawshake cover, conditions apply |
| Tailster | varies, commission model | Varies | Static bio and rating | Cover varies |
Petme
Petme is built around a social profile rather than a job-board listing. Owners follow sitters and browse their posts before they ever make contact, so by the time a booking request lands, the owner often already feels they know you. That model rewards consistency and tends to produce longer-term, repeat relationships rather than one-off gigs.
On the numbers, sitters keep up to 90% of every booking, the commission falls as your earnings grow, and active sitters earn up to 5% cashback on what they make. Owners pay no platform service fee, so the rate on your profile is the full amount the owner pays, with nothing padded on at checkout. Every booking is backed by a Protection Plan covering eligible vet costs up to £20,000, and all sitters complete identity verification before their profile goes live. You set your own rates throughout.
Rover
Rover is the largest pet sitting platform in the UK, listing sitters across all four nations. For a new sitter in a busy area, that scale can mean faster early bookings, which is a genuine advantage. Sitters keep 85% of non-recurring bookings and more on recurring weekly ones.
The trade-offs are the fee structure and the profile. Rover adds a service fee to the owner at checkout on top of your advertised rate, so the price the owner sees is not the rate you set. Profiles are static, a bio and a star rating, and Rover surfaces sitters partly by booking history, which can make it hard for a brand-new profile to break through.
Pawshake
Pawshake operates across the UK on a flat 19% commission, so sitters keep about 81% of each booking whether the client books once or repeatedly. Among sitters, the commission is one of the more common complaints in public reviews and forums, where it is frequently described as high relative to what the platform provides. If you are choosing primarily on what you keep, Pawshake rarely comes out ahead.
Tailster
Tailster is a UK platform running a commission model that varies, where owners can post a job and receive responses from sitters. It has a smaller footprint than Rover, and its terms are less consistent from booking to booking, so read the current commission carefully before you commit time to building a profile there.
The fee gap in real money
A few percentage points sounds trivial until you annualise it. Take a sitter grossing £1,600 a month. Keeping 90% leaves £1,440. Keeping 81% leaves £1,296. That is a difference of £144 a month, more than £1,700 a year, for identical work with identical clients. The platform is the only variable. Our
UK pet sitter earnings guide works through more income scenarios.
Which app should you choose?
If raw reach in a thin local market is your only concern, Rover's size is a fair argument for getting early bookings. For almost everything else that matters to a working sitter, keeping more of each booking, no surcharge dragging on your rates, a profile that builds repeat clients, and clear protection, Petme is the stronger choice for UK sitters in 2026. Pawshake's flat 19% is hard to justify on fees, and Tailster's variable terms make it hard to plan around.
Whichever you pick, the fundamentals are the same: complete your profile properly, reply quickly, offer a free meet and greet, and get those first reviews in. If you want to keep the most of what you earn, you can
become a pet sitter in the UK with Petme, or see everything
Petme offers across the UK. New to it entirely? Start with our guide to becoming a pet sitter with
no experience.
Frequently asked questions
Which pet sitting app pays sitters the most in the UK?
Of the major UK platforms, Petme lets sitters keep the most, up to 90% of every booking, with commission that falls as your earnings grow and up to 5% cashback on what you make. Rover keeps 15% of non-recurring bookings, so sitters keep 85%. Pawshake takes a flat 19%, so sitters keep about 81%. The platform you choose has a direct effect on your take-home pay.
Is Rover or Pawshake better for sitters in the UK?
Rover keeps 85% on non-recurring bookings and has a large UK client base, which can mean faster early bookings, but it adds an owner-side service fee at checkout. Pawshake takes a flat 19% commission and is frequently criticised by sitters as high for what it offers. Rover tends to win on volume, Pawshake rarely wins on either fees or features for sitters.
How much commission do UK pet sitting platforms take from sitters?
Commission varies widely. Petme takes 10 to 15% and the rate falls as you earn more. Rover keeps 15% of non-recurring bookings and less on recurring weekly ones. Pawshake charges a flat 19%. Tailster operates a commission model that varies. A few percentage points compound into hundreds of pounds a year for an active sitter.
Do pet sitting apps charge owners a fee in the UK?
Some do. Rover adds a service fee to the owner at checkout, capped per booking, on top of the sitter's rate. Petme charges owners no platform service fee, so the rate on your profile is the total the owner pays. Owner fees matter to sitters too, because a surcharge at checkout can hold down the rate owners are willing to accept.
Which pet sitting app is best for new sitters with no reviews?
Platforms that rank sitters by booking history can bury a brand-new profile, which makes the first booking hard to win. A platform built around a social profile that owners follow, like Petme, lets a new sitter build familiarity by posting about their work rather than waiting to climb a ranking. A complete profile, fast replies and a free meet and greet help on any platform.
