OpenDog vs Time To Pet: prove the route, field app, and full cost.

The honest short version.

Time To Pet is the broader, more mature pet-care platform. Its current mobile-grooming materials cover client and staff apps, appointment requests, recurring work, messages, event GPS, time and mileage tracking, report cards, agreements, vaccination records, payments, tips, and team roles. OpenDog is narrower and grooming-first, with an explicit owner review between a request or route suggestion and the saved working day.

• Consider Time To Pet when its live client app, staff app, messaging, report-card, tracking, payment, and team capabilities replace tools you already need.
• Consider OpenDog when a focused request-to-route-to-rebooking path and visible owner-controlled decisions matter more than broad feature depth.
• Do not score feature names alone. Make the same staff members complete the same difficult day on the same phones.

Price the exact plan and every active user.

Time To Pet currently publishes Lite at $25 monthly for a solo business with scaled features, Solo at $50 monthly for one active account owner, Team at $40 monthly plus $16 for each active user from one through 25 and $5 for each active user after 25, and Facility at $79 monthly. Facility serves a different daycare, boarding, and grooming workflow, so a mobile operator should confirm which account type applies.

• On Team, confirm every person who will be active—including administrators and office managers—and calculate both a normal month and a busy staffing month.
• Time To Pet says eligible Lite and Solo annual subscriptions provide 12 months for the price of 10, with an early-cancellation refund calculated at the nondiscounted rate.
• Add payment processing, texting, bank-payment availability, hardware, taxes, add-ons, data work, training time, and any second business or facility.
• OpenDog lists Solo at $49 for up to 125 completed appointments, Team at $99 for up to 500, and Business at $149 for up to 1,500; vehicles do not affect the plan and its 14-day trial requires no card.

Separate route planning from event GPS tracking.

Time To Pet’s mobile-grooming page describes scheduling, directions, route work, and tracking vans. Its staff-app documentation is more specific: GPS can record event start and end locations and, when enabled, a route while an event is in progress. Time To Pet warns that route tracking uses substantial battery and places legal and privacy responsibility on the business. Do not treat that as continuous fleet tracking or guaranteed route optimization without proving it.

• Build eight stops with a fixed window, multi-pet household, distant request, lunch, cancellation, van change, late groom, and urgent added stop.
• Watch how each system orders work, displays travel context, explains a suggestion, records the final decision, and updates the field view.
• Start and finish a tracked event on a real phone, review the GPS record, battery impact, staff notice, client expectation, and recovery after a weak connection.
• Treat maps, traffic, travel times, route suggestions, and arrival estimates as planning help—not guarantees of the fastest or safest route or an exact arrival.

Compare requests, recurring work, and final calendar control.

Time To Pet lets clients request appointments through its app or portal, lets the business limit requests by schedule block and date, and provides recurring appointment templates. OpenDog keeps a submitted request unconfirmed until the owner reviews the client, dog, service, address, preferred time, notes, and route fit. Establish exactly when a request becomes booked and who controls every exception.

• Try a new client, repeat dog, two-dog household, unavailable time, distant address, missing vaccination, schedule block, and service needing clarification.
• Create a recurring series, change one occurrence, cancel another, and confirm reminders, invoices, and future visits remain correct.
• Verify duration, price, employee, van, travel gap, deposit, request limits, approval or decline, and client-facing wording.
• Read the complete request, confirmation, reschedule, and cancellation experience on the client’s phone and the staff device.

Time To Pet has live multichannel messaging and report cards today.

Time To Pet’s current materials describe a central Message Center for email, in-app chat, and text, plus service reminders, request decisions, payment messages, event-start notices, business hours, after-hours responses, and scheduled messages. Staff can also send Visit Report Cards with notes, photos, videos, and custom questions. OpenDog currently sends confirmation and reminder emails; SMS, two-way texting, and automatic ETA texts are Coming Soon.

• Send a confirmation, reminder, reply, late-arrival update, event-start notice, payment message, report card, follow-up, and rebooking message.
• Confirm texting eligibility, consent, quiet hours, sending number, reply routing, attachments, delivery status, templates, history, export, and access after cancellation.
• Test what clients see in the app, portal, text thread, and email when they have notifications disabled or never install the app.
• Buyers who require live texting or report cards now should treat Time To Pet’s current capability as a meaningful advantage.

Test the client app, staff app, web dashboard, and roles.

Time To Pet publishes native client and staff apps for iOS and Android. The client app supports requests, profile updates, messages, and payments. The staff app covers assigned schedules, event details, directions, communications, GPS, mileage, time, availability, pay, and tips. Time To Pet notes that broader administrative work and the all-client Message Center live in its responsive website rather than the native staff app.

• Create Admin, Office Manager, Staff/User, and Trainee roles with only the access each person should have; confirm which active roles affect the Team bill.
• Open the day, address, directions, dog, vaccination, handling note, owner instruction, service, price, message, payment status, and next action on every real device.
• Try the weakest normal connection and verify queued work, failed edits, duplicate prevention, notification delivery, and recovery.
• Test camera access, route tracking, time and mileage, printing, logout, employee separation, audit history, and the handoff between native app and web dashboard.

Compare payments and reports without mixing the totals.

Time To Pet publicly describes integrated invoicing, client-app and portal payments, stored payment methods, automatic charging, tips, cards, digital wallets, and bank payments where available. OpenDog keeps appointments, invoices, deposits, tips, balances, recorded payment status, supported Stripe card payments after setup, operational reports, and CSV exports connected; it does not replace payroll or accounting.

• Run cash, card, bank payment, wallet, tip, deposit, partial payment, refund, receipt, failed payment, automatic charge, open balance, and payout examples.
• Define appointment value, invoice gross, recorded payment, processor fee, deposit, tip, refund, balance, staff pay, settlement, tax, and bank payout before comparing reports.
• Confirm processing rates, payout timing, disputes, refunds, stored-payment permissions, hardware, unsupported payment methods, and who resolves a payment problem.
• If staff pay or mileage reports matter, test them against the business’s real rules and confirm the exact export or payroll handoff.

Make setup, import, support, and exit specific.

Time To Pet says onboarding, support, and data importing are provided without an added charge, with email, live chat, and screen-sharing help. OpenDog provides self-serve setup with support and source-dependent import review. Turn both broad promises into a written plan for the actual source files, launch week, response expectations, and future export.

• Inventory households, pets, photos, notes, vaccinations, services, prices, staff, routes, recurring and future appointments, forms, agreements, invoices, balances, tips, messages, report cards, and history.
• Import a representative sample first and verify counts, household and pet links, dates, duplicates, special characters, long notes, documents, money totals, and future appointments.
• Confirm file formats, cleanup ownership, exclusions, training, support hours, cutover timing, cancellation, export format, and access after leaving.
• Never move full card details through ordinary files, notes, email, or text.

Run the same finish-line test in both products.

Use one sample household, repeat dog, new request, route exception, staff handoff, client reply, invoice, payment problem, owner report, and next-visit decision. Score only the current workflow the team completes on its real devices and can explain without help.

• Request, approval rule, recurring series, service, price, and final appointment
• Map, route decision, directions, GPS event, weak connection, and groomer view
• Dog record, vaccination, handling warning, photos, notes, agreement, and history
• Confirmation, reminder, reply, event-start message, report card, and actual communication cost
• Invoice, deposit, payment, tip, refund, balance, staff-pay handoff, and report
• Import, onboarding, support, export, cancellation, and total first-year cost

Sources, date, and independence.

Time To Pet details on this page were checked against its official mobile-grooming, pricing, billing, mobile-app, staff-app, messaging, and mobile-grooming guidance on September 8, 2026. OpenDog is not affiliated with or endorsed by Time To Pet, and Time To Pet is a trademark of its owner. Products, prices, active-user rules, limits, integrations, and policies can change; verify every material detail before buying.

• Use Time To Pet’s mobile-grooming page for its current public audience and feature claims.
• Use its pricing and billing articles for current plans, active-user rules, annual terms, trials, and cancellation details.
• Use its help center for the operational limits of messaging, roles, staff apps, GPS, time, mileage, payments, requests, and report cards.
• Distinguish in-home mobile grooming from the separate Facility product and its newer grooming-service workflow.
• Use OpenDog’s live product tour, pricing, and trial to verify OpenDog directly; measure results with your own routes, team, messages, payments, and reports.

Workflow

Which product is likely to fit your operation?