Keep 100% of every booking

Yes. SitterNation is a registered platform launching in the Chicago area. All sitters go through a vetting process before they can accept bookings, and every transaction is handled securely through Stripe — the same payments company that powers Lyft, DoorDash, and Shopify. Your earnings, taxes, and bank transfers are all managed through Stripe’s industry-standard infrastructure, so you never have to chase a client for payment.

Create your account, then complete your profile: add a clear photo, write a short bio, and choose which services you’d like to offer and at what rates. Most sitters finish onboarding — including the safety quiz — in about 10 minutes, and you can start receiving booking requests as soon as your profile is live.

Professional experience is not required, but a genuine love for animals is. We ask all sitters to complete a brief safety quiz covering the basics of pet care, emergency situations, and house-sitting etiquette. If you’ve cared for your own pets, helped friends and family with theirs, or volunteered at a shelter, you already have the kind of experience our pet owners are looking for.

That’s up to you — you set your own rates for every service you offer. Sitters in our area typically charge $25–75 per night for boarding, $15–25 per walk, and $20–40 per drop-in visit. Your total earnings depend on the rates you choose, your availability, the variety of services you offer, and how many bookings you accept. Many active sitters earn several hundred to a few thousand dollars per month.

SitterNation charges sitters 0% platform fees — not just for your first year, but forever. You keep 100% of every booking. There are no flat fees, no monthly subscriptions, no signup costs, and no charges for listing your services or messaging clients. On the pet-owner side, SitterNation adds an 11% booking fee on top of your rates at checkout — capped at $50 per booking, so big bookings don’t get inflated. That fee is paid by the owner and doesn’t come out of your earnings, so what you set as your rate is what you get.

Yes — there’s no exclusivity. You can list on SitterNation alongside Rover, Wag, or any other platform, and you’re free to accept bookings from wherever you find them. Many sitters start by mirroring their existing schedule here to test the waters; your profile, reviews, and earnings on SitterNation are yours regardless of what you do elsewhere.

Payments are processed securely through Stripe. Once a booking is completed, your earnings are released and automatically paid out to your linked bank account 2 calendar days later via Stripe’s automatic payouts — no invoicing, no chasing clients, and no waiting weeks for a check. You can track every booking, payout, and pending transfer directly from your sitter dashboard.

You’re not handling problems alone. For any first booking with a new pet, the platform walks you through scheduling a meet-and-greet before you commit — so you can meet the pet, talk with the owner in person, and decide whether it’s a good fit. Before any booking starts, you’ll also see the pet’s vaccination records, care instructions, behavioral notes, and the owner’s emergency contact, so you know what you’re walking into and have what you need if a situation comes up. During the booking, in-app messaging keeps you in direct contact with the owner for anything from a quick question to a real emergency. If a pet needs urgent care, you have the owner’s emergency vet preference on file and can act fast. Changes, cancellations, and refunds are handled through the platform under a published policy that protects sitters from last-minute owner cancellations and no-shows. And if you ever need a human in the loop — a dispute with an owner, a payment issue, anything the app can’t sort out — contact us and a real person on our team will help.