If You’re Not Paying, Are You the Product?
The Pet Sitter is now entirely free. It is reasonable to ask what this means for your data and the tools you use.
The Pet Sitter is free for sitters and pet owners. There is no subscription, upgrade or booking commission. Clients pay sitters directly; a payment provider a sitter chooses may charge its own fees.
What our analytics choices mean
Essential functions keep the site working, including sign-in and remembering preferences. They are separate from the two independent analytics choices in our existing cookie popup:
- Site statistics measure ordinary visits and countries for our internal reports.
- Optional analytics help us understand use of the software and improve its development. With this permission, an approved campaign source can be linked to a newly created account and its use of the service for up to 90 days.
Neither analytics category collects before you accept it. The main screen offers Accept all and Advanced. In Advanced, you can turn either analytics category off independently and accept your choices; Required stays on for essential functions. Draft switches may appear on before acceptance, but that is not permission to collect. You can reopen your preferences from the footer.
Preferences are remembered in a cookie for 180 days. Optional analytics are not a condition of having an account or making bookings. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control override both analytics grants.
Our ordinary visitor measurement uses daily identifiers and country-level information. IP addresses are not stored in our analytics database. URL queries, fragments and raw search text are stripped from analytics. Advanced account-linked measurement is separate: it would be wrong to describe all analytics as unlinked or unable to span days.
There are no Google Analytics tags, advertising pixels or session-replay tools in the site today. Our internal campaign measurement does not send conversions to Google. Essential service, security and billing records are not the same as optional analytics and do not disappear when analytics are off.
We use providers for maps, email and hosting. Historical subscription records may also need to be retained. The privacy policy explains our services and your data rights.
Free business tools
Your free account includes your profile and booking links, clients and CSV import, booking management, messaging, an outward calendar feed, report cards, browser-recorded GPS routes, manual and automatic invoices, manual review import and a bookkeeper CSV export. There is no paid client allowance. Invoice generation does not collect payment; exports are not live accounting sync.
Client, earnings and invoice exports remain available for free. Your business records stay yours to use outside the software.
You can continue talking to clients through email or messaging apps. We do not require exclusive use of our booking system, and safety moderation is not a ban on outside conversations.
Fewer automated features
AI assistants, AI review extraction, AI vetting and AI support are disabled. Profile and document checks, reported messages and support requests are handled by people. Reviews from another service can be entered manually with their source and evidence for human review. Routine promotional and rebooking emails are paused; essential account and booking messages and one account welcome remain.
Explore the free tools or create your sitter account.
No paid client limit
Add clients manually or import your client CSV for free. Importing a contact does not create an owner account, notify them or confirm a booking. Share your booking link or invite the client when you are ready.
Check the product yourself
Open Advanced in the cookie popup and inspect the two independent choices. Try exporting your client list. Read the privacy policy before deciding what to enable.
Access, correction, erasure and portability rights do not depend on your plan. Contact [email protected] for a data or deletion request; some records may need to be retained as explained in the privacy policy. We do not promise that every record disappears immediately.
The useful test is whether bookings run smoothly, records stay clear and you choose to use the tools again for your next client.