What Rover's Mad Paws Acquisition Means for Australian Pet Sitters

In November 2025, Rover completed its acquisition of Mad Paws, Australia's largest pet sitting marketplace. The deal brought approximately 70,000 sitters and 300,000 pet parents under Rover's umbrella, and it extended Rover's dominance into the Australian and New Zealand markets.

If you are one of those 70,000 sitters, or one of those 300,000 pet parents, you should be paying attention. Because Rover has a very clear playbook for acquisitions, and history tells us exactly what happens next.

I am writing this from the perspective of someone who watched this pattern from the inside. As former CTO of Pawshake, I saw how platform consolidation plays out in the pet sitting industry. I was there when Rover acquired competitors in Europe. I saw what happened to sitter fees, platform policies, and service quality in the aftermath. And I built The Pet Sitter specifically because I believe this trajectory is bad for sitters and bad for pet owners.

The Acquisition Pattern

Rover's acquisition strategy is not subtle, and they deserve credit for executing it with discipline. Here is the history:

2017 — DogVacay (US): Rover acquired its largest US competitor, DogVacay, in a deal that effectively gave Rover monopoly control of the US pet sitting marketplace. DogVacay sitters were migrated to Rover's platform and Rover's fee structure. DogVacay had been offering lower sitter fees. Post-merger, everyone was on Rover's 20%.

2018 — DogBuddy (Europe): Rover acquired DogBuddy, which operated in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. This gave Rover a foothold in European markets. DogBuddy sitters were transitioned to Rover's platform and policies.

2019 — Cat in a Flat (UK/Europe): Rover acquired the specialist cat sitting platform, consolidating its position in the cat care segment.

2020 — Gudog (Spain): Rover acquired the Spanish pet sitting platform Gudog, eliminating another regional competitor.

2025 — Mad Paws (Australia/New Zealand): The latest acquisition, bringing Rover into Australia and New Zealand.

The pattern across every acquisition is consistent:

Acquire the leading local competitor
Migrate users to Rover's platform and systems
Implement Rover's fee structure (20% sitter commission + 5-11% owner service fee)
Eliminate the acquired brand over time

I am not speculating about what will happen with Mad Paws. I am describing what has happened with every previous acquisition.

What Changes for Mad Paws Sitters

Commission Increase

Mad Paws charged sitters a commission of approximately 17.6% (which included GST processing for Australian sitters). Rover charges 20%.

For a full-time sitter earning $3,000/month in bookings, this is the difference:

Mad Paws (17.6%): $528/month commission = $6,336/year
Rover (20%): $600/month commission = $7,200/year
Annual increase: $864

That is $864 more per year taken from your earnings, for the same bookings, the same clients, the same work. And this does not account for the additional owner service fee that Rover charges on top, which Mad Paws did not charge (or charged at a lower rate).

Owner Service Fees

This is the change that will be felt most acutely by pet owners.

Mad Paws kept its owner-side fees relatively modest. Rover charges pet owners an additional 5-11% service fee on top of the sitter's rate. This fee is variable, tending higher for smaller bookings and lower for larger ones, though Rover does not publicly document the exact algorithm.

What this means in practice: a pet owner who was paying $50/night for boarding on Mad Paws will now pay $52.50-$55.50 for the same sitter at the same rate. The sitter receives $40. The gap between what the owner pays and what the sitter earns widens from $8.80 (Mad Paws' 17.6%) to $12.50-$15.50 (Rover's combined fees).

Some owners will absorb this. Others will look for cheaper sitters, creating downward pressure on rates. Either way, the sitter loses.

Platform and Policy Changes

Beyond fees, expect changes to:

Cancellation policies: Rover's cancellation policies differ from Mad Paws' and generally favour the platform
Payment timing: Rover releases funds to sitters 2 days after the booking starts, which may differ from Mad Paws' timing
Communication restrictions: Rover has sophisticated anti-circumvention systems that monitor messages for phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information
Profile requirements: Sitter profiles will likely be migrated to Rover's format, which may require updates
App and interface: The Mad Paws app and website will eventually be replaced by Rover's platform

The Bigger Picture: Why Consolidation Hurts Sitters

Platform consolidation in any marketplace industry follows a predictable economic logic, and it almost never benefits the supply side (in this case, sitters).

When multiple platforms compete for sitters, they compete on fees, features, and service quality. Sitters can choose the platform that offers the best deal. Platforms that raise fees too high lose sitters to competitors. This competitive pressure keeps fees in check and forces platforms to invest in features that sitters actually want.

When one platform dominates — through acquisition, not through building a better product — that competitive pressure disappears. The dominant platform can raise fees incrementally because sitters have nowhere else to go. Each 1-2% increase in commission seems small in isolation, but compound it over years and it represents a massive transfer of wealth from sitters to the platform.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is what happened in the US market after Rover acquired DogVacay. It is what happened in the UK after Rover acquired DogBuddy. And it is what will happen in Australia now that Rover has acquired Mad Paws.

From Pawshake's Perspective

I can share that similar dynamics were discussed internally at Pawshake. The pet sitting marketplace industry in the 2020s was defined by the question of consolidation: who acquires whom, and what happens to fees afterward.

At Pawshake, we watched Rover's acquisition strategy with a mixture of concern and recognition. Concern because fewer competitors meant less market discipline. Recognition because the economics of commission-based marketplaces push inevitably toward consolidation — platforms need scale to be profitable, and acquiring competitors is faster than organic growth.

The uncomfortable truth is that commission-based pet sitting marketplaces face a structural problem: their revenue model requires them to extract an ever-increasing percentage from each transaction. When growth slows (as it inevitably does in any market), the only way to maintain revenue growth is to raise fees. And when you have eliminated your competitors through acquisition, there is nothing stopping you.

What Australian Sitters Should Consider

If you are a pet sitter in Australia who was on Mad Paws, you have several options.

Stay on the Platform (Now Rover)

This is the path of least resistance. Your profile migrates, your reviews carry over, and your existing clients can still find you. The cost is a higher commission rate and less control over your business.

If you earn $36,000/year, you will pay $7,200 in commission to Rover instead of $6,336 to Mad Paws. Over five years, that is $36,000 in total platform fees. Consider whether the value you receive — search visibility, booking management, payment processing — is worth $7,200 per year to you.

Diversify Across Multiple Platforms

Listing on multiple platforms reduces your dependency on any single one. In Australia, options include Rover (now dominant), Pawshake, Floofers, and The Pet Sitter. Each has different fee structures, audience sizes, and geographic strengths.

The downside is managing multiple calendars, profiles, and booking systems. But the upside is resilience — if one platform raises fees or changes policies in ways that hurt you, you have alternatives already in place.

Build Your Own Client Base

The long-term play for any professional pet sitter is building a direct client base that does not depend on any platform. This means investing in your own online presence (even a simple Google Business profile and Instagram account), collecting direct contact details from clients, and encouraging word-of-mouth referrals.

Platforms are excellent for finding new clients. But once you have established a relationship with a pet owner — once they trust you with their animal and you know their pet's routine — the value of the platform as an intermediary diminishes rapidly. The 20% commission is justified for client acquisition. It is much harder to justify for the 15th booking with the same client.

Consider Subscription-Based Alternatives

I am obviously biased here, but the alternative to commission-based platforms is not "no platform at all." It is platforms that charge a flat, predictable fee instead of a percentage of your earnings.

The Pet Sitter charges sitters a monthly or annual subscription for full platform access — professional profile, search visibility, booking tools, and client management. Commission on bookings is 0%. A sitter earning $36,000/year pays their subscription fee and keeps essentially everything else, minus standard payment processing.

We are actively building our sitter network in Australia, starting in Melbourne and Sydney. If you are a Mad Paws sitter looking for alternatives, early adopters get founding sitter rates that lock in the lowest subscription price we will ever offer.

What This Means for Pet Owners

If you are a pet owner in Australia, the Rover-Mad Paws acquisition affects you in two ways.

First, you will pay more. The addition of Rover's owner service fee (5-11%) means higher prices at checkout, even if your sitter has not changed their rate. For a 7-night booking at $50/night, you are looking at an extra $17.50-$38.50 in fees.

Second, you have fewer choices. Market consolidation means fewer platforms competing for your business, which means less innovation, less responsiveness to feedback, and less incentive for the platform to prioritise your experience.

The best thing you can do is support alternatives. List with sitters on multiple platforms. Try emerging platforms that offer better economics for sitters — because when sitters earn more, they invest more in the quality of care they provide to your pet.

The Road Ahead

The Australian pet care market is worth over AUD $3.3 billion and growing. Dog ownership surged during the pandemic years and has remained elevated. The demand for quality pet sitting has never been higher.

The question is whether that demand will be served by a single dominant platform extracting 20%+ from every booking, or by a competitive marketplace that gives sitters choices and lets them keep more of what they earn.

Rover is betting on consolidation. We are betting on a different model entirely. The Australian pet sitting market is large enough for alternatives, and the sitters who build that market deserve better than watching their fees go up every time their platform gets acquired.

If you are an Australian pet sitter, the choice is yours. But make it an informed one.