--- title: "How much to charge for dog walking in the UK" description: "Realistic UK dog walking rates, how to work out what you actually earn per hour, and the pricing decisions that matter more than the headline number." canonical_url: "https://woodle-app.com/guides/how-much-to-charge-dog-walking" last_updated: "2026-09-17T09:00:25.631Z" --- Most new dog walkers price by looking at what the person down the road charges and going slightly under. It is the one pricing method guaranteed to produce a business that is busy and broke. ## What people charge Roughly, in the UK, as of writing: - **Solo walk, 30 minutes:** £12–£18 - **Solo walk, 60 minutes:** £18–£25 - **Group walk, 60 minutes:** £12–£18 per dog - **Puppy visit, 20–30 minutes:** £10–£15 - **Day care, per day:** £25–£40 London and the commuter belt sit at the top of those ranges or above them; rural areas sit at the bottom. Check three or four local competitors before you settle — the regional spread is wider than the national range suggests. ## The number that actually matters Your rate per walk is not your rate per hour, and the gap is where the business lives or dies. A one-hour walk at £18 is not £18 an hour. Add fifteen minutes driving there, ten minutes back, five minutes of handover and messages. That is ninety minutes for £18 — twelve pounds an hour, before fuel, before insurance, before the evening you spend on invoices. Work out your real hourly rate once, honestly, with the travel included. It changes how you think about everything below. ## The decisions that matter more than the rate **Travel radius.** The single biggest lever on your real hourly rate, and the one most people never set. Clients clustered in three streets are worth far more than the same number scattered across a town. Draw a radius, and be willing to say no outside it — or price it higher and say so plainly. **Group versus solo.** Four dogs at £14 in one hour is £56; one dog at £20 is £20. Group walking is where the money is, and it is also where the risk is: more dogs, more handling, more that can go wrong, and an insurance policy with a cap on how many you may take at once. Know your cap. **Your cancellation policy.** A client who cancels at 8am on the day has taken a slot you can no longer fill. If your policy is "no charge, no problem", you are absorbing that cost every time. Twenty-four hours' notice, or the walk is charged, is normal and nobody thinks it unreasonable — but only if you said it up front. **Bank holidays and Christmas.** Decide in advance, put it in your terms, and charge a premium. Working Boxing Day at the normal rate because you never raised it is a decision you make once and regret every year. ## Packages: useful, but not for the reason people think Ten walks for the price of nine looks like a discount, and it is. What it actually buys you is **predictability**: a client who has paid for ten walks will use them, which turns a maybe-Tuesday into a definite one. Where it goes wrong is expiry. Sell ten walks with no end date and you will be honouring 2026 prices in 2028. Put a window on it — three months is usual — and say so when you sell it. ## Raising your prices You will underprice at the start. Everyone does; it is how you get the first five clients. The mistake is treating that as permanent. Raise prices annually, in writing, with a month's notice, for everyone at once. Not "I'm putting your price up" to one nervous client at a time — a short note that says rates go up from 1 March and here is the new one. Most clients accept it without comment. The ones who leave were the ones consuming your margin. A useful test: if nobody ever flinches at your price, it is too low. ## What to do with the number Set your rate to the middle of your local range, not the bottom. Being the cheapest attracts the clients who will leave for someone cheaper, and it filters out the ones who would have stayed for years. Then work on the things that move your real hourly rate — a tighter radius, fuller group walks, a cancellation policy you actually apply. Those are worth more than two pounds on the headline rate, and they do not cost you a single client. ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.