Here's the honest version most comparison pages skip: Time To Pet is built primarily for in-home pet sitting and dog walking — Gingr and BarkWhiz are built for brick-and-mortar facilities like boarding kennels and daycare. So the real question is usually facility vs sitter software, not which tool is "better." We'll credit each one fairly, tell you plainly which kind of business it fits, and show where BarkWhiz takes an operations-first approach for facilities.
If you run dog walking or in-home sitting, this page may send you to Time To Pet.
That's the point. Both Gingr and Time To Pet earned their reputations for real reasons, and they're aimed at different businesses. This isn't a hit piece — it's the even-handed comparison we'd want if we were shopping, written by an operator who's actually paid for and run a facility on this category of software. If you're a sitter or walker, we'll tell you honestly when another tool is the better fit.
Before comparing anything, it helps to name the real fork in the road. These are two different shapes of business, and the software follows the shape.
You and your team go to the dog. The work is visits and routes: scheduling drop-ins, GPS-tracked walks, a polished client mobile app, and keeping owners updated while you're out in the field. Time To Pet is built for this, and it's well regarded for it.
The dogs come to you. The work is a physical building: reservations and runs, check-in and check-out, daycare rosters, feeding and meds on the floor, capacity. Gingr and BarkWhiz are built for this — boarding, daycare, and training under one roof.
If you only take one thing from this page: pick the tool built for how your business physically runs. A facility tool will fight you on routes; a sitter tool will fight you on a kennel floor. See our broader switching guide →
Credit first, then the honest caveats. The strengths below are genuine. The cautions are themes operators commonly cite in public reviews and forums — not objective facts, and your mileage will vary. We list them because pretending they don't come up would make this useless.
Excellent for in-home sitting and dog walking. A polished, well-liked client mobile app, visit scheduling, GPS-tracked walks, and a strong reputation for support among sitting and walking businesses. If that's your model, it's a serious, purpose-built choice.
It's built around visits and routes, so operators running a physical facility sometimes note that kennel-floor needs — runs, capacity, on-site daycare rosters, boarding-style reservations — aren't the center of gravity. Not a flaw; just a different design target.
A mature, feature-rich facility platform: deep reservations and scheduling, integrated payments and point-of-sale, and a large, established install base. Years of hardening behind it, and one of the best-known names in facility software for good reason.
In public reviews some operators raise click-depth for everyday tasks (the design is transaction-centric), add-on and SMS/payment fees that can stack up, and a CRM that records bookings more than it drives the follow-up. Confirm any specifics with Gingr directly.
Sources for the caveats are public reviews, forums, and operator conversations — framed as commonly-cited perceptions, not verified claims about either product's current features or pricing. For an accurate picture, talk to Gingr and Time To Pet directly.
Not "better at everything" — built for one thing on purpose: facilities. BarkWhiz is for boarding, daycare, and training operations that want operations-first software, fewer clicks, and AI-drafted pet-parent updates — built by an operator, for the people doing the work on the floor.
Built for a building, not a route: reservations and runs, daycare rosters, check-in and check-out, feeding and meds on the floor. If your business is a physical facility, the whole product is shaped around how you actually run.
The high-frequency jobs your team repeats all day are built to flow in a few clicks instead of a march through screens. The product is shaped around finishing the work, not just recording it.
BarkWhiz drafts pet-parent updates and follow-ups; a person on your team reviews and sends every one. AI writes the first version, your staff decides — nothing fires off to a client on its own.
An operator-first pipeline workspace — leads, tasks, and conversations in one place — that surfaces the rebooking and the regular who hasn't been back, instead of leaving you to go digging.
For founding facilities, moving off your current tool is our job, not yours. We bring your customers, pets, and history across by hand — not a CSV export and a wish of good luck.
From around $199/mo depending on the size and shape of your operation, walked through on a short call with the founder. Founding facilities lock in founding pricing for life. No demo gauntlet, no quote maze.
Built for boarding, daycare, and training. We're pre-launch, recruiting our first 10 founding facilities, only QuickBooks is live on integrations today, and we don't do grooming — if grooming or in-home visits are the heart of your business, we'll tell you straight. See how BarkWhiz fits your model: boarding, daycare, and training.
Written to be fair. The Gingr and Time To Pet columns reflect how operators commonly describe each platform, not an official spec — confirm details with each vendor. The BarkWhiz column reflects what's live today; where something is still in development, we say so.
| What you're comparing | Gingr | Time To Pet | BarkWhiz |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it's built for | Brick-and-mortar facilities — boarding, daycare | In-home pet sitting & dog walking businesses | Brick-and-mortar facilities — boarding, daycare, training |
| Core model | Reservations, runs, POS — the dogs come to you | Visits & routes — you go to the dog | Reservations, daycare rosters, on-floor care — the dogs come to you |
| Standout strength | Mature, feature-rich; integrated payments & POS; large install base | Polished client mobile app; GPS-tracked walks; strong reputation with sitters | Operations-first, built for far fewer clicks on high-frequency facility tasks |
| Client mobile app | Offered as part of a broad platform | A widely-praised, well-polished pet-parent app | Focused on staff-on-the-floor flows today; client-facing updates drafted by AI, sent by a human |
| AI assistance | Not the core of the product | Not the core of the product | Drafts pet-parent updates and follow-ups; a human always reviews and sends |
| The CRM | Strong booking records; follow-up largely on you | Built around the sitting/walking client relationship | An operator-first pipeline that surfaces the next action: rebookings, at-risk regulars |
| Grooming | Generally offered as part of a broad feature set | Not the focus — centered on sitting and walking | Not offered — we focus on boarding, daycare, and training |
| Moving your data over | Typically a DIY export/import | Typically a DIY export/import | For founding facilities, white-glove migration — we move your customers, pets, and history for you |
| Who built it | An established software company | An established software company focused on sitters/walkers | A multi-location pet-care operator who paid for the alternatives first |
| Pricing | Quote-based; varies by setup and add-ons — ask Gingr directly | Publicly reported as subscription-based; confirm current pricing with Time To Pet | From around $199/mo — founding facilities lock in founding pricing for life |
| Who owns it | Owned by Togetherwork, a platform backed by private-equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners (publicly reported) | Worth confirming — outside ownership is common here | Bootstrapped and founder-owned — no outside investors |
The Gingr and Time To Pet columns generalize from public reviews and operator conversations and may not reflect either product's current features or pricing — we don't publish their prices (Gingr's is quote-based; confirm Time To Pet's current plans with them). Contact each vendor for an accurate quote. The BarkWhiz column reflects what's live today, with in-development items labeled as such.
The honest decision tree, in three lines. We'd rather point you to the right tool than win a bad-fit signup.
If your business is visits and routes, Time To Pet is likely the better fit — it's purpose-built for it. We'd genuinely rather you use the right tool than force a facility platform onto a sitter's workflow.
If you run boarding or daycare and Gingr's depth, POS, and maturity match what you need, that's a real answer. Switching software is a disruption — we'd never pretend otherwise.
If you run a facility but want operations-first, far fewer clicks, AI-drafted updates, and a direct line to the founder, that's exactly who BarkWhiz is for — with white-glove migration for founding facilities.
Comparing Gingr on its own? Read our full Gingr alternative breakdown → Weighing a move off any platform? Read Make the Switch →
The questions operators actually ask when they're weighing facility vs sitter software. For the full product Q&A, see the FAQ hub.
Facilities. BarkWhiz is built for brick-and-mortar boarding, daycare, and training operations — the kind where dogs come to your building. It's not designed for in-home pet sitting or dog walking, where the work is visits and routes. If you run a sitting or walking business, a purpose-built tool like Time To Pet is likely the better fit, and we'd rather tell you that than sign you up for the wrong thing.
It mostly comes down to your business model, not which product is "better." Time To Pet is built primarily for in-home pet sitting and dog walking — visit scheduling, GPS-tracked walks, and a polished client mobile app — and it's well regarded for that. Gingr is built for brick-and-mortar facilities, with mature reservations, integrated payments and POS, and a large install base. If you go to the dog, lean Time To Pet; if the dog comes to your facility, lean Gingr. Confirm current features and pricing with each vendor directly.
Time To Pet is designed around in-home visits and walks rather than a physical facility, so operators running boarding or daycare sometimes note that kennel-floor needs — runs, capacity, on-site daycare rosters, boarding-style reservations — aren't its center of gravity. That's not a knock on the product; it's just built for a different model. For an accurate read on what it supports today, ask Time To Pet directly. If you run a facility, Gingr and BarkWhiz are aimed at exactly that.
Both are built for facilities, so it's about a different center of gravity, not a missing feature. BarkWhiz is operations-first: high-frequency tasks are built for far fewer clicks, the CRM surfaces the next action (the rebooking, the regular who's gone quiet) instead of leaving you to dig, and AI drafts pet-parent updates and follow-ups for a human on your team to review and send. It's operator-founded, with white-glove migration for founding facilities. Where Gingr is genuinely strong — mature reservations, integrated payments and POS, a large install base — we're upfront about that. For the deeper breakdown, see our Gingr alternative page.
GPS-tracked walks and a route-focused client app are core to sitter/walker tools like Time To Pet because their staff are out in the field. BarkWhiz is built for the facility floor, so today our focus is fast staff workflows and AI-drafted pet-parent updates that a human reviews and sends — not GPS route tracking, which a facility floor generally doesn't need. If field GPS and a route-first client app are central to your business, that's a strong signal you're running a sitting/walking model, and Time To Pet is likely the better fit.
We won't quote a number on anyone else's behalf. Gingr is quote-based and varies by setup and add-ons, so get a current figure from Gingr directly. Time To Pet is publicly reported as subscription-based — confirm current plans with them. BarkWhiz is deliberately simple: from around $199/mo depending on the size and shape of your operation, walked through on a short call with the founder, with founding pricing locked in for life for founding facilities. When you compare any of these, ask about the things that tend to stack up — SMS/text charges, add-on modules, and payment-gateway fees — so you're comparing the all-in cost, not just the headline.
Become one of our first 10 founding facilities — founding pricing for life, white-glove migration, and a direct line to the founder. If you're a sitter or walker, we'll say so honestly.
