Pet grooming software pricing in 2026: what you actually pay
A line-by-line teardown of what grooming software costs after add-ons, per-unit billing, setup fees, and metered texting. Prices checked 2026-09-01.
The number on the pricing page is a starting bid. The whole category prices the same way: publish the friendliest configuration, put the parts a working shop actually needs behind an add-on, and let the customer find the difference on invoice one.
Every figure below came off the vendor's own live pricing page, not off a review-site tracker, because the trackers in this category are wrong often enough to be useless. Where a vendor does not publish a number, you will see me say so instead of guessing. That happens more than you would think.
Prices checked 2026-09-01. They rot. Re-check before you sign anything.
The five places the price hides
Across seven vendors, the gap between the advertised number and the real one comes from the same handful of places every time.
- The billing unit is not what you assumed. Per van, per storefront, per location, or per user seat. Two of these look identical on a pricing page and produce wildly different bills.
- The price assumes you take their payment processor.
- Texting is an allowance, a meter, or an unpriced add-on. Almost never simply included.
- A website is an add-on if it exists at all.
- One-time setup and migration fees, which never appear on the monthly comparison anyone builds in a spreadsheet.
Vendor by vendor, in the wild.
MoeGo publishes two price sheets at one address
MoeGo's pricing page shows mobile grooming by default, priced per van: Basic $49, Growth $99, Ultimate $159. Flip it to the salon view and you get a different ladder, priced per location: Basic $79, Growth $149, Ultimate $239. Enterprise is not published on either.
If you run a salon and someone told you MoeGo starts at $49, they quoted you the van price. Your entry point is $79.
The tier you land on is usually decided by text volume rather than features. Basic includes 300 SMS a month and caps you at two staff. Growth is 1,350 SMS with unlimited staff. MoeGo does not publish an overage rate. The allowance is stated and the page stops there, so if you send 1,400 messages in December, the honest answer to "what does that cost" is that you will find out later.
Credit where it is due: MoeGo's Smart Schedule and one-click route
optimization are the best route product in this set, and we do not have
anything like it. If you run vans across a metro, that is worth paying
for. What MoeGo does not sell is a website. Online booking runs on
booking.moego.pet, and the Ultimate tier's contribution is letting you
inject custom CSS into their page.
Gingr charges you $30 a month for not using their processor
Gingr's Spa plan, which is the grooming and training one, is $109 a month, or $100 billed annually. Play is $169 ($142 annual) and Stay is $179 ($154 annual). Enterprise is not published.
There is a footnote on that page worth reading twice: the prices shown assume active Integrated Payments. Decline their processor and the software costs $30 a month more. On Stay that is $209 instead of $179. The advertised price is a bundle discount presented as a list price.
Texting at Gingr is where it gets thin. Two-Way SMS and Messaging Bundle are both add-ons and neither has a published price. Integrated Payment Processing and Employee Scheduling are also price-gated. Four add-ons, zero numbers. You cannot build a total cost of ownership for Gingr from their pricing page, which is a finding in itself.
What Gingr genuinely has is boarding depth nobody else here touches: a live kennel-occupancy grid with auto-assignment, feeding and medication tracking, and multi-location reporting on every tier including the cheapest one. If you board, look at Gingr.
DaySmart's discount is not flat, and the website is never bundled
DaySmart Pet publishes the widest ladder in the category:
| Tier | With payments | Without | Users | Texts/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29 | $39 | 1 | 500 |
| Deluxe | $69 | $89 | 3 | 1,000 |
| Deluxe Growth | $149 | $169 | 3 | 1,000 |
| Premium | $199 | $219 | 6 | 2,500 |
| Premium Growth | not published | not published | unlimited | 5,000 |
Two things to notice. The integrated-payments discount is $10 on Basic and $20 on every tier above it, so the higher you climb the more you are paying for the freedom to pick your own processor. And the website is a $15/mo add-on listed against every tier including Premium. It is never bundled, not even at $199.
The texting story has a trap in it. The allowance covers reminders and ready-for-pickup messages. Two-Way Texting and Text Marketing are separate "contact for pricing" add-ons that only come bundled at Deluxe Growth and above. On Basic and Deluxe, there is no published price at which you can buy two-way texting at all. If replying to a client counts as a feature you need, your real entry tier is $149, not $29.
DaySmart earns its ladder, though. Payroll, digital forms, inventory, a time clock, sliding-scale commission with overtime rules, QuickBooks Online, gift cards. Nobody else here has that spread.
Groomer.io charges as much for the site as for the software
Software is $99/mo list with a $79 promo. Websites are $99/mo list with a $79 promo. Both are billed per storefront or van. Site plus software is $158/mo at promo pricing and $198/mo at list.
Their own two sources disagree, incidentally: the pricing page shows $99 with a limited-time $79, and the help center states flatly $79 per facility or van. Take the pricing page as the number and treat the promo as a promo.
The part of Groomer.io I will not argue with is texting. SMS is unlimited and included, along with unlimited two-way texting and automated phone calls, in the base plan. That is the same posture we take, and it is the correct one. Review requests are $9.99/mo on top, and mass SMS campaigns are priced by audience size with an estimate before you send, with no published rate card.
ProPet has a setup fee, and it is mandatory
ProPet is modular rather than tiered. Pet & Client Manager is the required base at $49.99/mo. Grooming adds $15, daycare $15, boarding $20, training $20. A grooming-only shop is $64.99/mo, which is the cheapest pet-specific entry point in this whole teardown, and it genuinely means you are not paying for boarding features you will never open. That is a real advantage of the modular model and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Then there is the line that does not make it into anyone's comparison spreadsheet: a mandatory one-time setup fee of $75 per module on monthly billing. Two modules means $150 before your first full month. It drops to $50 per module on annual and is waived on a two-year subscription. Data migration is free with their template, $150 standard, $300 for a complex one.
Annual pricing is not published, only a contact form. SMS is bring-your-own-Twilio, billed per use through your own account, so there is no ProPet rate to quote and no allowance. You also inherit the job of provisioning Twilio yourself, which is a Saturday afternoon you will not get back.
Metered texting is the line item nobody models
Texting is the single most volatile number in grooming software, and how a vendor handles it tells you how the rest of the pricing was designed. The field splits three ways.
Unlimited and included. Groomer.io. That is the entire list of published competitors doing this, plus us.
A capped allowance with an unpublished overage rate. MoeGo and DaySmart. This is the model that generates surprise invoices, because you cannot forecast a cost the vendor will not quote. If you are looking at either, ask for the overage rate in writing before you sign, and treat the tier upgrade as the real price of the busy month.
Metered per message. Pawfinity publishes an actual rate card, which makes them the most transparent vendor in this set on texting even though metering is the less friendly model: 5.0 cents under 500 a month, 4.5 cents from 501 to 1,000, 4.0 cents from 1,001 to 1,500, and 3.5 cents above 1,501. Inbound replies are free. Square meters marketing texts separately from reminders, at 3 cents past 500 included on Plus and 1.5 cents past 2,500 on Premium, counted per account rather than per location. ProPet passes you straight through to Twilio.
Gingr publishes nothing at all and sells texting as two unpriced add-ons.
Now the part that matters. A three-touch reminder cadence, which is what actually cuts no-shows, sends three messages per appointment. A salon doing 400 appointments a month is at 1,200 outbound texts before a single confirmation reply or "your dog is ready" message. That clears MoeGo Basic's 300-message allowance four times over, and DaySmart Deluxe's 1,000 with 200 to spare on the wrong side.
At Pawfinity's published rates, 1,200 messages lands in the 4.0 cent band, so about $48/mo in texting alone, which is nearly as much as their $55 entry tier costs. Read their card as a band rate at your volume; if it meters marginally by tier the total shifts a few dollars, and the page does not spell out which. Their 250 complimentary credits per month are Royal Package only. The $55 to $60 tiers say "Complimentary SMS Credits" with no number attached, so a Groom & Train shop's texting cost is genuinely unknowable from the page.
This is why we do not meter. Not generosity. A groomer who is counting messages sends fewer reminders, and fewer reminders is more no-shows, which costs the shop far more than the texts ever would.
A worked total: two groomers, 400 appointments, 1,200 texts
Here is the scenario, and every input is an assumption I am labelling as one. Single location, no vans, two groomers plus an owner who touches the schedule, 400 appointments a month, three reminder texts per appointment for 1,200 outbound messages, and the shop wants a real website on its own domain. Average ticket $95.
Twelve months of software, using published figures only:
| Vendor and configuration | Year one | Website? |
|---|---|---|
| Square Appointments Free | $0 | Booking site, vendor domain only |
| Square Appointments Plus | $588 | Booking site, custom domain |
| ProPet base + grooming, monthly | $864.89 incl. $150 setup, first month free | No |
| DaySmart Deluxe + website, with payments | $1,008 | Yes, $15/mo add-on |
| GroomSpark | $1,188 | Yes, included |
| Pawfinity Groom & Train annual + metered SMS | about $1,236 | No |
| Gingr Spa, with their processor | $1,308 + unpriced SMS add-ons | No |
| MoeGo salon Growth | $1,788 | No |
| Groomer.io software + website, promo | $1,896 | Yes |
| Groomer.io software + website, list | $2,376 | Yes |
Read the right-hand column before the middle one. Four of the five cheapest rows do not include a website, and one of them is a booking page on somebody else's domain.
Three of those rows need footnotes:
MoeGo lands on Growth at $149 because of texting, not features. Basic at $79 caps at 300 messages and this shop sends 1,200. You could stay on Basic and eat 900 messages of overage, except MoeGo does not publish what that costs, so there is no honest way to put a number in the table.
DaySmart's $1,008 is the optimistic reading. It assumes you use their processor, and it assumes you never need two-way texting, which is not purchasable at any published price below Deluxe Growth. Add two-way texting and you are at $149 plus the $15 website, which is $1,968 a year. It also runs 200 messages over the Deluxe allowance at an overage rate that, again, is not published.
Square's two rows are the interesting ones. Free costs $0 in subscription and shows up in processing instead. If this shop takes a 25% deposit online, that is $23.75 on a $95 ticket across 400 appointments, or $9,500 a month through online card rails. Free charges 3.3% + 30 cents there; Plus charges 2.9% + 30. That 0.4 point difference is about $38/mo, or $456 a year, so Plus at $49/mo nets out roughly $11 a month more than Free, and Plus is the only one of the two that lets you connect your own domain. Worth knowing before you pick the free plan on principle.
Square's free tier is the most generous in this category by a distance, more generous than anything we offer a solo groomer on day one. It is also not pet-specific in any way. No breed or coat fields, no vaccination tracking, no van routing.
Where we sit
GroomSpark is $99 a month, flat. That includes a real marketing website on your own domain, unmetered texting on every plan, and every feature we ship. Additional storefronts are $49.99/mo and vans are free, because a van is a groomer, not a location. There is no setup fee, and the 14-day trial does not ask for a card.
In the table above we are fifth of ten configurations by price, and the cheapest one that includes a website you own. Four rows sit above us and three of them deserve credit. Square Free is $0 and better for a solo groomer's first month than anything we sell. ProPet's modular pricing is genuinely cheaper for a shop that wants scheduling and nothing else. DaySmart's Deluxe plus website combination beats us on price if you take their processor and never need to reply to a text.
We are not cheapest. We are the one whose number does not move when December gets busy.
What to ask before you sign
Take these to any demo, including ours.
- Which unit am I billed on, and what happens when I add a second van or location?
- What is the overage rate on text messages, in writing?
- Is that price contingent on using your payment processor, and what is it if I decline?
- Is there a setup, onboarding, or migration fee?
- Which features from the demo are add-ons, and what do they cost?
- If a website is included, is it on my domain or yours?
Any vendor who cannot answer the second and sixth on the spot has told you something.
For the framework rather than the invoice, how to choose grooming software is the twelve-point version. Named products with opinions attached live in the best pet grooming software for small shops. Leaving MoeGo specifically? MoeGo alternatives covers the switch. And if the website column is the one you keep staring at, what a dog grooming website that actually books looks like explains why it belongs in the base price.
Prices checked 2026-09-01, from each vendor's own pricing page. Every figure marked "not published" is not published, and no directory listing that claims otherwise has been near this page.
Common questions
How much does pet grooming software cost per month?
Published entry prices run from $0 (Square Appointments Free) to about $109 (Gingr Spa). A realistic all-in number for a single-location salon that wants reminders, two-way texting, and a website is closer to $100 to $200 a month once add-ons are counted. Prices checked 2026-09-01.
Why is the price I was quoted higher than the price on the website?
Usually one of five reasons: the advertised tier is priced per van and you run a salon, the price assumes you use the vendor's payment processor, the feature you need is an add-on, there is a one-time setup fee, or your text volume pushes you a tier up. Every one of those is real and documented on the vendors' own pages.
Which grooming software includes unlimited text messages?
Two that we know of. Groomer.io includes unlimited SMS and two-way texting in its base plan, and GroomSpark does not meter texting on any plan. MoeGo and DaySmart give you a monthly allowance and do not publish what happens past it. Pawfinity meters per message with a published rate card. ProPet passes you through to your own Twilio account.
Is a free grooming software plan good enough for a solo groomer?
Square Appointments Free is the most generous free tier in this category and it is not crippled: unlimited staff calendars, a booking site, and text and email reminders. The costs show up elsewhere. Online card processing is 3.3% + 30 cents on Free versus 2.9% + 30 cents on the $49 tier, and you cannot connect your own domain without paying for Plus.
Do grooming software vendors charge setup fees?
Most do not publish one. ProPet does: a mandatory one-time fee of $75 per module on monthly billing, so a grooming-only shop pays $150 before its first full month. ProPet waives it on a two-year subscription and charges $50 per module on annual.
Should I pay per location or per user?
Depends on your shape. MoeGo, Groomer.io, and Square bill per location or per van, so a two-groomer single shop is cheap and a second van is not. DaySmart bills by user seats. Pawfinity and Gingr publish no seat cap at all. Count your growth plan, not your current month.