Per-night vs per-stay pricing: which fits your business

There are two common ways to price a stay, and the right one depends less on the maths than on how your customers think about a booking — and how you want your calendar to behave.

Per night

You charge for each night the animal is with you. It's the model most owners expect from hotels, it scales cleanly with length of stay, and it's easy to explain. The catch is the edges: a drop-off at 5pm and a collection at 9am two days later is "two nights" — but the animal was on your premises for parts of three days. Decide your rule for the collection day and put it in writing, because that's the conversation you'll otherwise have at the door.

Per stay (day-based)

You count days rather than nights — often "day of arrival and day of departure both count". It earns a little more on short stays and reflects that a half-day still ties up the pen and the cleaning slot. It can read as less generous if a competitor down the road quotes per night, so if you go this way, show a worked example on your prices page so there are no surprises.

What it does to your busy periods

Per-night pricing rewards longer stays, which smooths your calendar — handy if you'd rather have a fortnight's boarding than a churn of weekends. Per-stay pricing protects the value of short bookings, which matters more if your demand is naturally short and frequent. Neither is "correct"; they pull your mix in different directions.

Whichever you pick, be legible

The cattery that loses business isn't the dearer one — it's the one whose price the customer can't work out before they ring. State your nightly or daily rate, your rule for the collection day, and any peak-season uplift in one place. A customer who can price their own stay in their head is a customer who books.