Gingr vs Pawfinity (2026): Groom-and-Board Software Compared

Updated: November 9, 2026 · 11 min read · By Grooming Software HQ

Grooming Software HQ Editorial Team

Independent research on pet grooming software — we compare features, pricing, and real user feedback so groomers can choose with confidence.

The Short Version

Gingr and Pawfinity are both built for pet businesses that do more than groom. Both run grooming, boarding and daycare from one system, both price by the services you offer rather than by headcount, and neither lists a per-user fee. That makes them natural rivals for the salon attached to a kennel or the daycare that grooms.

The real difference is where each one puts its costs. Gingr charges a higher subscription and includes automated reminders. Pawfinity charges a lower subscription and bills every text you send. Gingr's Stay plan, its only plan with overnight boarding, is $179 a month. Pawfinity's Royal plan, which covers grooming, boarding and daycare, is $110. But Pawfinity bills 3.5¢ to 5¢ for every text, so its bill climbs with your volume while Gingr's stays flat.

For most groom-and-board businesses, Pawfinity's lower base wins. For a big facility sending thousands of reminders, Gingr catches up, and it brings deeper front-desk tools and around-the-clock phone support with it.

At a Glance

Side-by-Side Comparison

Two rows decide most cases: the grooming + boarding + daycare price, where Pawfinity is $69 a month cheaper before texting, and automated text reminders, where Gingr charges nothing and Pawfinity charges for every message. Everything else is about which tools your front desk needs.

What You Actually Pay

Gingr publishes three plans plus custom Enterprise pricing for multiple facilities. Spa is $109 a month ($100 billed annually) for grooming and training appointments. Play is $169 ($142) and adds daycare and day training. Stay is $179 ($154) and adds overnight boarding. That Stay price requires Gingr's integrated payments; without them it's $209 ($179). Every plan includes automated notifications. Two-way texting is a $165-a-year add-on, about $13.75 a month, which includes 500 incoming texts a month and charges 4¢ for each one after that. The $225-a-year Multimedia Messaging Bundle adds picture messages and text marketing.

Pawfinity splits its plans by what you sell. Groom & Train is $60 a month for grooming, training, nail or dental work. Stay & Play is $60 for boarding, daycare or pet sitting, with no grooming. Royal is $110 and covers everything. Billed annually they're $55, $55 and $100. Every plan includes unlimited employee logins and two-way texting. Texts are billed at a rate set by your monthly sending volume: 5¢ each under 500, 4.5¢ from 501 to 1,000, 4¢ from 1,001 to 1,500 and 3.5¢ above that. Royal includes up to 250 free texts a month, and Pawfinity's pricing page says "inbound replies are free."

The figures below assume three texts sent per appointment or stay (reminder, confirmation and ready-for-pickup) plus one client reply. Both vendors are on monthly billing, and Gingr's prices assume you use its payment processing. Gingr is shown two ways: reminders only, and with its two-way texting add-on. Pawfinity's price is the same either way, because two-way texting is included. Pawfinity is priced at the rate for the month's total volume, and the figures leave out its US carrier surcharge, which it doesn't publish.

Four conclusions come out of that table.

One: at typical volume, Pawfinity is cheaper by $30 to $55 a month. A groom-and-board facility doing around 300 bookings a month pays about $139 on Royal against $179 to $193 on Gingr's Stay. That's $480 to $640 a year, and the gap holds until a facility is several times that size.

Two: Gingr's included reminders make it cheaper at high volume. On monthly billing, Pawfinity's text charges push its bill past Gingr's flat $179 at about 740 bookings a month if you only send reminders. If you want two-way texting on Gingr, the crossover moves out to about 1,100 bookings, because Gingr's add-on costs $13.75 a month plus 4¢ for each reply past 500. Above those points, Gingr pulls ahead and keeps gaining.

Three: a grooming-only salon should almost never pick Gingr. Spa costs $109 against Pawfinity's $60 for Groom & Train, and Pawfinity's text bill doesn't close that $49 gap until a salon sends about 1,200 texts a month, roughly 400 appointments. A salon that busy usually has staff who would want two-way texting, which costs extra on Gingr.

Four: daycare without boarding costs more on both, but more on Gingr. Pawfinity's $60 Stay & Play plan doesn't include grooming, so grooming plus daycare means Royal at $110. On Gingr it means Play at $169. At 300 bookings, Pawfinity still wins by $30 to $44.

Three caveats. First, annual billing moves the crossover down, because Gingr's discount is bigger: Stay drops $25 to $154 while Royal drops $10 to $100, and Pawfinity's text rates don't get an annual discount. On annual billing, the reminders-only crossover falls to about 600 bookings a month and the two-way crossover to about 870. Second, without Gingr's payments, Stay costs $30 more, which pushes the reminders-only crossover out to about 1,000 bookings. Third, two assumptions need confirming in writing. Gingr publishes no per-message charge for automated reminders, and its help center prices the two-way add-on by incoming texts only. Pawfinity doesn't say whether a month's volume sets the rate for every message or only the ones above each threshold, so we used the cheaper reading. For how these costs compare across the market, see what grooming software really costs.

What Each One Gives You Beyond the Price

Gingr is built around the front desk of a busy facility. PreCheck lets owners confirm details from their phones before drop-off, like checking in for a flight. The Stay plan adds a live kennel occupancy grid with automatic room assignment, and capacity tracking helps you keep staff-to-pet ratios safe on busy daycare days. Vaccine enforcement, waivers, waitlists, feeding and medication tracking, webcams pet parents can watch, report cards and memberships with automatic renewal are all built in. For grooming, Spa adds groomer-to-breed assignment, drop-off windows, recurring reservations and automatic tip and commission calculation. Clients get a branded app. Gingr says its support agents take calls 24/7 in the US, Canada and the UK.

Pawfinity gives you a full business toolkit on every plan. Each tier includes client and pet profiles, Booking Genius™ scheduling, advanced online booking, automated notifications, a full retail point of sale with inventory and stored payments, a time clock feeding payroll, QuickBooks Connect and Review Booster. Royal adds boarding and daycare reservations, guest-specific features and food and medication tracking, with unlimited runs. Groom & Train and Royal include mapping and routes for mobile work, with Precision Location traffic forecasting for $5 a month. Pawfinity runs in the browser and can be saved to a phone's home screen. It isn't in the App Store or Google Play.

So the feature comparison isn't one-sided. Gingr goes deeper on the parts of a facility that run at the front desk: check-in, kennel assignment, capacity and memberships. Pawfinity includes more of the back office for the price, such as payroll, QuickBooks and review requests, and it supports mobile grooming, which Gingr doesn't.

Where Gingr Pulls Ahead

• Reminders don't cost extra: Automated notifications are included, so a high-volume facility's bill doesn't grow with each booking.
• Front-desk depth: PreCheck digital check-in, a live kennel grid with auto-assignment, capacity tracking, waitlists and vaccine enforcement.
• Memberships: Recurring memberships with automatic renewal and stacked benefits, useful for daycare packages.
• Around-the-clock phone support: 24/7 phone in the US, Canada and UK, plus chat and email, and a dedicated implementation specialist.
• A branded client app: Pet parents can book, pay, check in ahead with PreCheck and watch webcams. Its App Store rating is low, though, so read the reviews.
• Built for multi-location operators: Multi-location reporting on every plan and an Enterprise tier with volume pricing.

Where Pawfinity Pulls Ahead

• A much lower base price: $110 for grooming, boarding and daycare against $179, and $60 against $109 for grooming alone.
• Two-way texting on every plan: Clients' replies are always free. On Gingr, conversations cost $165 a year extra.
• Mobile grooming: Mapping and routes plus Booking Genius™ scheduling. Gingr has no GPS or route management at all.
• Back office included: Payroll, QuickBooks Connect and Review Booster on every plan.
• Easy to try and easy to leave: A 7-day free trial with no card, free data import, and no renewal-notice clause in its terms. Gingr is demo-only, takes about 30 days to set up and auto-renews unless you give 60 days' notice.
• Any processor at the same price: Gingr integrates with two processors and charges $30 a month more for Stay if you don't use its own.

Read Gingr's Contract Before You Commit

This difference doesn't show up on either pricing page. Under Gingr's standard Terms of Service (updated October 26, 2026), a subscription automatically renews for the same length as the term that's ending unless either side gives written notice at least 60 days before renewal. Fees are "non-refundable and non-cancelable" during a term. After you leave, Gingr will provide a file of your data if you ask within 30 days, and it may charge an hourly rate for that work.

None of that is unusual for facility software, but it changes how you should test Gingr. There's no free trial, so the demo is your only look before you sign, and an annual term commits you for a year. Pawfinity's published terms don't include a renewal-notice clause like Gingr's, and its trial lets you book real appointments before you pay. Whichever you choose, export your client and pet data before you cancel anything.

The Questions That Settle It

Answer these in order and stop at the first one that decides it.

First: do you groom from a van? If yes, choose Pawfinity. Gingr has no route management.

Second: is grooming your only service? If yes, Pawfinity's $60 Groom & Train is almost always the better buy than Gingr's $109 Spa. Better still, compare grooming-first tools like those in our best pet grooming software guide.

Third: how many bookings do you handle a month? Below about 600, Pawfinity is cheaper on any billing. Above about 1,100, Gingr is cheaper even with two-way texting, as long as you use its payment processing. In between, it depends on whether you bill annually and whether you need two-way texting on Gingr.

Fourth: does your front desk need Gingr's depth? If morning drop-offs back up your lobby, you sell daycare memberships, or you need to manage kennel occupancy at a glance, Gingr's tools may be worth paying for at any size. If no-shows are the problem you're really solving, both send automated reminders. See our guide to reducing grooming no-shows.

Which One Is Right for You?

Bottom Line

Gingr and Pawfinity do the same job, running grooming, boarding and daycare in one system, and they charge for different things. Gingr charges more up front and includes automated reminders. Pawfinity charges less up front and bills every text.

For most groom-and-board businesses, that makes Pawfinity the cheaper choice by $30 to $55 a month, with a free trial, routing tools and easier exit terms. Gingr earns its price at the high end: big, busy facilities where included reminders and a deeper front desk are worth more than the base-price gap. Confirm current rates with both vendors before signing. Ask Gingr to put in writing that automated reminders carry no per-message charge, and check the term length and renewal date on your order.

Still comparing? DaySmart Pet vs Pawfinity tests Pawfinity against a salon platform that adds boarding as $25 calendars, and Pawfinity vs Time To Pet covers the other multi-service matchup. For Pawfinity against grooming-first tools, see Pawfinity vs GrooMore, Groomsoft vs Pawfinity, Pawfinity vs Groomer.io and MoeGo vs Pawfinity.

Frequently Asked Questions