Groomer.io vs Time To Pet (2026): Per Van vs Per Groomer

Updated: August 31, 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

Every grooming software comparison eventually comes down to the unit each vendor bills on. This one is unusual because both vendors multiply — they just multiply by different things, and one multiplier is five times the size of the other.

Groomer.io charges for the box you work out of. $99 a month per storefront or van, currently advertised at $79, and everything inside that box is unlimited: texting, customers, pets, employees, logins, photos. Two vans means two subscriptions.

Time To Pet charges for the people. $40 a month plus $16 per active staff member, or $50 flat if you are a one-person business, plus $10 a month to turn texting on. Vans are free. Groomers are not.

That sounds like the same trade the rest of this market makes, but the arithmetic lands somewhere genuinely different. $16 against $79 is not a close race — it means a mobile fleet running one groomer per van gets further ahead on Time To Pet with every single vehicle, and never crosses back. Groomer.io only wins where staff pile up in one place.

And here is the part the pricing pages will not tell you: the shape that favors Groomer.io on price — a busy salon — is exactly the shape where Time To Pet's grooming product is not finished. Its mobile grooming software is live and sells itself with a "Try for Free" button. Its salon grooming page still shows a "Join Waitlist" form. So for once the money and the product point the same way, which makes this an unusually clean decision.

At a Glance

Side-by-Side Comparison

Rows three and four are the whole comparison in miniature. Groomer.io gives you unlimited staff and charges for vehicles. Time To Pet gives you unlimited vehicles and charges for staff. Neither is generous or stingy — they have simply picked opposite things to meter, and your business shape decides which one is expensive.

The Multiplier Math

Both vendors have a fixed part and a variable part, so write them out properly before comparing.

Groomer.io is $99 a month per storefront or van, currently advertised as a limited-time $79. That covers unlimited two-way SMS and MMS on a toll-free number the vendor provides, unlimited automated phone calls, unlimited customer and pet records, unlimited employees and logins, unlimited pet photos, online booking, smart map scheduling, Clover and Square, online payments and DePAWsits, payroll management, and personalized onboarding. There is no messaging meter and no per-seat charge. The variable is your vehicle count.

Time To Pet is $25 a month on Lite, $50 on Solo, or $40 plus $16 per active staff member on Team, dropping to $5 per staff member from the 26th person up. Add $10 a month for texting, which is not on the pricing page — it lives in the help center — and which includes 250 messages per active staff member, pooled across the team and rolling over month to month, with overages at 2.5 cents. The variable is your headcount.

Two definitions matter before you do the sums. An active staff member is anyone with at least one assigned or completed event in the billing period — and administrative roles such as Office Managers and Admins are always counted, whether or not they ever touch a dog. And the $25 Lite plan cannot text at all; it also excludes QuickBooks Online, Zapier, videos and email campaigns. For any groomer who sends appointment reminders, the real Time To Pet floor is Solo at $50 plus $10 for messaging.

At three outbound texts per appointment, here is how that plays out at real volumes:

Three things fall out of that table, and they are worth more than any feature list.

One: at a single location, the crossover is about two active staff. Time To Pet's single-site cost is $50 fixed plus $16 a head, so it passes Groomer.io's $79 somewhere just under two people. A solo groomer saves about $19 a month on Time To Pet. Two groomers is a coin flip. Four groomers costs roughly $40 a month more on Time To Pet, and six costs $75 more. If Groomer.io's promotion ends and the rate returns to $99, that crossover slides out to about three active staff — worth knowing, because the promotional and list prices genuinely change the answer for small salons.

Two: for a mobile fleet, there is no crossover at all. This is the finding that matters most. Every van you add costs $79 to $99 on Groomer.io. Every groomer you add costs $16 on Time To Pet. If you run roughly one groomer per van — which is how mobile grooming actually works — Time To Pet starts ahead at one van and pulls further ahead with each additional one, forever. Two vans is a $76 monthly gap. Three vans with an office manager on the books is $123 a month, about $1,500 a year. There is no fleet size at which Groomer.io's per-van billing catches a multiplier one-fifth its size. For more on how these line items compound across the market, see what grooming software really costs.

Three: the texting fee is smaller than it looks, on both sides. Time To Pet's $10 is annoying because it is hidden, but 250 messages per active staff, pooled and rolling over, is genuinely generous — three groomers share 750 texts, enough for roughly 250 appointments, and quiet months bank credit for busy ones. Overages at 2.5 cents are the cheapest per-message rate in this market. Meanwhile Groomer.io's "unlimited" has one asterisk of its own: its help center notes that SMS campaigns vary in price by audience size and shows an estimate before you send. Everyday conversation is uncapped; a marketing blast to your whole client list is billed separately. Neither caveat changes a verdict, but both belong in your budget.

The Gap Nobody Puts on a Pricing Page

Price is only half of this comparison. The other half is that these two companies are at very different points in their grooming journey.

Groomer.io does one thing. Every screen, every automation, every default was built for a grooming business, and the product shows it — automated ready-for-pickup phone calls are the clearest example, because no other platform in this category ships them and nobody outside grooming would think to build them.

Time To Pet came from pet sitting and dog walking, where it has been a category leader for years, and it is working its way into grooming from there. That migration is visibly half-finished. Its mobile grooming software is a real, shipping product: a "Try for Free" button, a 14-day trial, a staff app with client and pet records and driving directions, before-and-after photos, visit report cards with video and custom questions, a client app for requests and payments, and automated invoicing with tips. That is a credible mobile grooming platform.

Its salon grooming page, as of this writing, still shows "Join Waitlist" rather than a signup. The features it lists there are the general platform ones — client management, staff management, scheduling, invoicing — not grooming-specific ones. Read plainly, the dedicated salon grooming product is pre-launch.

There is one working route in for a shop, and it is a good one: the $79 Facility plan, which Time To Pet's help center describes as covering daycare, grooming or boarding at a flat monthly cost with no per-staff charge. Note that the public pricing page currently words it as "daycare, boarding, or other types of facility-based services" — the two descriptions differ, so confirm grooming coverage with the vendor before you sign. If it fits, a facility with eight staff pays $79 plus $10 for texting where the Team plan would have cost $178, which is the single best-value plan either vendor offers.

One more workflow difference worth weighing: Time To Pet's client experience runs through an account-based portal and app. That unlocks messaging, payments and profile management, and pet parents who use it tend to like it — but it is a step between a new client and a booked appointment. Groomer.io's online scheduling and requesting does not ask for one. If most of your bookings come from strangers finding you online, that friction is real; if your book is full of regulars, it is nothing.

Where Groomer.io Pulls Ahead

• Automated phone calls: Not texts — actual outbound calls telling a client their dog is ready. For an older client base that does not reliably read SMS, this is the difference between a ten-minute pickup and an hour of dead crate time. Nothing else in the category has it.
• Unlimited staff at one address: The mirror image of Time To Pet's weakness. Six groomers in one salon cost exactly the same as one, and there is no bill to recalculate when you hire.
• Truly unlimited texting, with no enabling fee: No $10 line item, no allowance to watch, no overage. Unlimited MMS too, so before-and-after photos cost nothing — and photo messaging is exactly the habit groomers quietly drop when it is metered.
• A finished grooming product today: Not a waitlist, not a general pet care platform adapted for grooming. If you run a shop, this is the difference between buying software and joining a queue.
• Clover, Square and DePAWsits: Real POS integrations for a salon selling shampoo and bows over a counter, plus deposits, which is the most direct lever there is on grooming no-shows.
• Booking without an account: Online scheduling and requesting that does not ask a first-time client to sign up before they can ask for an appointment.

Where Time To Pet Pulls Ahead

• A multiplier one-fifth the size: $16 per groomer against $79 per van. This single fact decides the comparison for every mobile business with more than one vehicle, and the gap widens with each one you buy.
• Vans and locations are free: Growth by capacity costs nothing. Add a second van, a third, a satellite unit — the subscription only moves when the headcount does.
• More than grooming, in one account: Boarding, daycare, dog walking and pet sitting run alongside grooming. Groomer.io does not do any of them, so a business that grooms and boards is either on Time To Pet or on two systems.
• Texting that pools and rolls over: 250 messages per active staff, shared across the team, with unused credit carrying forward and overages at 2.5 cents — the cheapest per-message rate we have found in this market.
• A real 14-day trial, no card: Self-serve signup, cancel any time. Groomer.io does not publish a trial length and points you toward a scheduled demo instead, which is a slower way to find out whether software fits.
• Report cards clients actually keep: Photos, video and answers to custom questions after every visit. It is a retention tool disguised as a receipt, and it is more polished than anything at this price.

The Question That Settles It

Ignore both pricing pages and answer one thing: does your business grow by adding people to one room, or by adding vehicles to a fleet?

If you are adding people to one room, you want Groomer.io. Past two groomers under a single roof its flat $79 is cheaper and gets relatively cheaper with every hire, its unlimited texting removes a line item entirely, and — decisively — it has a shipping salon grooming product where Time To Pet has a waitlist. That is not a close call; it is two independent reasons pointing the same direction.

If you are adding vehicles, you want Time To Pet, and the margin is not subtle. One groomer per van costs $16 there and $79 to $99 on Groomer.io. At three vans that is roughly $1,500 a year, and it grows from there. Time To Pet's mobile grooming product is genuinely live, its trial is genuinely free, and you can prove all of this for yourself in fourteen days without handing over a card.

Two cases sit outside the rule. A business that grooms and boards should look hard at the $79 Facility plan — flat rate, no per-staff charge, and Groomer.io simply cannot do boarding at any price. And a single van whose clients do not answer texts is the one place Groomer.io's automated phone calls are worth paying a premium for; if they save you an hour of phone tag a day, $19 a month is not the number that matters.

Whichever way you go, export your client and pet data before you cancel anything. Both platforms will import clients and pets, but photos and older appointment history are what tend to vanish in a migration.

Which One Is Right for You?

Bottom Line

This is a grooming specialist against a pet care generalist, and unusually, the price math and the product maturity agree with each other instead of pulling apart.

Groomer.io is the better buy for a grooming-only shop: cheaper past two groomers, unlimited on every axis that a busy salon strains, and finished. Time To Pet is the better buy for anything with wheels or with more than one service line: its $16 headcount charge is a fraction of Groomer.io's $79 vehicle charge, so fleets are cheaper there at every size, and its mobile grooming product is real and testable today.

Count two numbers before you look at either pricing page — how many people are on your books, and how many vans are on your driveway. Those two figures decide this comparison outright. Then confirm current rates directly: Groomer.io's $79 is explicitly a limited-time offer, so budget at $99 for the long run, and Time To Pet's $10 texting fee will not appear on the pricing page you are reading.

Still comparing? See MoeGo vs Time To Pet for the same per-van versus per-staff question against the market leader, Pawfinity vs Time To Pet for the multi-service matchup, Pawfinity vs Groomer.io for Groomer.io against that same multi-service platform, or Groomsoft vs Groomer.io and MoeGo vs Groomer.io for Groomer.io against the budget pick and the market leader. Our best mobile grooming software roundup covers van-based operations specifically, and the best pet grooming software guide ranks the whole field.

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