House sitting keeps your pet in its own home with a person living there. Boarding moves it to a kennel or cattery with staff on site. Drop-in visits keep it at home but alone between short paid visits. For cats, senior animals and pets whose routine is the thing holding them steady, staying home usually wins. For a dog that needs eyes on it overnight, or a household that would rather nobody was in the house, a good boarding facility usually wins, and that is a real answer rather than a consolation prize.
Three things settle it before price does:
- Whether your animal copes with unfamiliar places and people.
- Whether it needs someone present overnight, or only fed and checked.
- Whether you want a person living in your home while you are away.
Where your pet sleeps, and whether anyone is there overnight, is the whole comparison
Everything else follows from those two facts.
| Option | Where your pet sleeps | Overnight supervision | Your house while you are away |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live-in house sit, non-monetary | Its own home | Yes, someone lives in | Occupied |
| Live-in sitter, paid by the night | Its own home | Yes, someone lives in | Occupied |
| Boarding kennel or cattery | Staffed premises | Yes, staff on site | Empty |
| Boarding at a sitter's home | The sitter's house | Yes, if they stay in | Empty |
| Drop-in visits | Its own home | No, alone in between | Visited, not occupied |
| Family or friends | Either | Depends on the arrangement | Depends on the arrangement |
Sitterly runs the first row only: a sitter stays in your home, cares for your pets, and no money changes hands for the sit. We do not offer drop-in visits, dog walking, daycare, or boarding at a sitter's home, and our how it works page shows the arrangement. If your animal needs another row, this article says so.
Published Australian guide prices run from nothing to more than $120 a night
There is no neutral Australian rate card for pet care. The figures below come from guides published by the platforms selling the service, so they are the seller's estimate, not a market average. Each was read on the publisher's live page on 22 August 2026.
| Care option | Guide price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Non-monetary house sit | No payment for the sit itself | Sitterly and the exchange platforms |
| Live-in sitter in your home, paid | $60 to $100 a night | Mad Paws price guide, June 2026 |
| House sitting, paid | From $30 to $50 a night | PetCloud services and prices page |
| Boarding kennel | $40 to $80 a night | Mad Paws price guide, June 2026 |
| Luxury or boutique kennel | $80 to $120 and above a night | Mad Paws price guide, June 2026 |
| Cattery | Around $40 a day, luxury upwards of $90 a day | Mad Paws cattery guide |
| Boarding at a sitter's home | $45 to $80 a night | Mad Paws price guide, June 2026 |
| Drop-in visit, 30 to 60 minutes | $25 to $45 a visit | Mad Paws price guide, June 2026 |
| Drop-in visit, 20 minutes, once a day | From $45 a visit | PetCloud services and prices page |
Read across and you can see why pricing confuses people. Two platforms describe the same product, an overnight stay in your home, and publish figures that do not overlap: $30 to $50 on the PetCloud services and prices page against $60 to $100 in the Mad Paws sitter and kennel guide, whose cattery figures come from a separate cattery guide. A third live Mad Paws page says its average price per night starts at AUD$20 to $25. They describe different sits in different suburbs, but it makes any single page a weak basis for a budget.
The exchange side prices differently. Nobody pays a nightly rate, so the figure to compare is a membership, and Australian homeowner memberships run from free to a few hundred dollars a year. Sitterly is free for homeowners, with no per-booking commission either side. Our breakdown of what pet care actually costs in Australia sets memberships against nightly rates.
Cost is the last question, not the first
Work out what your animal needs and whether you want someone in your home, then price the options that survive. Choosing on price first is how people end up with an arrangement that suits the budget and not the pet.
Cats are attached to the place as much as to you, which is why most do better at home
The RSPCA Knowledgebase is direct about this. Its guidance on cat care while you are away states that cats can become stressed by travel, transport, and changes in their environment and routine, so it is preferable to arrange care. It then lists three options without ranking them: a house or pet sitter staying at your home or visiting at least once or twice a day, care at another person's home, or a boarding facility with regular attention and safe containment.
Cats are in 34% of Australian households and dogs in 49%, out of the 73% that keep a pet at all, according to Animal Medicines Australia's Pets in Australia survey published on 18 September 2025. Almost all Australian sitting content is written for dogs, so the environment argument is stronger for cat owners than the average article suggests. Our comparison of cat sitting against a cattery goes further.
The exception is worth naming. A cat that has boarded before and settled, an escape-prone cat, or a home that cannot be secured while empty all point the other way. Past behaviour beats any general argument.
Drop-in visits are cheaper because your animal is alone in between, and the gap is the decision
One number settles this one: how many hours your animal spends by itself. The RSPCA sets the bar for a cat at a visit at least once or twice per day, to feed, change litter trays and provide company and enrichment. On a once-daily 20 minute visit, that is a cat alone for roughly 23 and a half hours out of 24.
For most dogs the gap is harder. The RSPCA's guidance on dogs that are anxious when nobody is home describes distress showing up as toileting inside, destructiveness, excessive barking, digging, pacing and attempts to escape, and advises talking to your vet, who can help or refer to a behaviour specialist using humane reward-based training. A dog already prone to that rarely improves on a schedule of short visits.
Drop-ins earn their place for an independent adult cat or a short absence. They are also the cheapest line in the table, which is exactly why they get chosen for animals they do not suit. Sitterly does not offer them. If that is what your animal needs, a paid local service is the right place to look.
Boarding is genuinely the better choice more often than exchange platforms admit
Every platform that earns money from one answer has a reason to give it. Sitterly takes no commission on a sit, so here is the plain version. Boarding is the better choice when:
- Your dog is sociable and does well with company, structure and other dogs. Plenty enjoy exactly that.
- Your animal needs close or overnight monitoring: post-surgical recovery, a seizure disorder, a diabetic on timed insulin, a very frail animal. Staff on site through the night is an advantage a single sitter asleep upstairs cannot match.
- You would rather not have anyone in your home. That is a valid reason on its own.
- You have not found a sitter you are actually comfortable with. Settling for someone who feels wrong is the worse outcome.
- Your pet has boarded before and coped well, or the trip is short enough that the handover outweighs the gain.
If you go that way, the RSPCA suggests visiting in person before you book, or asking someone you trust to, looking at space, conditions, hygiene, temperature control, airflow and levels of care. It advises asking how food, water, exercise, human interaction, play, enrichment and cleaning are handled day to day, and arranging a short trial stay where possible.
You can inspect a boarding business, but you have to judge a person
That asymmetry is underrated. A kennel or cattery is a business with premises you can walk through, under state rules that are not uniform. Queensland's list of compulsory animal welfare codes of practice, read on 22 August 2026, covers dog breeding but carries no boarding-specific code, while other states and territories regulate boarding establishments directly. Your state agriculture or primary industries department is the authority on what applies where you live, and a facility should be able to say what it is registered under. One rule travels with the animal either way: in Queensland, a person in charge of an animal includes anyone with custody, care or control of it, and owes it a duty of care, whether that is a kennel manager in Ipswich or a sitter in your spare room in Ashgrove.
A sitter is not a business, and Sitterly does not turn one into a business. We do not vet, screen or approve users. Verification is optional and member-initiated: someone can choose to complete a police check, reviewed by our admin team, while email verification happens automatically. Some sitters have done it and some have not. You can filter the sitter list by police check, and each profile shows what has been done, which is not a guarantee. Our guide to what verification does and does not prove is worth ten minutes before you shortlist anyone.
Reviews work the same way. They appear only after a booking is marked completed, in both directions, and Sitterly is new, so volume is low. A thin history is not a red flag by itself, any more than two good reviews prove much. What you can read is how someone writes about animals, the experience they list, and how promptly they reply, which we score as a reply rating. Sitterly supports the connection. Homeowners and sitters remain responsible for their own arrangements: a video call, a meet and greet with the animals present, a written run-through of routines and vet arrangements, and a willingness to say no.
An empty house is part of what you are choosing
If your pet boards, your home is unoccupied for the whole trip. Mail piles up, bins stay out, the garden goes without water through a 38 degree week, and the place looks exactly as empty as it is. A live-in sitter solves that as a side effect. Some households would still rather have a locked empty house than a person in it, which is reasonable. Make it a deliberate choice, and check your home and contents policy for unoccupancy conditions either way, because your insurer is the authority there. Whether a sitter acquires any occupancy status is outside this article, and belongs with your state's tenancy authority.
Australian summer and the Christmas fortnight change the answer
Christmas falls in the hottest part of our year, which is not true anywhere else this category gets written about. The RSPCA describes heatstroke as a life-threatening emergency that can cause rapid multi-organ failure and has a high mortality rate, advising constant access to water and shaded areas with ventilation, exercise at the coolest parts of the day, and keeping dogs off hot concrete, sand and sun-exposed grass. If your house cooks in the afternoon, a west-facing flat in Fremantle or an uninsulated weatherboard in Ashgrove, say so. Someone who has not lived there will not think to close the blinds at 11am.
Heatstroke is an emergency
Signs include constant panting, rapid breathing, drooling, pale or red gums, vomiting, weakness, confusion or collapse. The RSPCA advises applying room temperature or cool water to the skin, keeping the animal in a cool environment, and seeking veterinary attention immediately. Never leave a pet in a parked vehicle, even briefly.
The second issue is vet access. The Australian Veterinary Association's Vet Voice notes that some local veterinary services may be reduced over the festive season, and advises checking your clinic's hours, knowing where your nearest emergency hospital is, and ringing ahead. It lists heat stress, burnt paws, snakes, spiders, paralysis ticks and unsafe festive foods among the hazards. Emergency hospitals do run through the public holidays: Animal Emergency Service states its hospitals are staffed every weeknight and 24 hours on weekends and public holidays. The 24/7 Animal Poisons Helpline is on 1300 869 738, though consultations are charged.
Whichever option you pick, leave written vet details: your clinic and its holiday hours, the nearest after-hours hospital and its address, and what you authorise if you cannot be reached. In parts of regional NSW, South Australia and Western Australia that hospital is a far longer drive than from Newtown or Brunswick, which changes what to authorise in advance, and our guide to emergency vet consent during a sit covers writing it down. School holiday dates differ by state and territory, and December and January are the busiest weeks of the year for every kind of pet care.
Match the option to the animal in front of you, not to the category
| Your animal | Usually suits | Usually does not suit |
|---|---|---|
| Indoor cat bonded to the house | A live-in sitter at home | A move to unfamiliar premises |
| Sociable dog that enjoys company | A good kennel, or a live-in sitter | Long stretches alone between visits |
| Senior or arthritic dog | A live-in sitter, familiar floors and steps | An unfamiliar layout with new stairs |
| Pet on timed medication or recovering from surgery | Staff on site overnight, or a sitter briefed by your vet | Drop-in visits |
| Dog with separation-related distress | A live-in sitter, or an option your vet suggests | Being alone between visits |
| Escape artist | Secure premises, or a sitter who has seen the fence | Any arrangement nobody has tested |
| Two or more pets on different routines | A live-in sitter at home | Splitting them across separate arrangements |
Anything medical belongs with your vet, not a table on the internet. The point of this one is that the animal decides, not the format. There is a fifth option people forget: asking a family member or friend costs nothing and starts from real trust, though it carries its own risks, covered in asking family or friends versus a house sitter.
Frequently asked questions
- Is house sitting always less stressful for a pet than boarding?
- No. It is often gentler for animals that lean on routine, and the RSPCA notes cats can be stressed by changes to their environment and routine. But some dogs do well with company and structure, and an animal needing overnight monitoring can be safer with staff on site. Judge it on your animal, not the category.
- What is the difference between house sitting and boarding at a sitter's home?
- House sitting means the sitter comes to you and your pet never leaves home. Boarding at a sitter's home moves your pet to their house, which is unfamiliar premises just as a kennel is, though usually quieter. Sitterly only covers the first.
- Are drop-in visits enough for a cat?
- The RSPCA suggests a visit at least once or twice per day for a cat left at home, to feed, change litter trays and provide company and enrichment. Whether that is enough depends on the cat, its health and how long you are away. It suits most dogs less well.
- How much does a cattery cost in Australia?
- Mad Paws publishes a guide of around $40 a day for a standard cattery and upwards of $90 a day for a luxury service, read on its live page on 22 August 2026. That is one platform's estimate, not a market average, and rates vary by state, suburb and season. Ask what is included and whether medication or peak periods cost extra.
- Does Sitterly check the sitters?
- No. Sitterly does not vet, screen or approve users, and does not guarantee a booking or provide insurance. A police check is optional and member-initiated, reviewed by our admin team when someone completes it, and you can filter the sitter list by it. Each profile shows what has been done. The decision remains yours.
- What happens if my sitter cancels?
- Sitterly does not guarantee a booking goes ahead and does not find a replacement sitter, which is worth knowing before you rely on one arrangement. Keep a fallback: a second sitter you have spoken to, a facility with availability, or a neighbour who could cover a day. Agree upfront what happens if either side cancels.
Find a sitter near you
If a live-in sit fits your animal, see who is actually available near you rather than in theory. Browse sitters near you, filter by ID verification and police check, and read a few profiles properly before messaging anyone. Or post your dates on the listings board and let sitters come to you. Listings are free for homeowners, there is no commission either side, and you are never obliged to accept anyone.
General information only, not veterinary, legal, tax or insurance advice. Prices quoted are figures published by the named platforms and read on 22 August 2026, not market averages, and they change. Animal welfare and boarding rules differ between states and territories. Speak to your vet about your animal's needs and your insurer about your policy, and if you think your pet is unwell, contact your veterinary clinic or an emergency animal hospital straight away.
