If you're one of the 70,000-plus sitters who built part of your income on Mad Paws, the November 2025 Rover acquisition isn't just industry news, it's a real change to your working environment. This guide is for you. We're going to walk through what the change actually means, what to do with your existing sitter profile, and how to think about the platform decisions ahead.
Things will keep changing
Rover hasn't fully rolled out its operating model in Australia yet. Some changes will arrive over months, not weeks. Anything specific in this guide reflects what's publicly known as of May 2026, and you should verify current Rover terms directly before making decisions.
What's Most Likely to Change for Australian Sitters
1. Fee structure
In Rover's existing international markets, sitters pay roughly a 20% commission per booking, with owners paying a separate service fee. Mad Paws historically used a different fee structure. Whether the Rover model rolls out unchanged in Australia, or whether some hybrid is adopted, is the single most important variable for your earnings going forward. Watch your sitter dashboard and email updates closely over the coming months.
2. Platform identity and brand
Rover has indicated Mad Paws will continue as its own brand from Sydney. That's helpful for continuity, but the operational decisions will increasingly come from Seattle. Australian-specific features may evolve more slowly, and global feature parity will take precedence over local nuances.
3. Insurance and dispute handling
Rover operates RoverProtect coverage in its established markets. Mad Paws had its own pet protection product. Whether existing Mad Paws bookings are grandfathered, replaced, or operated in parallel during the transition is something to confirm before each new booking. Don't assume the cover you knew is the cover you have.
4. Privacy and data
Mad Paws data was governed under Australian privacy regulations including the Privacy Act 1988. Cross-border data flows under US ownership are subject to different frameworks. Rover will need to comply with Australian law for Australian users, but the practical implementation of that across a global platform is non-trivial and worth understanding for your own profile data.
What To Do With Your Mad Paws Profile
- Keep it active for now. Don't delete your profile reactively, the income is real and the cost of leaving entirely is high. Monitor changes and decide deliberately.
- Export your data. Save a record of your reviews, booking history, completed sit count, and any messages that demonstrate your reliability. This is your professional reputation, and it deserves to live somewhere you control.
- Save your homeowner contacts. Where you have repeat homeowners, take their direct contact details (with their consent) so the relationship can survive any platform turbulence.
- Diversify your platform mix. List on at least one alternative subscription platform so you're not single-platform dependent. Most active Australian sitters now operate on two or three platforms.
- Track the new fee structure. When Rover finalises Australian fees, do the maths on your typical month. Compare what you'd net under each platform model and adjust accordingly.
How to Compare Platforms as a Sitter
Sitter economics are fundamentally different from homeowner economics. As a sitter, the platform's fee structure compounds across every booking you do. A 20% commission isn't just 20% off one sit, it's 20% of your annual sitting income, every year. Platforms with subscription models (Trusted Housesitters, Aussie House Sitters, Happy House Sitters, Sitterly) charge a flat amount that doesn't grow with your business. The break-even point is usually somewhere around 3 to 5 sits per year.
Run your own numbers
Take your last 12 months of bookings on Mad Paws. Calculate what you'd net under (a) Rover's international commission rates and (b) a flat-fee subscription. The honest comparison usually surprises people in both directions, sometimes commission is cheaper, sometimes subscription. The point is: don't guess.
How Sitterly Fits Into This
We're an Australian platform, deliberately new, deliberately small, and deliberately built around a subscription-only model, not commission. Currently we're free for everyone during our growth phase, with a flat-fee subscription planned for sitters in the future. The supply density on Sitterly is genuinely lower than Mad Paws or Trusted Housesitters today; we're not pretending otherwise. But for sitters thinking about diversification, we're free to try, fast to set up, and aligned with the kind of long-term economics most active sitters prefer.
Create a Sitterly sitter profile in a few minutes. Or read more about the alternative Australian pet-sitting platforms to compare your options.
What We're Watching Over the Next 6 Months
- Final fee structure announcements from Rover for the Australian market
- Whether RoverProtect or a Mad Paws-equivalent insurance product is in place for new bookings
- Migration patterns, which platforms are actively recruiting Mad Paws sitters and how aggressively
- Any changes to the Mad Paws app and dashboard experience under Rover ownership
- Whether Australian-only features (e.g. specific state-level integrations) are maintained or deprioritised
Rover and Mad Paws are trademarks of their respective owners. Fee structures, insurance products and policies referenced reflect publicly available information as of May 2026 and may have changed since publication. Sitterly has no affiliation with Rover or Mad Paws.
