July 24th, 2026
New
Improved
Fixed
Plans change. Clients cancel, dates move, and sometimes money needs to go back. This release takes the pain from those moments, with clear policies that protect your time and self-serve options for your clients.
👉 Set up your policy now under Settings → Cancellations & Rescheduling.
Cancellation Policies
Set a cancellation policy per service with tiered windows, like free with 48+ hours notice, 50% within 48, 100% within 24. Cancel from the business side or let clients cancel visits themselves from the portal and see the fee before they confirm, so the policy does the talking.
You can adjust or waive any fee, cancelled visits come off your calendar and your staff's schedules automatically, and recurring services follow the same rule: stop anytime, only visits inside the window carry a fee.
Rescheduling Requests
Clients can now request to reschedule from the portal instead of texting you. The request lands in the new Requests inbox with the exact change laid out, and approving it updates your calendar, the client's view, and the invoice in one go.
They can also update pets on a booking or move a whole recurring week in one request, and if you turn on auto-approve, changes that fit your availability apply instantly.
Client Credits
Every client now has an account credit balance that Scritches tracks for you. Overpayments become credit automatically, goodwill credit takes two clicks, and it all applies itself to the client's next invoice.
Every movement is logged in plain language on the client's profile, and clients see their balance in the portal too.
Refunds
Refund any payment right from the invoice, full or partial, card or cash or Venmo. A guided flow picks the amount, reason, and destination (back to their card, or onto their account as credit), and can reduce the invoice in the same step with a live preview before you confirm.
Refunds made from your Stripe Express dashboard now sync back into Scritches automatically.
Also in this release
View your portal as a client. Preview your portal exactly as clients see it, or demo it with your test client.
Find my portal. Clients who lose their link can enter their email at app.scritches.io/portal and get it sent to them.
Faster pet & client profiles. Pet profiles rebuilt, and adding pets or clients now opens instantly from anywhere in the app.
Arrival & departure availability on your public calendar. Overnight bookings now display partial availability for arrival and departure days.
Vaccine batch upload. Drop in multiple vaccine documents at once and tag each file with one or more vaccines.
Intake form preview. Step through your intake form exactly as a client would, with nothing enforced and nothing submitted.
Performance and bug fixes across the calendar, invoicing, and booking flows.
This update rounds out a core part of running a pet care business: what happens when plans change. Policies, refunds, credits, and reschedules used to mean manual work. Now they're just part of Scritches, another step toward running your entire business in one place, with less of it on your plate.
As always, if you have feedback or ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Happy scritching! ✌️
June 17th, 2026
New
Improved
Fixed
The new Extended Care Surcharge automatically bills clients when they pick up later than their drop-off time of day on per-night stays. Set it once, and it applies to every booking going forward, showing up as a surcharge on bookings & invoices.
Set it up the way you charge:
Single rate with a grace period. For example, $30 once a pickup runs more than 2 hours past drop-off time.
Tiered by hours late, so a 3-hour-late pickup and an 8-hour-late pickup can carry different fees.
Charge a flat amount or a percentage of the nightly rate, whichever fits your pricing. It applies once per stay, and you can always adjust or remove it on an individual booking when you want to make an exception.
Turn it on under Settings → Surcharges & Holidays.
Also in this release
Fill out intake forms for clients. A new flow for filling out an intake form for a new or existing client on their behalf
Bookings without a pet. A new per-service toggle for services that don't require a pet on file.
Business-address services. A per-service toggle to use your business address instead of the client's, for drop-off and on-site services.
Surcharge preview before booking. See the full surcharge breakdown up front when creating a booking from the business side, no surprises at invoice time.
Better holiday configuration. Redone holiday configuration page for easier setup, and common holidays split by country
Smarter syncing from bookings to invoices: No more overwrites of manual line item edits, more warnings when a change to a booking will also affect the invoice.
Performance and bug fixes across the calendar, invoicing, and booking flows.
May 29th, 2026
This update is about what happens on the ground: starting and finishing visits, knowing at a glance what still needs doing, and getting the right info into the right hands (yours, your staff's, and your clients').
A lot has changed since the last update. Here's the tour.
👉 Enable Visit Time Tracking on a service now to get started.
Visit Time Tracking
Start and complete visits right from the calendar. Tap to start when you arrive, tap to complete when you're done, and Scritches stamps the time for you.
Proof for your clients. Check-in and check-out times appear on the report card, so the pet parent sees exactly when you arrived and how long you stayed.
Eyes on your team. A glance at the calendar shows who's started, who's mid-visit, and who's wrapped, in real time.
Optional notifications when a visit starts or finishes, if you want them.
👉 Learn more in the Visit Tracking help article
Has Scritches made your life easier?
Quick interruption, and then back to the features.
If Scritches has saved you time, helped you book more, or made your clients a little happier, I'd really love to hear about it, and I'd love to share it. I’m putting together a set of customer stories to showcase how businesses use Scritches.
It's nothing formal. Send a note to lucas@scritches.io saying you’re interested. The ones I feature get a spotlight on the main site, my eternal gratitude, and a bit of SEO backlink juice (if that’s your thing).
Okay… back to it.
Calendar Improvements
The calendar got the most love this round. The bigger idea behind all of it: this is a step toward turning your calendar into not just a calendar, but a full operational dashboard, the thing that tells you what to do, not just what's booked.
Your calendar report
On top of your visits, there's now a live report that surfaces what needs your attention: late and overdue visits, what's in progress, what's up next, unassigned visits, report cards waiting to be sent, pending confirmations, vaccine alerts, first-time clients, and booked revenue for the view you're in.
The printable/downloadable Brief
Some days you just want it on paper. The Calendar Brief is a clean, printable/downloadable run-down of your day or week, with every detail you need to do the job. Perfect for schedule sharing, easy offline access, or if you just like a more minimal view.
Everything else on the calendar
While we were in there:
New status indicators on events: in-progress, completed, and report card sent vs. still a draft
Smoother, more accurate drag-and-drop when moving visits around
Layout cleanups on both desktop and mobile
A pile of small UI fixes and refinements
Report Cards: Autosaving & Bigger Photos
The Report Card creation process got its plumbing ripped out and replaced. It’s now more reliable and faster.
Everything saves automatically as you fill it out, no more manual draft saving. And photos got an upgrade too: bigger, higher-quality images that upload as you go instead of one long wait when you send.
Add to Calendar
Pet parents can now add their bookings straight to their own calendar, keeping them more in the loop. From their portal, a single tap drops it into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook with all the details filled in.
The booking confirmation email also includes a standard calendar file (.ics) so the visit can be saved to whatever calendar app they use, right from their inbox.
Smaller improvements
A grab bag of upgrades and fixes that didn't need their own headline:
Intake form notifications. Get an email the moment a new client submits your intake form, so nothing sits unseen.
Smarter repeat booking scheduling. Repeat bookings now fill your calendar at a longer set window ahead, 90 days by default, and you can change that "advance scheduling" window per repeat (more if you like a long runway, less if you'd rather keep the calendar tidy). Plus, a host of UX and reliability fixes.
Currency formatting, fixed everywhere. No more stray $ signs when you should be seeing a £.
Client portal status polish. A cleaner, clearer status for tracking your client portal invites.
Various bug fixes and stability improvements throughout.
As always, I'd love to hear what you think. Give visit time tracking a spin and let me know how it holds up out in the field.
More coming soon. ✌️
- Lucas
👉 Enable Visit Time Tracking on a service now to get started.
May 8th, 2026
New
If you've ever needed to charge a long-time client a different rate or raise your rates across the board, you can do it natively now. No more editing invoice line items every billing cycle.
👉 Try it on a client, or read the full guide in the Help Center.
🆕 Set a custom rate for any client
Open a client's profile, click the new Rates tab, type the price you want them to pay. Done.
The next booking and every booking after it uses the rate you set, even when you raise your defaults later. Clients will automatically see the updated price when booking online.
📈 Raise your prices, keep your long-timers happy
The annual rate raise is one of the most stressful parts of running a pet care business. You want to charge what your work is worth. You also don't want to lose the family who's been booking weekly walks for three years.
The new Update Prices tool does both at once. Set your new defaults, pick which existing clients keep their current rate, and apply. New clients sign up at the new rate. Your long-timers stay where they are.
Plus, bulk-manage your custom rates anytime
Once you've grandfathered a group of clients, you'll eventually want to bump them up too. The Manage custom rates tool lets you adjust any tier of custom-rate clients in one pass: update them, replace them, or remove the custom rate entirely.
Like with any big feature, I'd love to hear how it lands. If you raise prices with the new tool, or set up a custom rate for a specific client, drop me a note.
More coming soon. ✌️
- Lucas
March 26th, 2026
New
Improved
Fixed
Repeat bookings have been a highly requested feature since Scritches launched, and they're finally here.
If you have clients you see every week, you no longer need to create the same bookings over and over. Set up a weekly pattern once, and Scritches keeps your calendar filled automatically.
👉 View the Help Center for full information, or Create a Repeat Booking Now
Repeat Bookings
The idea is simple: define a recurring schedule for a client, and Scritches takes care of the rest.
Pick the days of the week, set the times and services, choose a frequency (weekly, biweekly, or every 3 weeks), and your calendar fills itself. New visits are created automatically a few weeks ahead, so you always have upcoming bookings ready to go.
Perfect for the client whose two dogs get walked every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at noon. Client on vacation? Pause the repeat and resume when they return; the visits, assignments, and invoices all take care of themselves.
Clients can request repeats online
You can enable repeat booking requests on your online booking page per service. Clients build their own weekly schedule and submit it for your review. You can adjust the pattern, assign staff, and configure billing before approving.
Booking Wizard Improvements
The booking creation flow got some love in this update too.
Refreshed design with more options for building daily visit schedules
Staff can now be assigned directly in the booking wizard, before the booking is even created
Calendar Improvements
A handful of quality-of-life upgrades to the calendar:
Pet photos now appear on calendar events for quicker scanning
New Week Starts On setting (Sunday or Monday)
New Event Display Name setting to show events by client name or pet name(s)
General UI tweaks and polish
Fixed calendar zoom settings
Bug Fixes
Fixed a long-standing bug where an expired auth session would error out the app. Now the app automatically signs you out and redirects to login, instead of showing a broken page.
Various other bug fixes and stability improvements
As always, I'd love to hear what you think. If you give repeat bookings a try, let me know how it goes.
More coming soon. ✌️
- Lucas
👉 View the Help Center for full information, or Create a Repeat Booking Now
March 7th, 2026
New
Improved
Fixed
This is by far the biggest update Scritches has ever shipped. If you're a team-based business, this one's for you.
Scritches can now support teams of pet care pros, while still keeping the same clean, modern experience that solo businesses love.
This update introduces the new Growth plan, which unlocks a full set of tools designed for businesses managing staff.
👉 View the Help Center for full information, or Upgrade Now in your Billing Settings
Staff Management
The new Staff Management system gives you the tools to run and grow a real team inside Scritches.
Here’s what’s included:
Staff profiles & staff accounts
Add team members to your business with their own profiles and app access. Staff members can log in, view their schedule, and manage their assigned visits.
Roles & permissions
Assign roles like Owner, Admin, Senior Staff, or Staff to control exactly what each team member can access.
Staff scheduling
Bookings can now be assigned to specific staff members, and the calendar experience has been completely optimized for teams.
Built-in support for overnight visits
Scritches continues to fully support overnight pet sitting through stay scheduling.
Overnight bookings can span multiple days, and each individual night or day of the visit can be assigned to a specific staff member. This makes it easy to handle situations where different sitters cover different nights of the same stay.
Staff compensation also works seamlessly with overnight services. Pay can be configured per night or per day.
Staff compensation & payroll reports
Set compensation per service & surcharge, and export detailed earnings reports for payroll.
Examples include:
• 80% of a dog walk
• $10 per drop-in visit
• Fixed rates or custom amounts per service
Reports are exportable and ready to use for bookkeeping or payroll. Staff can view their individual breakdown in the My Earnings page.
Automated daily schedule reminders
Each staff member can receive an email every day showing their upcoming visits, keeping everyone in the loop.
Team Highlights on your booking page
Showcase your team to potential clients directly on your booking page.
💰 Growth Plan Pricing
The new Growth plan is designed to stay simple and affordable as your team grows.
Pricing is:
$39 / month + $12 per active staff member
A staff member only counts as active if they actually have bookings during that billing cycle.
Compared to similar platforms, Scritches remains an affordable option for growing teams.
For reference:
• Time To Pet: $40 + $16 / active staff member
• Scout: $39 + $18 / active staff member
• Pet Sitter Plus: $28 + $14 / active staff member
ℹ️ New users can activate a 14-day free trial to give it a test run
Other Improvements
Calendar updates
Small UI redesigns for improved clarity, improved filtering options, and pending booking indicators now appear directly on calendar events
Invoicing and booking improvements
Bookings and invoices received a major internal overhaul. You and your clients can now see surcharges before an invoice is issued, giving much better visibility into pricing.
Changes include:
• Weekend, holiday, and additional pet surcharges are now calculated per service, not just per booking
• Surcharge breakdowns now appear on admin and client invoice views
• Clients can see the full pricing structure earlier in the booking process
Note:
These improvements only apply to new bookings and bookings that have not yet had an invoice issued. Existing bookings and invoices will remain unchanged.
Invoice tip prompts
Businesses can now configure tip prompt visibility on invoices.
This can be enabled:
• per invoice
• or business-wide in settings
Portal login improvements
The portal login and signup experience has been improved, including displaying your business logo on the login page.
International formatting improvements
Improved formatting support for businesses operating in different countries.
Bug fixes and stability improvements
As always, plenty of bugs were squashed along the way.
Final note
This update has been in development for quite a while. Adding teams touches nearly every part of the product, and a lot of work went into making sure it feels simple and reliable instead of complicated.
Scritches started as a tool for solo pet sitters. Now it’s ready to support growing pet care teams, too.
If you try out Staff Management, I’d love to hear what you think. Feedback, ideas, and bug reports are always welcome.
More improvements coming soon.
Thanks for being part of Scritches. ✌️
👉 View the Help Center for full information, or Upgrade Now in your Billing Settings
January 29th, 2026
New
Improved
Fixed
I’ve been heads down since our last update, tightening bolts, smoothing edges, and fixing the stuff that’s been quietly annoying me and some of you for a while.
Here’s what’s new and improved.
👉 Checkout all of the new improvements yourself. Click here!
🆕 New Things
Decline booking workflow
You can now properly decline a booking request with an actual workflow behind it instead of awkward workarounds.
Configurable invoice issue dates and due dates
You can now configure exactly when you want your invoice issue & due dates to be set based on the bookings inside of it.
Allowed species on intake forms
Intake forms can now be restricted to specific species, which will help personalize your intake and make the form-filling process easier.
Better pet age and birthday handling
Pet age is now more flexible:
You can set an approximate age like “8 years” or “3 months” if you don’t know the exact birthday
Or you can set an exact birthday and let Scritches handle the math
Birthdays also now surface in pet profiles and around the app as notification indicators starting 7 days before, so you actually have time to notice and not realize it the day after.
✨ Other Improvements
Intake forms
Much better validation for required fields and clearer feedback when something is missing
PDF agreements now display better
Invoices
Override options for holiday, weekend, and additional pet surcharges
Better sorting in the invoicing dashboard so things don’t feel randomly ordered anymore
URLs within payment method instructions are automatically identified and turned into clickable links
Report cards
The report card flow got a big internal overhaul. Not a huge visual change, but way more stable & reliable
Booking details page
Lots of UX and visual improvements, clearer layout, better hierarchy, less cognitive load
Google Calendar sync
This one’s big: events now sync asynchronously. Translation: syncing is 10x faster and much more reliable
Data exports
You can now export clients, pets, invoices, and payments to CSV. For spreadsheets, accountants, backups, or just peace of mind
General UI/UX
Tons of refinements across the app. Buttons, spacing, copy, flows, and sharp edges that needed sanding down
🐛 Bug fixes and stability
Tons of bug fixes across the app. Some big, some small.
The goal here was simple: fewer surprises, smoother experience.
Final note
It’s been a little while since a big, shiny feature shipped, and that was intentional. This work focused on strengthening the foundation of Scritches so it feels solid today and can support more powerful features and growing users in the future.
Now that things are feeling more solid under the hood, there’s plenty more improvements coming soon!
That’s all for now folks. As always, thank you for being a part of Scritches. ✌️
👉 Checkout all of the new improvements yourself. Click here!
December 24th, 2025
2025 was Scritches first real year. Starting the year with the early beta: a simple app w/ bugs galore, Scritches has morphed into a polished product with real businesses seeing real growth. So far, 465 businesses have tried out Scritches, with 51 businesses having an active subscription. I think that’s pretty cool.
Today, I wanted to close the year with a quick dive into the data and numbers of Scritches. The numbers tell a story of serious usage and pet care businesses running at scale.
Here’s what the year looked like.
👉 Still wanting to give Scritches a try? Click here!
📅 A massive amount of care delivered
Across the platform in 2025:
2,082 bookings created
672 bookings created online
5.7 bookings per day on average
39,770 hours of service delivered
Care came in many forms:
704 stay-based services like overnights and daycare
4,497 appointments like walks and drop-ins
2,705 total days of overnight and stay-based care
That is real, full-time work happening every day.
🐶 Nearly 2,000 pets in the Scritches universe
The pet data this year was especially fun.
1,955 total pets in the system
1,221 pets received care this year
Top pet names across the platform:
Daisy (17)
Charlie (16)
Millie (12)
Bella (11)
Sophie (9)
Other highlights:
Most popular breeds include Domestic Shorthair, Golden Retriever, and Mixed Breed (Medium)
Oldest pet: Gingy, a legendary 25.4 years old
Most booked pet: Sudd, with 31 bookings
👥 Clients kept coming back
Trust shows up clearly in the client data.
1,225 total clients
41.7% repeat client rate
82 super loyal clients with 5 or more bookings
356 agreements signed
196 intake forms submitted
One VIP client alone booked 40 times this year.
One family trusted a sitter with 8 pets
⏰ When things got busiest
Patterns emerged clearly this year:
Busiest day of the week: Friday, with 891 appointments
Busiest month: December, with 1,135 appointments
Busiest single day: December 23, with 59 appointments
About 21.5 percent of bookings happened on weekends
Pet care does not take days off, and neither does this community.
💰 Real money moving through real businesses
Across all Scritches businesses in 2025:
$306,812 invoiced
$208 average invoice
Extras added up to:
$2,442 in tips, about 488 bags of dog treats
$3,022 in holiday fees
Highest tip received: $250
Most common payment methods were Venmo (45.8%), Zelle (21.0%), bank transfer (20.5%), cash (9.3%), and check (3.4%)
⭐ Pet parents were extremely happy
And communication stayed front and center:
897 report cards sent
4,931 photos shared
51 videos uploaded
Engagement and feedback stayed consistently strong.
70 reviews collected
4.91 star average rating
98.6 percent of reviews were 5 stars
95.7 percent happiness score
That is a lot of peace of mind delivered.
🎉 Thank you, seriously
Thank you for being part of the Scritches story in 2025. These numbers represent real work, real trust, and real businesses growing stronger every day.
And we’re not stopping here. I have so many plans and so much in store for 2026. While Scritches will continue to evolve, the core will stay the same: a modern, thoughtful product that removes friction from your day, gives you back time, and creates experiences your clients genuinely love.
I cannot wait to see what we build together.
Cheers 🙂🥂,
Lucas
👉 Still wanting to give Scritches a try? Click here!
October 30th, 2025
Happy Thursday! This update is all about smoother workflows, a better product experience, and a little something that lets you spread the Scritches love while earning free time on your subscription.
Refer a Friend
Give a month, get a month
Scritches now has a referral program! When you share your unique link and a friend subscribes, you both get a free month.
How it works:
Share your referral link from the new “Refer a Friend” page
Your friend signs up and gets their first month free
Once they complete their first paid month, you’ll get a free month too
Your link can be shared anywhere: email, text, or social media. Rewards are currently managed manually, so once your referral completes their first month, I’ll apply your credit.
👉 You’ll find your personal referral link right in your settings under Refer a Friend.
Referred a friend without a link? Let us know at support@scritches.io
Quality of Life Updates
Instant Booking Confirmations
For businesses that want a faster booking flow, there’s now a toggle to auto-confirm bookings. When enabled, clients booking online will immediately receive a confirmation message and email. On your end, the booking will be created with a “Confirmed” status right away. Configure in your Online Booking Settings.
Reduced “An Error has Occurred” Messages
Fixed a long-standing issue where app deployments triggered a confusing “Error has Occurred” message that only went away after a manual page refresh. Scritches will now auto-refresh in these cases, reducing perceived errors dramatically.
Archiving Instead of Deleting
Clients, Pets, and Services can no longer be deleted outright; they’ll now be archived instead. This protects related data like bookings and invoices, preserves historical records, and prevents potential errors. It is also useful for immediately revoking client portal access, as well as reestablishing clients/services that were previously discontinued.
Booking Page Cover Photos
You can now reorder cover photos for your booking landing page to better match your branding
‼️ NOTICE: This update may have reordered your existing photos. Please verify your booking page cover photo display and update the ordering in your Online Booking Settings.
Easier Report Card Sharing
Added an option to share Report Cards via link or through your phone’s native sharing tools (like Messages or WhatsApp). Great for those who prefer texting updates directly.
Review Booster Improvements
Added a toggle to skip clients who already have a review on file. This keeps automatic review requests focused only on new or unreviewed clients and avoids excessive email sending. Configure in your Review Booster Settings.
Booking Landing Page Service Description Truncation
Clients can now view your full service option descriptions without the text being truncated.
Swiss Localization
Added proper Swiss formatting for addresses, phone numbers, and currency (CHF).
Report Card Design Tweaks
Polished the layout and design for a cleaner, easier-to-read presentation.
Invoice Control
You can now manually mark invoices as Draft → Unpaid. This will make the invoice visible to your client and enable online payments if Stripe is connected.
And of course…
Plenty of smaller bug fixes and refinements under the hood.
That’s all for this round! Thank you, as always, for the continued feedback.
If you haven’t yet, check out your referral link and help your friends discover Scritches ✌️
October 3rd, 2025
Big update today! We’re rolling out a refreshed pricing structure to better match where Scritches is headed, plus introducing a new feature that makes your visit updates more personal than ever.
Report Card Videos
Report Cards are now even better. On the Solo Pro plan, you can attach up to three 1-minute-long videos to Report Cards.
Videos are fast to upload, mobile-friendly, and integrate into the same clean Report Card design.
Updated Pricing Plans
Until now, Scritches has offered just two options: Free and Pro. Moving forward, you’ll see four tiers:
Free – A great starting point to test the waters
Solo – Essential tools for running your business. This is the equivalent of the previous Pro plan
Solo Pro – Expanded features for those who wish to have them
Growth – Coming soon, for those managing staff and larger teams
View full details on the pricing page.
Free Plan Improvements
We’re giving everyone a little more breathing room:
Client limit raised from 4 to 5
No more booking limits, schedule as many as you need each month
Feature Changes
To keep the new tiers balanced, a few features are moving:
Review Booster and Google Calendar sync are now a part of the Solo Pro plan
If you already purchased the old Pro plan, don’t worry, you’ll be grandfathered in with continued access to these features.
If you’re on Free and thinking of upgrading soon, reach out to support and you can be grandfathered too. The final date for grandfather requests is October 24th.
Online Payments Just Got Cheaper
Previously, Scritches added a 5% fee on online payments. That’s gone! Now you’ll only pay Stripe’s standard fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
You can choose whether to absorb the fee yourself or pass it through to clients at checkout.
That means more money stays in your and your client’s pocket, and you have flexibility in how you handle payments.
Promotion 🎉
The 20% promotional code is still running, now on monthly plans as well! Use code SCRITCHES2025 when checking out.
Active now through October 18th
Works on both new subscriptions and upgrades
That’s everything for this update! As always, thank you for being part of Scritches and for sharing the feedback. ✌️