How To Make Money with Rover As A Side Hustle in 2021 ($400+ per month)

I literally made over $400 this month by cat sitting on Rover. It’s true. I just left my very comfortable real estate photo business in South Carolina to move to Los Angeles with my girlfriend and two cats.

I have money saved, but not enough to last much more than a month. So what does the hustler inside me do? Naturally, I prepare for the worst and set up every possible side hustle/business I can to get me through what I know will be a tough 3 months. I need to stabilize so I can focus on the content I want to create.

Coming from a small town Rover essentially wasn’t an option (not that I was even interested then), but ever since I first saw it a few years ago, I was so intrigued by the idea.

Well, 1 month of being here, I can say I successfully launched this little side hustle, and I’m actually looking forward to what it can turn into. Let’s chat about it. The good and The bad.

First, what is Rover?

Rover is the #1 pet sitting and dog walking app.

Setting Up Your Account

It’s a fairly simple process. Much like other apps like uber or Airbnb. It will take a couple of days to get you successfully signed up with a background check etc.

I feel like one of the most important things you can do on the app is make sure your profile is created as top-notch as possible. I’m already heavily set up on Instagram etc. and have put a lot of time into making sure I look as inviting / fun as possible.

Here’s my profile🤣

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR PROFILE STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD:

1. Profile Pic That Pops
2. Pictures with Multiple other Animals
3. Answer Their Questions Thoroughly & Honestly w/ Your Experience
4. Emojis, Seem As Trustworthy as possible
5. Get A Couple of Reviews from Close friends / family
6. Respond ASAP

I’m giving these tips because both of cat sitting bookings came from people saying my profile looked trustworthy! Remember people are legitimately inviting you into their HOME to take care of THEIR animals (which are pretty much babies). Create your profile thinking of their perspective.

PRICING — I would start out with what they recommend or the absolute minimum you will do it for so that you can get your foot in the door and gain some reviews and clients. These are most likely repeat clients too!

Make sure your travel preferences aren’t set too far away as well. For certain things, like dog walking or house check ins, it’s not worth it to drive too long. I would say 10–15 min drive at most.

Also, make sure your schedule & availability is up to date because it’s not a good look for them to schedule and you not be available.

PATIENCE

I created my account at the end of August 2021, and I didn’t have a booking request for the first two weeks. So DO NOT sign up thinking you are going to make money tomorrow. Sign up as a long-term tool to make additional income.

I had one booking that wanted me to walk a dog 15 minutes away in the next 30 minutes. So I declined that one. BUT my next three bookings were pretty amazing!

In the course of two weeks, I got three bookings totaling $440. One was catsitting for about 4 days. The other was cat-sitting for 2 weeks! The third was a repeat client for a few days in October. Repeat client!!

For each of these, I recommended doing a meet & greet mostly to start building your relationship with your client and make sure everything is safe & comfortable on both ends. Pay attention during the meet & greet so that way you don’t have to ask a bunch of questions later!

THE ACTUAL WORK

To be honest, this is hardly work. It’s fun and easy especially with my experience so far. I’ve had to water some plants, clean litter, pet/play with cats, feed, water them etc.

A pet drop-in is scheduled for 30 minutes automatically. This gives you more than enough time to do all of the above. So sometimes I just ended up sitting and relaxing for 10–15 minutes with the animals. A few times I left a few minutes early if I was in a rush.

BUT on that note, you are tracked in the app by time and GPS, so if you end your session early OR aren’t in the required location — your client could know. I’d be wary of that!

After every visit, you have to submit a “Rover Card”, this tells your client what you did, you can leave notes and must include photos of the animals etc. Fill this out to the best of your ability!! Show them you care, listen and are comforting their animal. You can even spend some time doing it while you are with the animal. It makes it more fun! Take good photos too. Maybe they will share them!

After I got these first two bookings, I did end up upping my price about $10 per visit, because by the time you travel there and back it ends up being about one hour. My goal is to make a minimum of $25/hr doing Rover so do the math that works for your minimum!

Services Rover Offers:

1. Pet Boarding
2. House Sitting
3. Drop-In Visits
4. Doggy Day Care
5. Dog Walking

So there are a lot of different ways you can make money here. The most unfortunate part about Rover is that you just kind of have to let it happen on the app unless you promote to your personal network/pay for ads. This is why making sure your profile is top-notch and your first few clients leave reviews is so important.

*CHECK THE VIDEO ABOVE FOR NAVIGATING THE APP

OVERALL

I think Rover is a great way to supplement income slowly as a side hustle and potentially build into a full time business if that’s what you’re passionate about. Rover does take a solid 20% cut so that’s unfortunate, but they are sending clients your way. Which is everything.

BRAND NEW: TIP FEATURE

As I was finishing up this video, I got an email introducing a brand new feature within Rover — (which I’m so surprised was just added) — TIPPING. A couple of days later, I received a $35 tip from one of my clients. It’s nice to know that our clients now have an EASY way to give us a little something extra within the app, and of course, Rover doesn’t take ant percentage of the tips.