Nobody publishes what a kennel charges, and we are not going to make a figure up. What IS published is what a kennel worker earns: a median of $17.00 an hour, against $24.51 for every occupation in America. Put your nightly rate in the box, then ask the kennel two questions, and the arithmetic will tell you what you are actually buying.More
The two questions are how many dogs each staff member is looking after, and whether anyone is there overnight. They decide almost everything and they are almost never on the website. Here is why they matter. The labour in a night of boarding is the staffed hours, times the wage, divided by the dogs one person is covering. At fifteen dogs to a keeper, an hour of that keeper costs about $1.13 for your dog. At six dogs it costs $2.83: the same wage, less than half the dogs, and two and a half times the attention per dollar. And a kennel staffed twelve hours a day is buying half the labour of one staffed around the clock, while both may perfectly honestly call themselves boarding. That is not a scandal and we are not implying one, because dogs sleep and a well-run kennel with nobody on the floor at three in the morning is a completely normal thing. But it is the difference between two products at the same price, and you are entitled to know which you are buying before you hand over the lead.
What your stay comes to
$350
Staff time, per night, at what a kennel worker is paid$14
The building, the licence, the insurance, the food, the cleaning, the empty weeks$36
Two questions decide what you are buying, and neither is usually on the website.
How many dogs is each staff member looking after, and is anyone there overnight? At fifteen dogs to one keeper, an
hour of that keeper costs about $1.13 for your dog. At six dogs it costs $2.83. Same wage, same hour, two and a half
times the attention per dollar.More
And an unstaffed night is not a scandal. Dogs sleep. A well-run kennel with nobody on the
floor at three in the morning is a completely ordinary thing, and we are not implying otherwise. But a kennel staffed
twelve hours a day is buying half the labour of one staffed around the clock, and both can honestly call themselves
boarding. If your dog is anxious, elderly, on medication or recovering from surgery, that is the difference that
matters most, and it is exactly the difference that two kennels charging the same price can be hiding between them.
The rest of the rate is not profit, and the page will not pretend it is. Out of what is left come
the building, the licence, the insurance, the vet cover, the food, the cleaning, the heating, the laundry, and the
weeks in February when half the runs are empty and the mortgage is not. That is a business. Whether it is a fair
price for your dog's week is a judgement, and we do not know: there is no sourced price to compare yours against and
a comparison to nothing is worth nothing.
Read the wage with two warnings, as always. BLS's occupation is ANIMAL Caretakers, which sweeps in
groomers, zoo keepers and stable hands alongside the person walking your labrador at seven in the morning. And its
survey EXCLUDES the self-employed, so the 266,910 it counts are the ones on somebody's payroll.
§ 02 What a night actually buys
What an hour of a keeper costs, for YOUR dog$1.13
Staff time in one night, at a kennel worker's wage$13.60
Share of the nightly rate that is staff time27.2%
The whole stay$350
The wage is BLS's and it is exact. The nightly rate, the dogs per staff member and the staffed hours are yours: no federal source prices a night, and the last two are things only the kennel can tell you. Everything this page reports is arithmetic on what you typed in. The INDUSTRY's hours are published (BLS CES, CEU8081291002, monthly since 2006), this page once said they were not, and a revenue per employee-hour could be built from them. We have not built it, and that is a gap in this page rather than in the data.
Recommended next steps
Each staff member is covering a lot of dogs, so an hour of their time buys your dog very little. That can be entirely fine for a healthy, easy-going adult dog in a well-run kennel with good runs and a sensible routine. It is worth asking what a day actually consists of: how often the dogs go out, for how long, and whether they are walked individually or in a group.
Ask how many dogs each staff member is covering. At fifteen to one, an hour of that keeper costs $1.13 for your dog. At six, it costs $2.83.More
That is the whole arithmetic and it is not subtle: a kennel worker's median wage divided by the number of dogs they are looking after. Same wage, same hour, and less than half the dogs buys two and a half times the attention per dollar. It is a perfectly ordinary question, and a good kennel will answer it straight away, because a good ratio is the thing they are proud of.
Ask whether anyone is there overnight. A kennel staffed twelve hours a day buys half the labour of one staffed around the clock.More
Both can honestly call themselves boarding, and an unstaffed night is not a scandal: dogs sleep, and a well-run kennel with nobody on the floor at three in the morning is completely normal. But if your dog is anxious, elderly, on medication, or recovering from something, it is the difference that matters most to you, and it is the one two kennels at the same price can be hiding between them.
A kennel worker earns a median of $17.00 an hour, against $24.51 for every occupation in America.More
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, SOC 39-2021, May 2025. They earn well below the US median. Read it with two warnings: the occupation is ANIMAL Caretakers, which includes groomers, zoo keepers and stable hands, and BLS excludes the self-employed, so the 266,910 it counts are the ones on a payroll.
The rest of the nightly rate is not profit, and it is not a markup either.More
Out of it come the building, the licence, the insurance, the vet cover, the food, the cleaning, the laundry, the heating, and the weeks in February when half the runs sit empty and the mortgage does not. Presenting the leftover as the kennel's profit would be the easiest lie on this page and we are not going to tell it.
Check what the rate actually includes before you compare two of them.More
Some nightly rates include feeding, medication and a walk. Some price all three as extras. A cheaper headline with three add-ons is not a cheaper stay, and the comparison people make in their heads is almost always between two headlines.
Nobody publishes what a kennel charges for a night, and this page will not invent it.More
BLS gives the wage and no billed rate. The Economic Census gives receipts for pet care services and carries no hours column, which is true. From that we once concluded there was no denominator and no rate could be constructed at all, and THAT WAS FALSE: BLS's Current Employment Statistics has published average weekly hours for pet care services, at that exact six-digit code, monthly since March 2006, series CEU8081291002. An industry revenue per employee-hour is constructible from Census receipts over those hours, and this page has not built it. That is a gap in the page rather than in the data, and we would rather print the gap than repeat the old refusal. What remains genuinely unpublished is the price of one night for one dog, so the page does arithmetic on the numbers YOU come back with after asking.
Sourced: the wage, and only the wage. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage
Statistics, May 2025, SOC 39-2021 (Animal Caretakers): median $17.00 an hour nationally, against $24.51 for all
occupations. Yours: the nightly rate, the dogs per staff member and the staffed hours. The last two
are the whole point: we do not know them, we will not guess them, and the page's advice is to go and ask.More
The asymmetry is the point, and it is the same on every page in this family. What a kennel
worker EARNS is measured exactly, by a federal survey, every year. What a kennel CHARGES FOR A NIGHT is measured by
nobody. So the page does arithmetic on YOUR numbers, and it will not compare them to a national price, because there
is not one.
And here is what we got wrong about why. This page used to tell you that the Economic Census gives
receipts for pet care services with no hours, so there was no denominator and no rate could be built at all. The
Census half is true. The inference was FALSE. BLS's Current Employment Statistics has published average weekly hours
for pet care services, at that exact six-digit code, monthly since March 2006 (series CEU8081291002), with average
hourly earnings and aggregate weekly hours beside them, and a kennel is a pet care establishment. The denominator
was never missing. We had searched one agency, found it lacking, and announced a fact about the world. An industry
revenue per employee-hour IS constructible, Census receipts over CES hours. THIS PAGE HAS NOT BUILT IT YET, and that
is a gap in this page rather than in the data. Even built, it would be a CLASS figure and it would not be a price
per NIGHT: a night is not an hour, and a kennel bills by the night. That is why the rate stays your input.
What the labour figure is, and what it is emphatically not. It is the staff WAGE-COST of a night,
at BLS's median, given the ratio and the hours you were told. It is not what the kennel pays (they may pay more, and
they carry payroll tax and cover on top), it is not what the night SHOULD cost, and it is not a benchmark. It is
there so that the rest of the rate becomes visible, because the rest of the rate is the part nobody ever itemises.
Rule 22, stated rather than buried. SOC 39-2021 is ANIMAL Caretakers: groomers, zoo keepers, stable
hands and kennel staff in one bucket. The wage is the occupation's, and the occupation is wider than this page's
subject.
Where every number above comes from
Wage data
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national. Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021): 266,910 employed, median $17.00/hr, $35,360/yr, 10th percentile $13.10/hr, 90th percentile $24.07/hr. All occupations (SOC 00-0000): median $24.51/hr
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, by state. Animal Caretakers: a median wage published for 53 areas, from $12.97/hr in Mississippi to $21.25/hr in the District of Columbia
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics FAQ: 'Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No.' This is why the 266,910 count above is the caretakers on a payroll, and why we do not divide by it
BLS, Current Employment Statistics, series CEU8081291002: average weekly hours of all employees in pet care (except veterinary) services (NAICS 812910), monthly since March 2006, with average hourly earnings (CEU8081291003) and aggregate weekly hours (CEU8081291056) beside them. Boarding kennels sit in this industry. This is the denominator this page spent a version insisting did not exist, and it is why the page now says an industry rate is constructible rather than impossible
Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.
The labour figure is a WAGE-COST at BLS's median. It is not what the kennel pays, and it is not a price.
A kennel may pay more than the median, and on top of the wage it carries payroll tax, cover, and the hours nobody is watching a dog at all. The figure is here to make the rest of the rate visible, not to price the night.
The two numbers that decide the answer are things only the kennel can tell you.
The dogs-per-staff ratio and the staffed hours are inputs with defaults, and the defaults are ours and are starting points rather than findings. The page's actual advice is to ring up and ask.
An unstaffed night is not a scandal, and the page is not implying that it is.
Dogs sleep. What it IS is a real difference between two products that can carry the same price, and it matters most for a dog that is anxious, elderly, medicated or recovering.
SOC 39-2021 is ANIMAL Caretakers, which is wider than kennel staff.
Groomers, zoo keepers and stable hands are in the same occupation. The wage is the occupation's, and you should read it knowing so.
Frequently asked questions
How much does dog boarding cost?
Nobody publishes a national price, so anyone who gives you one has either invented it or is quoting a survey they will not show you. What this page does instead is tell you what your quote actually buys. Ring the kennel and ask two things: how many dogs each staff member is looking after, and whether anyone is there overnight. Put those answers in above with your nightly rate, and the page will show you what the staff time in a night comes to at what a kennel worker is actually paid, and how much of your rate is everything else.
What are the two questions I should ask a kennel?
How many dogs per staff member, and is anyone there overnight. The first decides how much attention your dog gets per dollar: at fifteen dogs to a keeper, an hour of that keeper costs about $1.13 for your dog, and at six dogs it costs $2.83, which is two and a half times the attention for the same wage. The second decides whether you are buying twelve hours of care or twenty-four, and two kennels charging the same price can differ on it. Both are perfectly ordinary things to ask and a good kennel will answer them without hesitating.
Is it bad if the kennel has nobody there overnight?
No, and we are not going to imply that it is. Dogs sleep, and a well-run kennel with nobody on the floor at three in the morning is a completely normal business. What it is, though, is a real difference between two products that may cost you the same. If your dog is anxious, elderly, on medication or recovering from surgery, overnight cover is probably the thing you are actually shopping for, and it is worth paying more for. If your dog is a healthy adult who sleeps through the night at home, it may not matter to you at all. The point is to know which you are buying.
What does a kennel worker earn?
A median of $17.00 an hour, which is well below the $24.51 median for every occupation in America. That is BLS's figure for Animal Caretakers, SOC 39-2021. Two warnings on it: the occupation includes groomers, zoo keepers and stable hands as well as kennel staff, and BLS excludes the self-employed, so the 266,910 it counts are the ones on somebody's payroll.
Am I being overcharged for boarding?
We do not know, and we are not going to imply it, because there is no sourced price to compare yours against and a comparison to nothing is worth nothing. What the page can show you is how much of the nightly rate is staff time, given the ratio and the hours the kennel told you. Whatever is left is not profit: out of it come the building, the licence, the insurance, the vet cover, the food, the cleaning, the heating, and the weeks in February when half the runs are empty and the mortgage is not.
