Dog checkup cost calculator
Work out what an annual checkup for a dog will cost from the exam fee, the vaccines due, the heartworm and faecal tests, senior bloodwork, and the prevention you leave with. A healthy adult dog on a quiet year is a short visit; a puppy in its first months and an older dog past about seven are both back more often and carry more onto the invoice. The calculator adds up your quote.
Typical range $236 – $472
- Wellness exam or office fee$65
- Vaccines due this visit$60
- Heartworm test and faecal check$50
- Senior bloodwork or urinalysis$0
- Flea, tick, and heartworm prevention$120
- Total$295
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$150 to $400 is the usual full checkup: exam, the vaccines due, a heartworm and faecal test, and a year of prevention on the way out.
What this assumes, and where it could be wrong
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 EXAM FEE IS THE SMALL PART; THE ADD-ONS DECIDE THE INVOICE.
The heartworm test is the line that tends to stay. Many practices will not write or refill a heartworm prevention prescription without a negative test on file for the year, and manufacturers generally tie their product guarantees to the same thing. So even a healthy adult dog on year-round prevention usually carries a test on the annual invoice. It is worth asking the practice whether the test is bundled into a wellness package or billed separately, because the answer changes what the visit looks like on paper.
Prevention is priced by weight, so the dog's size changes the invoice more than its health does. Flea, tick, and heartworm products are sold in weight bands, and a year's supply for a large dog can cost several times what the same brand costs for a small one. Since prevention is often the largest single line on a wellness invoice, that one factor explains much of the gap between two quotes for what sounds like the same visit. The exam fee itself is generally the same figure whatever the dog weighs.
The cost is front-loaded in puppyhood, then flat, then rises again with age. A puppy comes in several times over its first months for the vaccine series, deworming, and a faecal check, so the first year carries more visits than any year that follows. A healthy adult then settles into one visit a year. From around seven, and earlier for large and giant breeds, vets start asking for bloodwork and sometimes twice-yearly exams. Budgeting the same figure every year gets the middle right and the ends wrong.
The defaults are ours and are a starting point. The exam fee, the vaccines, the tests, and the prevention are yours, and the figure turns on the dog's age, weight, and where it spends its time. Ask the practice which vaccines are actually due this year before the visit, since that is the line that swings most.