Terms & Conditions

PetPals is a marketplace that connects pet owners with independent pet sitters. We are not a care provider. We do not employ sitters, supervise stays, or provide the care itself — the agreement for a stay is between the owner and the sitter.

By creating an account you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use PetPals.

You must be at least 18 years old to use PetPals.

You are responsible for what happens under your account and for keeping your password to yourself. Give accurate information when you sign up and keep it current — other people rely on it when deciding whether to trust you with their animals or their home.

One person, one account. Do not impersonate anyone or create an account on someone else's behalf without their knowledge.

A booking request is an offer, not a confirmed stay. It becomes binding only when the sitter accepts it. A sitter takes one household at a time, so accepting a booking closes those nights to everyone else.

Owners: give the sitter accurate information about your animal, including any illness, medication, or history of biting or reactivity. A sitter who is surprised by something you knew is entitled to end the stay.

Sitters: you decide which requests to accept. Once you accept, you are committing to provide the care described, and cancelling late leaves an owner without cover.

Owners pay through PetPals when a booking is made. We hold the payment until the stay is finished, then release it to the sitter. Paying outside the platform is not permitted — it removes the protection that holding the money provides to both sides.

Sitter fee

15% of the booking total, deducted from the sitter's payout.

Owner fee

10% of the booking total, added at checkout, and donated — see "What we do with the owner fee".

Payment processing

Handled by Stripe. PetPals never receives or stores your card details.

Sitters set their own rates, including any charge for additional pets from the same household. The price shown to an owner before they book is the price they pay.

We undertake to donate the owner fee to animal shelters and rescues. We keep none of it: the 10% added at checkout funds animals waiting for a home, not PetPals. The sitter fee is separate and is our revenue.

What we donate is the fee less what Stripe charges to process the payment. Stripe deducts its cost before the money reaches us, so the amount we can pass on is what actually arrives. Nothing else is taken out of it.

We choose the shelters and rescues that receive it, and may change them. This is a commitment about where the money goes, not a promise to any particular organisation, and it does not make a donor of the owner: the fee is paid to PetPals, and the donation is made by us.

Either side can cancel before a stay begins. If an owner cancels, the payment is refunded. If a sitter cancels, the owner is refunded in full and we may take the cancellation into account when ranking that sitter in search.

Repeated late cancellations are grounds for suspension. Cancelling because you have been made genuinely unsafe or misled is not, and will not be held against you.

Both sides can review each other after a stay. Reviews must describe a real booking and your honest experience of it. We remove reviews that are abusive, contain personal data about third parties, or are traded or paid for — but we do not remove a review simply because its subject dislikes it.

• Use PetPals for anything illegal, or for any animal you are not entitled to place in someone's care
• Harass, threaten, or discriminate against another user
• Arrange payment outside the platform to avoid fees
• Scrape, copy, or resell listings or user data
• Interfere with the security or operation of the service, or attempt to access accounts that are not yours

We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules. Where it is proportionate we will warn you first and tell you why.

We provide the platform. We verify what we say we verify and no more — a badge on a profile means the specific check described was carried out, not that we vouch for that person generally.

Because we are not a party to the stay, we are not liable for the care itself: injury, illness, loss, or damage arising during a booking is a matter between owner and sitter. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer protection rules.

We aim to keep PetPals available, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted service.

You can close your account at any time. Closing it does not cancel bookings you have already committed to, and we keep what we are legally required to keep — see the Privacy Policy for how long and why.

These terms are governed by Finnish law. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory law of the country you live in, and you may bring proceedings in your local courts. Consumers in Finland can also refer a dispute to the Consumer Disputes Board (kuluttajariita.fi).

If we change these terms materially, we will update the date above and tell you before the change takes effect. Continuing to use PetPals after that means you accept the new version.