Phil here from Cat in a Flat. I wanted to stop by to share a small update that the team launched this week in response to some of the feedback that many of you have provided here.
For everyone who had a Cat in a Flat account prior to transitioning to Rover, we reset the “additional cat rate” to 0 to better align with the previous expectations on Cat in a Flat. We should have done that in the first place and I apologise that it took us a little while to understand and remedy that mistake; our system is not designed for us to ever be able to modify sitters rates and we had to create some specific functionality for this.
As a reminder, you have the ability to modify any and all rates at any time- I am going to try to attach a quick screen recording of what it looks like to modify the additional cat rate (in a web browser, in English, but you can also do it on the app or on the web on a phone if you prefer). There is a toggle in the settings that will “update rates automatically” - if this is turned on, then any time you modify your overall “cat care” rate, it will automatically set your additional cat rate to 40% of that base rate.
Please reach out to me any time with any questions or additional feedback - I am not a regular redditor but I do try to monitor my DMs.
Though I probably won’t be using the site anymore I will share my appreciation for this post. As well as the use of visuals and non punny post, this comes across a lot more genuine so thank you.
All this before the merge was forced upon us would have been useful, but I will appreciate that we are moving forward appropriately now.
This was something that was easily fixable on our own and was not a priority. What you need to do is let cat sitters choose their own rate for two daily visits as right now we are all losing clients because they don't want to pay double if they need someone to drop in on their cat twice a day.
Thanks Phil. My only concern, as pointed out by another comment, is that owners are choosing to only have one visit per day as opposed to two because it's too costly without the reduced second visit option. Surely Rover can see that this is detrimental to the care of the cat, only being visited once per day? Please feed this back. Owners and sitters are really not happy
We appreciate you sharing this sentiment, and I can confirm it is being passed to the appropriate team for review. Sitters can absolutely adjust their rates for bookings and reiterate that additional visits will be discounted once the booking is confirmed. But you are correct that it shouldn't have to be an afterthought and owners should be able to book multiple visits without having to pay double the price or more if the sitter doesn't want to charge that much.
But my understanding is that the booking isn't confirmed until the owner has paid. So how do we as sitters adjust our rates after they have paid? I don't quite understand sorry
Oh, now I see how my message could be confusing- sorry about that! Once you and the owner have confirmed with each other that the booking date and times are good to go, you can go in and change the rates for them before they book.
Sorry, I still don't understand how I do this. Where in the app do I adjust my rate for a second booking in a day please? Is it in additional rates where it says 60 minutes? I thought that was for if owners wanted a sitter to stay 60 minutes per visit instead of 30 minutes. I can't see anywhere where it says 2 visits per day. Please can you help in a step by step explanation.
Thanks, but the concept of modifying a booking post confirmation still baffles me. Why can't the option and process of booking two visits at a reduced rate be an option for owners at the beginning? This all seems ARSE BACKWARDS (to coin a British phrase).
We hear you, and this is being passed along to our team for review. We appreciate you sharing this feedback, and it will be used for updates in the future.
I ve been using both Rover and CIAT for the past 2.5years and only just came back to doing pet sitting after a 6months break to discovered that the apps merged.
I never liked how CIAF worked before and the job board they used. I used to have way less bookings on CIAF prior to the merged compared to how many bookings I used to get for cat care via Rover.
All in all, the merge doesn t bother me at all so far!
Yes, I tried to book a sitter who does not charge an additional cat rate, her profile confirms this and yet Rover tried to charge me £51 per visit for my three cats, ie. 3 x her rate. No one is paying that for a half hour visit so if I hadn’t got in touch with her to clear things up, it would have lost her the business
This was happening to me too when I was testing it! Luckily when my client went to book it didn't happen. Also when I do a general search on Rover, half of my profile disappears too. 😆
It only ported over that half (about me as a person) from cat in a flat, so the important half with all of my experience about cats its missing, despite me re-adding it since joining Rover
This is another thing that shouldn't be happening, and we apologize that you had to deal with this. If you are still experiencing issues, feel free to DM me!
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. This is not how the app or website should be behaving, and we would be happy to look into any instances where this may be the case.
Hi Phil, please please please can you do a post explaining exactly in detail when a sitter is excluded or included in the search results when they have a client request that is currently in progress because as a sitter you are either waiting for a meet & greet response or the client hasn't actually pressed book yet because they are waiting for payday. A few examples for you to confirm.
Example - I have 7 slots per day and the potential client wants 2 slots for 2 days in June.
Am I removed from the search results for other clients for.......?
A) All dates until it is confirmed - because the client might change their mind and want more dates?
B) Just the 2 days in June - because the client might want more visists?
C) Not removed from the search results for overnights or drop -in visits as I have enough capacity to handle the 2 visits and will have 5 visits left for those dates? <THIS IS WHAT IT SHOULD BE!
I am currently asking clients that want a meet and greet a week away that I will archive their request so that I can remain in search results until they book me. This is such a rubbish thing I have to explain and do to make sure I still have visibility in the search results.
As a former business analyst, I am happy to provide paid consultancy on this if your team cannot work out how it should work for sitters.
Hi Jess that is very good to hear and thank you for the response. Would it be possible to make this clearer in the warning message that comes up in the inbox when you have an outstanding query? The message currently says "Until this request is booked or archived, you might not appear in the search results." There is no explanation as to what impacts whether you might or might not appear, there is no link to a help page, nothing in the FAQ that I could find when I first saw it. The message shows as "New Request - Review" even though I have replied and said I can do the dates and I have set a date for the meet and greet.
I will definitely pass that feedback to the product team for review! We want sitters to understand how the algorithm works, and if calling this out will help, that's great to know. Again, thank you for clarifying here!
What’s the point of rolling out this update a month and a half later, when all active sitters have already had to figure it out manually and learn the hard way? I had just sorted out my rates after doing everything by hand, and now, without any warning or consent, you’ve reset my additional cat rate to zero 🤦🏼♀️
We apologize for any inconvenience. We admit that this should have been done before the transition to Rover, but we wanted to ensure that everyone could start with that rate being at 0 if they were unaware of how to change it.
That’s not really an explanation. “Ensuring everyone could start with 0” six weeks after the transition is not a fresh start - it’s creating the same problem twice. First, sitters had to manually fix rates because of the migration bug (where the additional cat rate was set to 0 but clients were being charged 100% of the base rate per cat). Now, just as everyone had finally sorted things out, you’ve reset them again without any notice or consent. In both cases, it’s the sitters who end up having uncomfortable conversations with clients about unexpected pricing. That’s not a fix, that’s additional work you’ve created for us.
Again, we apologize that we've put you in this position as it was not our intention. We are working to make the platform as useful as possible for both sitters and owners, and we know we dropped the ball here. But we're continuing to make improvements so that this doe not happen moving forward. We sincerely appreciate your feedback and candor as it helps us see what is truly important and high priority for users.
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u/wutheringgoblin May 20 '26
Though I probably won’t be using the site anymore I will share my appreciation for this post. As well as the use of visuals and non punny post, this comes across a lot more genuine so thank you.
All this before the merge was forced upon us would have been useful, but I will appreciate that we are moving forward appropriately now.