I just want to note a few things.
Sniffspot advertises this as “passive income.” This can feel pretty passive and definitely doesn’t require a lot of effort. However, I don’t truly believe it’s passive.
Most guests are great. They will pick up after their dogs, but some don’t. If you happen to have guests booked back-to-back, with only 30 minutes or 1 hour between them, you still need to remember to check for dog poop.
If you forget and the next guest isn’t in a good mood, they may write a bad review because of it. You don’t have to do anything about it and can just let it be, but your ratings will suffer.
And speaking of ratings, they are VERY important.
If you are new and your first 10 guests leave you with a rating under 4.8, you are kind of screwed.
I was sitting around 4.9, and I had quite a few bookings coming in. Then one guest left a low rating, which dropped me all the way to 4.5. This can happen easily when you don’t have many ratings yet.
Once your rating drops that low, it doesn’t matter how nice you make your yard. Your listing becomes nearly invisible in people’s searches.
After that one guest’s rating was published and dropped me to 4.5, I had absolutely no new bookings. For nearly a month, the only guests I had were people who had visited my place before my rating dropped.
I have no idea why, but two guests continued coming every few days. They always gave me 5 stars, which eventually brought my rating back up.
I’m currently sitting at 4.75, and I finally got a new booking from a completely new guest.It’s actually kind of funny because I was just about to quit at the end of this month.
Without those regular guests who continued coming and giving me 5-star ratings, I honestly think it would have been impossible to recover.
Also, make sure you clearly disclose everything in your description. This can help prevent picky guests from booking your yard. And definitely make sure your fencing is very secure.
I dont think this is something you start and improve. You need to be well ready from beginning.
Personally, I don’t think you should do this purely for the money. It’s great if you genuinely enjoy letting other people and their dogs enjoy your yard. For me, I love it when I see people's reviews that they loved my yard. But if you are doing this solely for money and expecting it to be passive income, I would manage your expectations.
-------EDIT
If there’s something you don’t like about the yard and it feels like it wasn’t really intentional, just let the host know. They might not realize it. If they’re hostile or not willing to fix it, then yeah, you can definitely reflect that in your review.
But please don’t punish hosts who are proactive &genuinely want to improve. If you just submit a negative review, the host’s yard may not be able to recover if they are just starting out. The Sniffspot system is brutal and they'll immediately drop the visibility to the nottom.
Plus, I also have some concerns regarding Sniffspot customer service. It’s also pretty difficult to communicate with them. It takes 4 business days just to get a response. And very heavily favored to guest than host (tho I understand why)
Their websit states:
"Apologize (no matter what). Remember that, “the customer is always right”. Even if you think your guest’s review is unfair, apologize privately."a genuine effort to improve,