Boarding is the part of a pet care business that bills the highest, runs the longest hours, and carries the most liability. It is also the part most pieces of software treat as an afterthought to daycare. That mismatch produces real operational pain, a Thanksgiving where the rate plan didn't roll forward, a Sunday where a regular's medication note was on the dashboard but not on the staff sheet, an incident report that took an hour to find because nobody remembered which "boarding stay #" it was attached to.
We re-evaluated the boarding software market for 2026 because there's a meaningful new spread between the products built for boarding and the products that run boarding as a module bolted onto a daycare-first core. Three years ago that distinction was cosmetic; today it matters. Our top pick, PetExec, is in the first group. It was built by people who run kennels, and it shows in the parts of the software you only notice when something goes wrong.
That said: if you also run a busy daycare on the same site, our runner-up, Gingr, is the more complete operating system. And for owner-operators of small boarding facilities, under twenty runs, mostly local clients, holiday-driven, Revelation Pets offers more polish per dollar than anything else in this category.
Who this guide is for, and who it isn't
This guide covers facility-based dog boarding: kennels, runs, suites, lodges. It is not for in-home or sitter-network boarders (Rover-style operators), those are pet-sitting software questions, covered in Best Pet Sitting Software. If your facility also runs daycare as the primary line, start with Best Dog Daycare Software and use this guide to pressure-test the boarding side of your shortlist.
How we evaluate
Every product in this guide is evaluated against the same operational framework: the things the software has to absorb for an operator to be able to run a real business on it, without spending nights and weekends reconstructing what the software should have captured.
Operational fit, not feature counts
We rank by how well a product matches the work an operator actually does, not by which has the longest feature list. Every recommendation states who it's good for and who it isn't.
Public pricing and documentation
Pricing and feature details are drawn from each vendor’s public pricing pages, documentation, and demos. They reflect a snapshot in time, so always confirm current pricing with the vendor.
Written from an operator’s lens
We frame every pick around how a pet-care business actually runs, with input from working operators where we have it, and we flag what we could not independently verify. See our editorial standards.
We disclose affiliate relationships at the top and bottom of every guide. We do not accept revenue-share terms in exchange for placement. When we link to a vendor it may be an affiliate link, and we may earn a referral fee at no cost to you; it never changes our rankings. The How we test page explains specifics.
PetExec
The deepest kennel logic in the category, and the only product where medication tracking, length-of-stay pricing, and the daily run sheet feel like a single coherent workflow instead of three modules taped together.
Run sheet · Wed, May 6 · A.M. shift
- Starting price
- $105 / month
- Modules
- Boarding, daycare, grooming, training, retail
- Multi-location
- Yes
- Customer-facing
- Branded web portal · owner photo updates
What PetExec gets right is the abstraction. Most products in this category model boarding as "a reservation, but it spans nights." PetExec models it as a run, a stay, a rate plan, and a set of daily care obligations, and the rest of the product is consistent with that. You can drag a stay across runs, promote a daycare regular into a same-day boarding overflow, and tack on exit grooming for Saturday pickup, all without leaving the run sheet.
The medication workflow is the part that won this category. Meds are first-class entities: each has a schedule, a dose, a note from the owner, an acknowledgement when administered, and a refusal field for when a dog won't take it. The A.M. and P.M. run sheets show only the meds for that shift, with the dose and the time, in big enough type to read while holding a leash. Staff sign off per dose, and the audit trail is the kind of record that may support a claim; confirm required documentation with your carrier.
We also like the rate-plan engine. A long-stay-by-night discount, a holiday surcharge that activates between two dates regardless of length, a "first night peak" charge for late check-ins after 8 p.m., a flat medication handling fee per dose per day, most boarding operators have a Frankenstein pricing structure patched together over years, and PetExec is among the only products that can model all of them without manual line items.
What annoys us
The interface looks like the kind of software people refer to as "yeah, it works." Button density is high, visual hierarchy assumes you've been using the product for six months, and the customer portal, while functional, won't impress anyone. New staff take two or three real shifts to be productive here; on ProPet or Revelation Pets, it's one.
The reporting is functional but not as deep as Gingr's. The roll-up reports for multi-location operators are usable, but the visualizations are basic; if you care about dashboards over tables, this is not the product for you.
Good for
- Boarding-heavy facilities (15+ runs)
- Anyone administering medication routinely (diabetic dogs, seniors, recovery stays)
- Operators with elaborate rate plans (holidays, long stays, medical surcharges)
- Mixed-modality businesses where boarding is the primary line
Not good for
- Daycare-first facilities (Gingr or ProPet fit better; see our daycare guide)
- Operators who want their staff productive on day one
- Facilities under 10 runs (Revelation Pets is more proportional)
- Anyone who wants a polished customer-facing app
Gingr
The most complete operating system in pet care, with a boarding module that's among the deeper offerings even if it isn't quite PetExec. Our pick for facilities that run daycare and boarding at meaningful scale on the same site.
Juno · Australian Shepherd
− $52.20 long-stay disc.
+ $18 med handling
- Starting price
- $179 / month (Stay, the boarding tier)
- Modules
- Daycare, boarding, grooming, training, retail
- Multi-location
- Yes, native
- Customer-facing
- Web portal + native app (included)
We rank Gingr ahead of PetExec in our daycare guide and behind it here, and that's the right way to read it: if your business has equal weight on boarding and daycare, Gingr is the better operating system overall, because the daycare side is more complete and the reporting is the best in the category. If boarding is the primary line, PetExec wins on depth.
The Gingr boarding workflow centers on a stay detail page that consolidates rate plan, care obligations, daily log, and billing into one view. It's a good abstraction, it matches how a manager thinks about a stay, and the cross-references to the customer's broader history (previous stays, daycare visits, package balance, incident log) are exactly where you'd expect them.
The rate plan engine is more flexible than most competitors', though slightly less so than PetExec's. We could model nightly long-stay discounts, holiday surcharges, and per-dose medication handling fees, but "first night peak" pricing required a workaround. For most facilities that's fine; for operators with very specific holiday math, ask the vendor pointed questions during demo.
What annoys us
Setup is a real project. Gingr's onboarding team is competent, but the product assumes you have opinions about vaccine grace periods, capacity weighting, package liability handling, and rate-plan precedence, opinions a new operator hasn't formed yet. Plan on two to four weeks of part-time setup.
The UI is functional but visibly older than its newer competition. Some facilities switch away from Gingr to ProPet because staff onboarding time matters more to them than operational depth. For pure boarding, switching to PetExec is more common.
Good for
- Facilities running daycare and boarding at meaningful scale
- Multi-location pet care groups
- Operators who care deeply about reporting and accounting export quality
Not good for
- Boarding-only operations (PetExec is a better fit)
- Owners who want their staff productive on day one
- Facilities under 15 runs
Revelation Pets
The friendliest interface in the boarding category, built originally for the UK kennel market and now widely used in the US. The right answer for small owner-operated facilities that want PetExec-grade boarding logic without the PetExec-grade learning curve.
Today · Wednesday, May 6
A.M.
A.M.
A.M.
P.M.
- Starting price
- $60 / month
- Modules
- Boarding-first · daycare add-on
- Multi-location
- Yes (limited)
- Customer-facing
- Booking widget + portal
Revelation Pets is what happens when a small team builds boarding software with the deliberate goal of being usable by one person on a Sunday morning. The interface is the clearest in the category, every screen has at most a handful of things, and they're the right things, and the arrivals/departures view is the single best operational screen in the category for kennels under twenty runs.
The product handles the boarding fundamentals well: nightly rates, length-of-stay discounts, holiday surcharges, vaccine expiry validation against the stay date, online booking with deposits, and a customer database that's easy to search. What it doesn't try to do is be everything. There's no retail POS, no detailed payroll, no deep package-billing engine. For most owner-operators, that's the right tradeoff.
The other thing Revelation Pets gets right is price. $60/mo for the entry tier is fair for what you get; the next tier (around $77, Gold) unlocks multi-location and is still well below comparable products.
What annoys us
Reporting is shallower than the top two picks. You can answer most of the questions a small-facility operator has, revenue per month, occupancy, average length of stay, but the analytics depth tops out fast. Operators with a real finance function will outgrow it.
Multi-location support exists but is "two locations, one customer list" rather than a real corporate-vs-site separation. We'd put a small chain on it but not a five-plus location operator.
Good for
- Owner-operated kennels under 20 runs
- Facilities switching off a spreadsheet or a generic booking tool
- Operators who want clean software on a tight budget
- Holiday-driven boarding businesses with mixed rate plans
Not good for
- Facilities over 30 runs (the ceiling becomes visible)
- Heavy medication routines (PetExec wins on this)
- Multi-location groups with real corporate structure
- Operators who need retail POS or detailed payroll inside the product
Kennel Connection
The most-installed traditional boarding product in the US, and the right answer for established facilities that have been running on the desktop version for fifteen years and want to upgrade without learning a foreign mental model.
- Starting price
- $149 / month (cloud); desktop is legacy, priced separately
- Modules
- Boarding, daycare, grooming, retail
- Multi-location
- Limited
- Customer-facing
- Web portal
Kennel Connection has been running boarding kennels in this country since 1994, and its cloud version inherits the operational vocabulary that several thousand facilities have been using for years. If you've run a kennel for a decade or more, this product feels native in a way the newer cloud-first competition never quite will.
The boarding-specific features are deep: kennel grid, rate plans, run cleaning rotation, intake belongings tracking, exit grooming scheduling, and the kind of incident logging that supports a claim or underwriting review. None of these are flashy. All of them work.
We would not put a new facility on Kennel Connection in 2026. The interface shows its age, customer-facing tooling is below category average, and the mobile experience for staff is workable rather than good. But if you're a twenty-year boarding facility migrating off the desktop version, the continuity is worth a meaningful amount.
Good for
- Established facilities migrating from Kennel Connection desktop
- Operators with deep mental models of how kennel software should work
- Boarding-primary businesses with long-tenured staff
Not good for
- New facilities and recent operators
- Anyone whose staff is mostly under 30
- Mobile-first operations
- Multi-location groups
Easy Busy Pets
The right software for a new boarding facility's first year, and a credible answer for small operators who want to spend less and still look professional to customers. You will outgrow it. That's fine.
- Starting price
- $250 / month + ~$13 per active staff
- Modules
- Boarding, daycare, grooming, walking
- Multi-location
- Limited
- Customer-facing
- Branded portal
Easy Busy Pets is the quickest product on this list to get running. At around $250/mo the plan covers nightly rates, deposits, vaccine tracking, customer portal, and online booking. None of those are best-in-class. All of them are good enough to run a small facility through its first twelve to twenty-four months.
It's capable enough for a 12-run facility. Holiday rate plans are present but less flexible than the top picks. Medication tracking exists but is more "a note in a field" than the structured workflow PetExec offers, if your kennel runs heavy meds, this is not the product for you.
What's notable about Easy Busy Pets is that switching off it is unusually easy. Exporting a full year of data from Easy Busy Pets and re-importing into Gingr can be done without manual cleanup. For an operator whose long-term answer is one of the bigger products but who wants minimal setup effort for now instead of $1,380/year, that's a reasonable plan.
Good for
- New boarding facilities, year one
- Solo operators and partner-run small kennels
- Anyone currently running on Acuity, Square, or a spreadsheet
Not good for
- Facilities over 15 runs
- Heavy medication routines
- Holiday-driven businesses with elaborate surcharge math
Who shouldn't buy any of these
If you run an in-home or sitter-network boarding operation, boarding clients' dogs out of your house, or matching them with a network of in-home sitters, none of the tools in this guide are built for you. Read Best Pet Sitting Software instead. Time To Pet and Scout for Pet Sitters are the right places to start.
If you're a veterinary practice that boards as a side service, you also shouldn't buy any of these. The boarding feature inside your existing practice management software (ezyVet, Cornerstone, Vetspire) is what you should use, even if it's not as deep as PetExec, the integration with your medical record is more valuable than the depth gap.
What to look for, regardless of which tool you pick
Vendors will spend the demo showing you the kennel grid. These are the eight things to actually check before signing anything.
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01
Vaccine validation against the stay date A vaccine that's current today but expires in the middle of a Thanksgiving stay is the most common boarding-software failure mode we see. The product must check against the last night of the stay, not against today.
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02
Medication tracking with sign-off and audit trail Per-dose, per-shift, with refusal handling and a timestamped audit log. "A note in the customer profile" is not medication tracking.
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03
Rate plans that model your real pricing Holiday windows, long-stay discounts, late-arrival surcharges, medication handling fees, peak weekends. Most products handle two or three of these; few handle all of them.
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04
An incident log that's findable a year later If you ever need incident records for a claim, you should be able to produce that report in under five minutes with the dog, owner, run, staff, and notes intact. Confirm required documentation with your carrier.
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05
A daily run sheet you can hand to morning shift Printed or on a tablet, must show meds, special diets, behavioral flags, and pickup times. If you can't print it cleanly, your staff will write a parallel system on paper.
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06
Deposit logic that doesn't lock revenue A nonrefundable deposit should be recorded when it is received and typically held as a customer deposit or contract liability until the service is provided. When it becomes recognized revenue depends on your accountant’s revenue-recognition policy. Talk to your accountant.
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07
Owner photo / message updates For most boarding clients in 2026, the daily photo is part of the product. If your software makes that hard, your staff will use their personal phones and you'll lose the audit trail.
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08
An export strategy you've tested Before you sign, run an export from the trial environment and read the file. If it's not journal-entry-ready and customer-record-complete, plan accordingly.
