Daycare is not an appointment, it is a place on a day, and there are only so many of them. Set the cap and the page stops selling past it, let the Tuesday-and-Thursday regulars book and move their own days instead of texting you on Sunday, and when one of them drops out the place goes back on the page for the next owner to take.
Blu YardBook online
Full day, big yard7am to 7pm$32.00
Half day, small groupMornings only$20.00
AssessmentBefore the first dayBook
Drop-off7:00 AM8:00 AM9:00 AM
Booked online
11:04 PM
While the gate was shut
Full day
$32.00
Taken as the day is booked
Small group and big yard
Own hours
Each group bookable on its own days
Every one of these counts something, whether places, days in a pack or dogs already in, which is the arithmetic a daycare actually runs on.
Set the number the floor and the staffing can genuinely handle, and the day stops being offered when it is reached. Nobody at the door has to work out whether one more is fine, and Wednesday stops being sold on the strength of somebody’s memory.
When a day is full, the next owner joins a waiting list on the paid plans rather than a conversation you will not remember. A dog that drops out on Tuesday night turns into a place you can offer rather than a gap on the floor on Wednesday morning.
Most daycare is sold in tens rather than one day at a time. On the paid plans a pack is paid for when it is bought and counts itself down as the days are used, so nobody is running a tally in a notebook and no dog is on its fourteenth day of a ten-day pack.
On the paid plans, Tuesdays and Thursdays goes in as a standing arrangement with an end date, so the core of the week is booked before the week starts and you know on Friday what Monday looks like. Every day sits on the dog’s record.
A daycare with a puppy room, a small-dog group and a main yard is three capacities rather than one, and the day fills unevenly. Set each up separately and each keeps its own number, its own days and its own hours, so a Wednesday that is full in the main yard can still take two in the small group. A room you close for a deep clean stops being offered rather than quietly taking bookings for it.
Every daycare has a list of things it must know before a dog comes in, and asking them at drop-off with fifteen owners in the car park is the worst possible moment. On the paid plans you put your own questions on the booking form, covering vaccinations and when they were done, neutering, how it is with other dogs, the vet and an emergency contact, and book the assessment day as its own service so a first booking cannot skip it. It all stays on the record afterwards.
Twenty-five to eight on a Tuesday. Six of the dogs coming in today are standing arrangements that live in your head, four were booked by text last week, and two were agreed at the gate on Friday afternoon. Nobody has ever written the whole list in one place.
The floor holds twenty-four. The twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth are already out of their cars, and both owners are on their way to work. Whatever happens next, one of them is going to be told something they cannot do anything about at twenty-five to eight in the morning.
Picktime holds the number. A day stops being offered once it is full and, on the paid plans, the people who asked after that are on a waiting list rather than in a conversation, with a pack of days counting itself down so nobody is arriving on a day they have not got.
The main yard, the small-dog group, the puppy room, each with the number it genuinely holds and the days it runs. This is the step that lets the page say no on your behalf at half past seven in the morning.
A single day, and on the paid plans a pack of ten or a standing weekly arrangement, each with its price and what has to be paid when. Put the vaccinations, the neutering, the temperament and the vet on the booking form, and make the assessment day its own service.
The booking page is a link, so it goes to your existing clients, on your Facebook page, your Google Business profile and behind a QR code at the gate. Booking a Wednesday becomes something they do rather than something they ask.
Drop-off is the hour a daycare gets most of its calls and has the fewest people able to take one. Picktime’s AI receptionist answers around the clock, asks which days and about the dog, captures the owner’s details and turns the call into a confirmed booking, against the same availability the page uses, so it cannot put a twenty-fifth dog on a floor that holds twenty-four. It handles several calls at once, which is what half past seven actually sounds like, and every call is transcribed into your dashboard so an enquiry taken at the gate is readable at ten.
The free plan is a plan, not a trial. There is no date at which it stops, no card to add, and nothing that quietly turns off in a fortnight.
Tomorrow’s list shows up in whichever calendar the office already watches, and on the paid plans edits travel both ways. PayPal collects for a pack of ten when it is bought, with Stripe and Square on the same plans, instead of a day at a time in a queue at the gate.
The day’s list opens in a phone browser with nothing installed, and there are free iOS and Android apps, so whoever is meeting cars at half past seven can check a name off without walking back inside.
Dedicated daycare platforms carry occupancy boards, feeding rounds and report cards. Picktime is the booking half (a cap per group, owners booking and moving their own days, and a record per dog), free for a small daycare, with packs of days, standing weekly arrangements and your own questions before the first visit on the paid plans.
Picktime’s free plan covers your own booking page with every group you run on it, owners booking and moving their own days, each group bookable on its own days, and a record per dog, with no card and no end date.
Yes, and it is the main thing this fixes. Set the number each group genuinely holds and the day stops being offered once it is reached, so nobody is deciding at the gate whether one more is fine.
Yes, on the paid plans. A pack is paid for when it is bought and counts itself down as the days are used, so there is no tally in a notebook and no dog arrives on the eleventh day of a ten-day pack.
Yes, on the paid plans. It goes in as a standing arrangement with an end date, so the core of every week is booked before the week starts and the owner can move a single day from her own confirmation without unpicking the rest.
On the free plan the day goes back on the booking page the moment a dog drops out, and the next owner to look can take it. On the paid plans they join a waiting list rather than a conversation, and the place is offered to the list instead of standing empty on the floor the next morning.
Yes. On the paid plans you write the questions and they are answered as part of booking (vaccinations, neutering, how it is with other dogs, the vet, an emergency contact), and on any plan you can put the assessment day in as its own service so a first booking cannot skip it.
It depends which shape the service is, and pet care covers three. A day with a number of dogs on it needs a cap, a groom needs one person’s time for a length that changes with the breed, and boarding needs a night and a run held together. Picktime does all three and is free for a single site. Walking is the awkward one, because what a walker really wants is an order to visit addresses in, and there is no routing in this.
The one that lets a service carry its own length, because a groom is not one duration. Set the full groom on a matted double coat as its own service and it stops being sold as the same forty minutes as a puppy trim, which is the mistake that makes a groomer’s afternoon collapse. Picktime’s free plan covers the booking page, the diary and a record per dog. Asking for vaccination details as part of the booking is on the paid plans. If the salon is the business rather than a sideline to the daycare, booking grooms by breed and coat goes into it properly.
Nights Stays over Christmas, capped at what the place actually holds.
See pet boarding scheduling
Courses A six-week course that caps at eight, sold as a course rather than a session.
See dog training scheduling
Weekly slots A standing Tuesday and Thursday slot with a named walker, booked as a series.
See dog walking schedulingFree forever for a small daycare. No card, no trial clock, and tomorrow can be bookable tonight.
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