How should mobile dog groomers account for travel time?

For a mobile dog groomer, an appointment can take more of the working day than the groom itself. Driving, parking, handover, setting up and resetting the van occupy time that cannot simultaneously be used for another client. A useful pricing review starts with the whole route, while keeping each part visible.

This guide shows how to record that time and compare a day's appointments with your own pricing assumptions. It does not tell you what to charge or predict what a route will earn. Every figure below is a hypothetical GBP working example, not a UK average or recommended price.

Define the clock before you start

Use consistent boundaries on each day you sample:

1. Grooming time: from starting the agreed hands-on service to finishing it.
2. Appointment turnover: client handover, unloading or setup, cleaning and reset outside hands-on grooming.
3. Route travel: driving and parking to the first appointment, between appointments and back to your chosen end point.
4. Other working time: messages, ordering, administration and breaks. Keep it visible, but do not quietly assign the same minutes to both a visit and an overhead allowance.

Choose whether your route begins at home, a depot or another base, then use that boundary consistently. If a journey combines personal and business travel, separate the portions rather than attributing the whole trip to a groom. This is a management worksheet, not tax or accounting advice.

Record the route once

Add travel legs to the day first. If you later allocate them to services, allocate each minute only once. A drive between clients may be split between those visits or assigned to one under a consistent rule; it cannot be fully counted against both in your internal calculation.

If a cancellation leaves a gap that cannot be filled, record it separately. Do not rewrite completed grooms as longer jobs. Route patterns vary, so compare several real days before relying on a single sample.

A hypothetical UK working day

Imagine three visits, each priced at £65. These figures demonstrate the method only.

The three appointments total £195. Looking only at 4.5 grooming hours gives £43.33 per grooming hour (£195 ÷ 4.5). Looking at 6 hours 40 minutes occupied by the route gives £29.25 per route hour (£195 ÷ 400 × 60). Both calculations are valid; they answer different questions. The first describes hands-on time. The second describes how much of the day the route used.

Suppose this groomer's own hypothetical planning comparison were £35 per route hour. At 6 hours 40 minutes, that comparison would be £233.33 for the day, or £38.33 above the £195 appointment total. The gap is a prompt to inspect the route, service scope and assumptions—not an instruction to add £38.33 to a particular customer's bill, nor a profit or earnings forecast.

Decide how to use the result

There is no single required way to reflect travel in customer prices. A groomer might define a service area, group nearby bookings, include an allowance in the service price or set a clearly communicated travel charge for some journeys. Those are business choices. The worksheet exposes the time behind them; it does not choose for you.

When comparing routes, hold the time boundaries steady. A nearby second booking may make a route more compact; a longer journey may consume a slot even when the groom itself is unchanged. Count actual direct costs separately from time so that fuel or parking is not mistaken for extra minutes. For an hourly revenue floor based on annual costs, target take-home and realistic billable capacity, start with the hourly-rate guide. The billable-hours guide explains why a full working week is not a full week of paid appointments.

A five-minute review after each route

Record actual start and finish points, visit durations, travel legs, reset time, cancellations and appointment prices. Then ask:

• Which time was spent grooming, and which time made the route possible?
• Did an unusual service request change a groom's duration?
• Did a route gap disappear when bookings were grouped differently?
• Did any time or direct cost get counted twice—or not at all?
• Are a few unusual days distorting the picture? Compare another sample.

This turns a vague “travel takes ages” impression into a record you can revise. It also keeps route planning separate from any promise about bookings, income or profit.

For a free, read-only way to test your assumptions, use Briskettle's UK grooming pricing health check or the GroomPrice case study. GroomPrice is a practical pricing tool for independent pet groomers. It can complement professional advice, but does not replace an accountant or adviser. GroomPrice costs £4.99 GBP one-time, with no subscription. Check the current product page before purchasing.