I am curious how many miles from home most people list as their service area? Does anyone charge extra for clients further away (if so what are your rates)? Or do you just decline offers outside your area? Or does anyone have different distance maximums depending on the service (for example: walking/drop ins vs home sitting)?
When I first signed up, I thought I would be fine traveling up to 30 minutes to care for a client, but after doing it for a while, I've reduced that number by half! The amount of time you use alone getting to and from the location can eat into your day. Now, I keep it to within about 5 minutes. You think you'll lose clients, but you won't.
I have it stated in my profile that I will only do drop in visits or house sitting (overnight) within my zip code, which is about a 5 mile radius around my home. I will occasionally go a little beyond that for house sitting. I learned from experience that anything beyond that for drop in visits is not worth it, either financially or time wise. I did have one client request a house sitting stay that was 14 miles away, and we agreed on $5 more per day because of the extra distance.
I have a fulltime job that's on the other side of town so when I look at prospective new clients I take into consideration two radiuses: distance from my home and distance from my work.
I'm more willing to do drop-ins or walks further from my home if they fall in line with my work schedule. For example, if the client lives outside of my house radius but only 3 miles from my office, I'll accept the request if I can conduct the service as soon as I get off work while I'm on my way home. If the client lives completely out of the way or wants a service conducted while I'm at work, then I decline.
For overnight stays I'm a bit more lenient. As long as the client lives within same distance to my office as my own home is, then I'll accept. Especially if its an extended stay. And of course it makes the situation a whole lot easier if I can bring my personal dog. I have a roommate that cares for my dog when I have overnights, but I'm more willing to go further out of my way if the client agrees for me to bring my personal animal with me.
I'm in the same situation. Is there a way to do a radius from work and a radius from your house?
I won't travel further than 5ish miles away for sitting or drop ins
I agree with the overs. I'd prefer to stick around 5-miles or less from home. I was previously at 10-miles but it is way too long (even on the freeway) so I bumped it down to 7-miles or less, though 90% of my clients are within 2-3 miles of my home.
I will only travel 5 miles but Rover still allows my profile to come up in customers searches that are outside my radius so I still have to decline a lot of requests. I've asked them to change this but all they tell me is "it won't count against your booking rating". It took awhile but I get plenty of jobs within my radius now to where it truly isn't worthwhile traveling any further.
I try to keep it to 5 miles. There are plenty of pet owners within that radius and that seems to be the most cost effective.
When things are slow, I open it up a mile or so, but honestly, 5 miles makes the most sense so that I can do more visits in a shorter time frame.