Am I really underselling myself? or better yet am I making a financially good switch?

It appears you decided to change your rate to $40. I think that’s a good decision. There’s only 13 people in your area who are offering housesitting - of those 4 are priced more than your current rate of $40. Keep in mind that if you want, you can always choose to keep an existing client(s) rate or offer a client a negative (-$x) cost adjustment discount off a published rate.

Rates vary from one market to another and then across the service providers based on what level of service you’re offering. Although initially rover suggest setting yourself lower than the market to start building a client base and get reviews, most experienced sitters would agree that those sitters who are priced the lowest often deal with the worst behavior from those humans and their pets.

1 addition: I read that you’re offering food during lunch time walks. You may decide to stop providing that. It’s unusual to see that provided by a sitter/ walker, is an unnecessary expense for you, and for some pets giving them any food that is different from their usual can cause stomach upset/ GI discomfort/ diarrhea, etc.

From looking at rates in your area, your new rates are more in line with others. But it also depends on what is included for your "nightly" rate for house sitting. Do you provide 24-hours of care for the pet? Or do you just go over to the house in the evening and stay until morning? Are 3 daily walks/potty breaks included in your "nightly" rate or do you charge the owner for walks and/or drop-ins in an a la carte way? The higher the rate, the more that should be included. As a pet owner, if someone advertised house sitting, I would expect them to stay at my home, not only taking care of my pet but my home. For that reason, house sitting should be considered a premium service. However, many Rover sitters do provide house sitting but only use that home as a base of operation and will leave throughout the day to service other pets (walks and drop-ins); they should be spending a majority of their time at the client home. Some even have part or full-time jobs but will check on the pet throughout the day. So long as the owner knows what's included and not included and what your charge entails, then you should be fine.

Also, as Deb wrote, you can always adjust previous clients' charges to reflect the rates you previously charged them if you'd like. Or you can freeze them at their previous rate on a client-by-client basis.

What are you offering? How much do you want to make? I charge $60/day for a boarding dog, and that's considerably less than when I was running my facility.

However, most owners aren't looking for seasoned professionals to watch their dogs.

For Rover dogs, I don't include training costs, so that drops down the price per day by $95.

It all depends on what you are offering, your experience, and what you want to make.

$25 for house sitting is peanuts. It’s the cost of a large pizza for 24 hours work plus you have to pay taxes on it. You could grocery shop for someone for an hour or two and make that. Don’t sell yourself short.