A 3-person rescue
Founder, one coordinator, one regular foster. Everyone gets a login.
Still $20/mo
Pricing
One organization. One clear price.
WhiskerMatch is $20/month per organization. No seat limits. No per-user pricing. Staff, volunteers, and fosters should not become a billing problem.
Price sheet · one organization
A rescue with 60 people working the animals
| Item | Qty | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | 1 | $20.00 |
| Staff accounts | 12 | $0.00 |
| Volunteer reviewers | 30 | $0.00 |
| Foster homes | 18 | $0.00 |
| Records, holds, applications | No cap | $0.00 |
| Total per month | $20.00 | |
People
- Staff and volunteer accounts with roles, no seat limit
- Foster portal for check-ins
- Applicant portal for status and documents
- Volunteer portal for shifts
The workspace
- Animal records with intake and explicit unknowns
- Work board: owners, due dates, blockers
- Holds with reasons and review dates
- Applications with stage history
- Public profile review and your adoption page
- Audit trail, CSV import and export
Getting started
- Onboarding with direct founder support.
- One mapped workflow with owners, review gates, and source material.
- The same $20 after your first workflow: no trial rate that jumps
A 25-person shelter
Staff, volunteers and fosters included. Growing the team does not grow the bill.
Still $20/mo
A volunteer-heavy workflow
Ten rotating volunteer reviewers, three fosters, one coordinator. No per-login math.
Still $20/mo
What the $20 pays for
One record per animal, from the day it arrives to the day it goes home.
Animal arrives, intake record, care and foster, application, decision, placement, with every change kept. Here is where each piece usually lives today, and where it lives in WhiskerMatch.
| The job | Usually today | In WhiskerMatch |
|---|---|---|
| Taking an animal in | A paper form or a spreadsheet row | An animal record with intake details, and unknowns marked unknown rather than guessed |
| Knowing who is doing what | Group texts and someone's memory | The Work board: an owner, a due date and any blocker on each animal; holds with a reason and a review date |
| Hearing from fosters | Texts and photos on one person's phone | Foster portal check-ins that land on the animal's record |
| Reviewing applications | Emails, form responses and a shared inbox | Applications attached to the animal, stages with written reasons, and a private status page for each applicant |
| Listing the animal publicly | Copied by hand to the website, sometimes out of date | A public profile reviewed from the record, on your own adoption page; it comes down when an adoption is pending |
| Answering "who changed this?" | Nobody is sure | An audit trail of changes; animal records and the audit trail export as CSV at any time |
It runs beside the tools you keep. Start with one of these jobs, not all six. See the workflow
What starting includes
A bounded workflow and direct support.
The team maps sources, owners, review gates, and success conditions with the founder. The workflow runs beside current tools before any broader expansion.
If your team is small, messy, volunteer-heavy, or still using spreadsheets, that is not a disqualifier. That is the kind of reality WhiskerMatch is being shaped around.
What costs money
Only the shelter workspace is paid today.
Everything else on WhiskerMatch is free or not offered yet. Nothing below is for sale until it exists. The rules any future selling must follow, such as no paying to rank and nothing that touches placement, are in the commerce policy.
Shelter and rescue workspace$20/month
The operations workspace is the product that costs money to run and support. One flat price per organization, no seats, so volunteers and fosters never become a billing question.
Optional supporter extrasNot offered
Optional convenience and cosmetics for people who want to support the work. Reporting, searching and viewing animals stay free. Waiting on: consumer accounts: an entitlement needs a person to belong to.
Donations to organizationsNot offered
Money given for an organization reaches that organization directly: it is the merchant of record on its own Stripe account, sends the receipt and states its own tax status. WhiskerMatch takes no fee. Waiting on: each organization finishing Stripe setup and turning donations on; the platform switch (Stripe Connect) on this deployment.
Companion and profile cosmeticsNot offered
Small optional purchases, around one to three dollars, for looks only. Never visibility, access, or speed for any animal. Waiting on: consumer accounts, and finished artwork worth paying for.
MerchandiseNot offered
Wearable goods with their own design line (docs/MERCH.md). Waiting on: physical products sampled and a fulfilment partner chosen. No listing exists until the product does.
Never charged for
- Posting or searching lost and found reports
- Sending a sighting or a community-cat report
- Viewing an adoptable animal or applying to its organization
- Safety information
- Finding a shelter or rescue
- Placement order or visibility for any animal
Buying questions
Everything you would ask before a first call.
Is this per user?
No. It is $20 a month per organization. Staff, volunteers, fosters and applicants do not change the price, so nobody has to ration logins.
What counts as an organization?
One shelter or rescue operating under one team and workflow setup. If a network has genuinely separate operating entities, we work out the cleanest arrangement directly.
Is this only for shelters with a building?
No. Foster-based rescues without a facility use the same workspace: foster households, check-ins, applications and public profiles all work without kennels.
Do fosters need paid seats? Are adopters charged?
No and no. Foster, applicant and volunteer portal access is part of your organization's $20. Applicants apply through your adoption page for free. My Pets, for pet owners, is a free preview.
Is there a setup fee?Written policy pending
None has been charged and none is listed. A written setup-fee policy has not been published yet, so ask Chris directly; nothing is charged before you agree to it.
Is there a contract? Can we cancel?Written policy pending
There is no self-serve contract or checkout. Length, billing and how to stop are agreed directly with the founder before any charge; a standard written cancellation policy is not published yet. Your animal records and audit trail export as CSV at any time, so leaving never depends on us.
Can we use it beside our existing software?
Yes, that is how it starts. Your shelter software, spreadsheets and listings keep running. You add one workflow and judge it before adding anything else.
Do we have to migrate everything?
No. Start with new animals only, or import existing animals from a CSV. Nothing has to move on day one.
What does founder-led early access mean?
WhiskerMatch is real, working software, and the founder sets up and supports each organization personally. No shelter has completed a pilot yet: you would be one of the first teams, and your feedback shapes what comes next.
Is the early-access price different later?
No. Early access is the same $20/month, not a trial rate that jumps. As an early-stage product the price may change over time, but never as a surprise and never without a conversation first.
What happens when I contact you?
Chris replies personally. A short call maps one workflow: the handoffs, the sources, who decides. If it fits, that workflow is set up for your organization and runs beside your current tools.
What do you need from us to start?
One workflow, one person who owns it, the people who review and approve in it, and a few real records to run through it. No IT project and no data warehouse.
What is exceptional usage?
A genuinely unusual deployment that creates materially different operating costs. It is handled by a direct conversation, not a hidden fee ladder or a punitive seat tier.
How does support work?
Directly with the founder, by email at support@whiskermatch.com, including setup of your first workflow. There is no ticket queue or account-manager layer.
Founder-supported pilot.
$20/month per organization. No seat limits.
Staff, volunteers, and fosters are included at one price. Every placement, applicant, and publish decision stays with a named person on your team.