Pricing a Multi-Cat Household: Why the Family Discount Shouldn't Depend on Sharing

Here's a pricing puzzle every cattery meets: a family books in two cats. The cats stay in separate units — as cats generally should. Do they pay twice the single-cat rate? Most software forces the answer to be yes, because the discount is wired to sharing a unit. We think that's the wrong wiring, and it's worth explaining why.

The discount recognises the household, not the floor space

Multi-pet discounts exist because a household booking two animals is better business than two unrelated bookings: one customer relationship, one drop-off and pickup, one intake conversation, one invoice, and loyalty that compounds — multi-cat households board more often and stay longer. Those economics don't change one bit if the cats sleep in adjacent units instead of one shared unit. Pricing the discount on shared floor space confuses the reason for the discount with an unrelated housing decision — one that, for cats, is often your welfare policy rather than the owner's choice. Punishing the owner's bill for your correct housing decision is exactly backwards.

Keep the tiers honest

Whatever numbers you choose, two properties keep a multi-cat price list defensible. Per-animal totals should step down as the count rises — the second cat costs less than the first, the third no more than the second — and the discount should be automatic, not a negotiation. A published tier (one cat, two cats, three, four) does both, and doubles as marketing to the multi-cat households you most want as regulars.

How The Kennel Manager prices it

Boarding rates are set per species, with a tier for each party size from one to four animals — and the system checks your tiers stay monotonic, so a bigger party never prices above the same cats booked separately. The opinionated part: for catteries that keep every cat in its own unit, a multi-cat family booking still prices at the multi-cat tier. The discount follows the household automatically. For facilities that do allow same-household cats to share, sharing and pricing work exactly as they do for dogs — but separate housing never silently upgrades a family to full price.

It's a small rule with a clear message to your best customers: we house your cats the right way, and you don't pay extra for it.