Top 5 House & Pet Sitting Sites

If you are interested in becoming a house sitter or pet sitter, the easiest way to find sits is through a dedicated house sitting website. While most of these sites use the term “house sitter,” more often than not, the ads on these sites will be for pet sitting. While it’s not impossible to find pet-free sits, it will be difficult to use these sites as a viable way to travel.

For everyone else, these sites are a platform where both sitters and hosts (also know as homeowners or pet parents) can advertise themselves, connect, share reviews, and potentially get some sort of support if things go awry. For some, just the sitter pays a fee, while others require both parties to pay. The quality of user experience, customer service, credibility, and sits varies from site to site, but each one does have its benefits.

In no particular order, here are our top 5 sites for house sitters and pet sitters:

As a standalone site, Trusted Housesitters has by far the largest number of users. They are an international company (based in the UK) that allows sitters to browse sits all over the world from one platform. They also require some amount of effort from hosts, meaning listings tend to have more information, more photos, and clearer expectations than some of the other sites. This is one where both the sitter and the host must pay a fee, so the hosts tend to be more motivated to secure a sitter and follow through with the sit.

There are some downsides to this site. They’ve recently implemented a 5 application cap, meaning that once a host gets 5 applications for their listing, it goes into review and no one else can apply until they unpause their listing. This means that those highly desirable sits in big cities or at peak times get snapped up quickly, especially if you are in a different time zone. The company’s response to criticism of this new feature has also made some question their motives. They heavily censor both their forum and their Trustpilot reviews, so it can be difficult to feel like they have your back if an issue arises. Another recent feature that has divided users is barring sitters from applying for sits that overlap with booked dates. This further limits users to what sits they can apply for, even though the membership cost is the same.

Overall, we will continue to use Trusted Housesitters as it is great value for money. At $169/year for a standard membership and $259/year for a premium membership it’s more expensive than some of the others, but the amount of sits we get from it more than covers the cost.

Those interested in signing up for Trusted Housesitters can get 25% off their first year with our discount code:

Get 25% off your first year.

Originally a French house sitting site, Nomador is great for those looking to do sits in France (or any Francophone places). This means Nomador sometimes has sits in more unique locations, such as Reunion, Tunisia, Mozambique, and the French Caribbean. They have expanded, so you can find listings all over the world, though admittedly they are minimal outside the Franco-sphere. Another cool feature Nomador offers is the ability for hosts to offer travelers a place to stay for the night. Think of it as a less shady Couch Surfing site.

There is no limit to the number of applicants hosts can get, however the site is a bit more relaxed than THS when it comes to confirming sitters. That means there may be listings up that are no longer available, so hopeful applicants may waste their time applying for dates that have been filled.

At $99/year (or $42 for 3 months) the site is less expensive than Trusted, but offers far less sits worldwide. If you are looking to travel extensively in France (or want to find a long term gig in one area of the country) this site is a great option.

Kiwi House Sitters is hands down the site to use if you are house sitting in New Zealand. It seems to be much preferred by locals over Trusted Housesitters, probably because it is free for hosts and is a bit more low tech. This also means that many postings lack photos and information, and some may not even be up to date, as the site is not as heavily maintained and monitored as THS. But what it does, it does well. Saved search functions are good, and the messaging system is straightforward.

My favorite feature is the reply rating, which shows how responsive a member is to emails. Someone with a low rating may be hard to communicate with on the site, so this is a good indicator of how your experience with them may be.

At NZ$84 (about $55 USD) it’s a bargain, especially with the cost of New Zealand accommodation! If you want to save even more, you can use find plenty of referral links and get NZ$10 off! (We would include our referral link here, however as we have no current plans to go to NZ, you are better off searching for an active referral elsewhere.)

Almost identical to KHS, Aussie House Sitters is a great resource if you are traveling through Australia. Both of these sites offer more accurate location mapping over Trusted, which can be useful in a huge place like Australia.

There are several sister sites included in the “House Sitters” family, including House Sitters Canada, House Sitters America, and House Sitters UK. If you were to sign up for each of these individually, the price would clock in well above the price for Trusted, however if you know you’ll only be traveling in one part of the world, these sites are well worth it.

Another feature that can be useful if you do decide to use more than one site is the ability to link profiles so all of your reviews show up across your different profiles. This meant we had 5 reviews on both our Aussie and Kiwi profiles instead of 2 on one and 3 on the other.

Finally, these sites allow for paid sitting, which is something strictly forbidden on Trusted, Nomador, and House Carers. While most of the time petsitting is an exchange, there are some situations where you may want to charge a fee. Having this be more up to the parties involved can result in a more even exchange for harder-to-fill sits.

Aussie House Sitters costs AUD$84, but you can get $10 off with a referral code.

We have yet to book a sit through this site, but I’m adding it because of the large number of long term sits we come across, especially though their Instagram. Like most of the others, it’s free to browse listings and you only pay if you want to send a message. Currently, the cost for a year is $50 US, so if you did see a sit or two that excited you, the cost is fairly low.

Downsides to House Carers is that the user interface is messy, and takes a while to decipher. As it is free for homeowners, you can run into the same problem that comes with “House Sitters” sites, as the homeowners aren’t as invested in their listing or in responding, especially if they already found a sitter. But, with that said, it’s worth checking out and following them on IG if you are seeking a long term sit.

With house and pet sitting surging in popularity, more and more sites are popping up all the time. Some country specific sites, Like House Sitters Mexico, offer few, if any new listings, while others, like Mind a Home, have a good number of sits, but relatively poor UI/UX. There are also others, like Rover, Cat in a Flat that offer paid opportunities for experienced sitters looking to monetize their experience.