Best Pet Boarding Software in 2026: 7 Tools for Kennels and Daycares

It is December 20th and every run is booked through New Year's. The phone has rung forty times since opening, mostly with the same question, and two of the dogs checking in this afternoon have Bordetella certificates that expired last month. A regular's owner wants to add a bath at pickup, the front counter is selling the last bag of the prescription food three dogs are booked to eat, and somebody has to decide whether the new doodle goes into the big-dog playgroup or the small one. That is a normal day in a boarding kennel, and it is why the software choice matters more here than in almost any other pet business.

Boarding software splits into two jobs. The first is the kennel itself: the lodging calendar, run assignments, vaccination checks, feeding and medication instructions, daycare check-in and report cards. The second is the business around the kennel: the phone, the CRM, the retail counter, marketing, deposits and paperwork. The specialist platforms in this guide are built for the first job and cover parts of the second. Deelo, the platform we build, is built for the second job only, and we say so plainly below. If you are still planning the facility, start with our guide on how to start a dog boarding business.

The core of boarding software is inventory management, where the inventory is runs, suites and nights. A booking is not a one-hour appointment; it is a dog occupying a specific space for four nights, with a size requirement, a feeding schedule, two medications and a note that it does not share a wall with the husky. The system has to know which runs are free on which nights, stop you from overbooking a holiday week, and put the right instructions in front of the kennel attendant at 6 a.m.

Vaccination enforcement is the second non-negotiable. Facilities commonly require current rabies, distemper-parvo and Bordetella records, and the costly mistake is discovering an expired certificate at the door. The better systems store the dates, remind owners before they lapse and block the reservation until a current record is on file. After that come daycare check-in, playgroup assignment, report cards with photos for owners, deposits for peak periods and a retail counter. Everything in this guide handles some of that list; the question is which parts, and what you are willing to run in a second system.

We build Deelo, and its #1 spot here comes with a caveat you should read first: Deelo is not kennel software. It will not show you which runs are empty on December 23rd. What it does is run everything around the kennel that a lodging calendar was never designed for, and for many small and mid-size facilities that is where the owner's hours actually go.

Start with the phone. Holiday season means the same five questions all day, and Deelo's AI assistant can answer calls and texts, capture the request on a CRM record and book a facility tour or temperament evaluation (phone and SMS run on the Communications add-on). The CRM holds every family and prospect, with custom fields for dog names, breeds and vet contacts, and tags for regulars versus first-timers. Deelo Bookings takes online bookings for appointment-style services such as meet-and-greets, baths, nail trims and training sessions, with deposits and a card on file. Daycare packs are tracked on the staff side: sell a 10- or 20-day pack at the counter, record it against the family in Bookings, and redeem a day at each drop-off so the balance is always current. Packs are sold and redeemed at the counter, not online.

The POS runs the front counter for food, treats and leashes, with gift cards, loyalty and discounts, while Invoicing handles deposits, payment plans and recurring billing. E-sign covers the boarding agreement and liability waiver, Forms collects the intake questionnaire with vet-record uploads, and Marketing sends the 'book your Thanksgiving spot now' email in September instead of the week before.

Gingr serves boarding kennels, daycares, grooming salons, training facilities and dog parks, and its boarding tools set a high bar for this category. The lodging calendar shows which kennels and runs are occupied and available by day, with per-day occupancy percentages, and capacity groups prevent double-booking across reservation types. Owners upload required vaccination records before booking, and Gingr automatically blocks a reservation request when a required vaccine has expired or is absent. PreCheck moves paperwork, waivers and belongings before drop-off, report cards with photos and behavior notes go out before pickup, and a pet parent app handles booking, payment and record updates.

For a facility with dozens of runs, a busy daycare floor and grooming on the side, that combination is the reason to buy. Pricing is published: the Stay plan for overnight boarding is about $154 per month billed annually with integrated payments, and higher without them, as of 2026, with separate plans for daycare-only and appointment-based businesses; check current pricing before you commit.

PetExec is a cloud platform for boarding facilities, daycares, grooming shops and training businesses. On the boarding side, facilities define their own lodging options, such as runs, rooms and suites, with prices unique to the business, and track stays to avoid overbooking in peak seasons. Contracts and vaccination records live in the cloud: owners submit records online and sign digital contracts to book, staff set vaccination dates and alerts, and the system can send vaccination notices automatically and restrict self-scheduling until records are current. Pet details such as weight help with placing dogs in the right space.

Its best fit is a facility where boarding is the anchor and daycare, grooming and training are real revenue lines too, all of which PetExec runs from one owner portal and mobile app. The company also emphasizes phone support, data transfer and onboarding help, which matters when you are moving years of records out of an older system. Pricing is not published on its site; request a demo or quote for current rates.

Kennel Connection says it has been building pet-care software for about 30 years, and it covers boarding, daycare, grooming, training, retail and pet sitting. The detail that sets it apart is deployment choice: Kennel Connection offers a full cloud plan, a hybrid plan with online and offline access, and a desktop version, which matters to rural facilities with patchy internet that still need to check dogs in when the connection drops. Online booking lets owners pick add-on services as they reserve, a client portal gives them their own login, and its blog describes weekly vaccination reports that flag records nearing expiration so staff can contact owners before the stay.

An add-on for unlimited two-way SMS includes picture messages, automated reminders and text-to-pay, and automated review requests help with the reputation side. Pricing is published: the KC Cloud and Hybrid plans are about $149 per month each, a grooming-only plan is about $69 per month, desktop plans start around $89 per month, and the SMS add-on is about $50 per month, as of 2026; check current pricing.

Revelation Pets serves dog daycares, catteries, grooming salons and kennels, and its pricing page lists training as well. The cattery module is the reason it earns a spot here: plenty of boarding facilities take cats, and a system that treats cat boarding as a first-class service saves awkward workarounds. The feature set covers the essentials cleanly: 24/7 online booking, automated SMS and email reminders, vaccination records and medical notes, photo sharing so owners see their pets during a stay, digital intake with online signature capture, and reporting on sales, payments and occupancy. It integrates with QuickBooks and Xero, handles review management, and processes payments through its own payments service.

Pricing is published in US dollars and British pounds, which suits facilities in the UK as well as the US. The Silver plan is about $60 per month or $605 per year and the Gold plan about $77 per month, as of 2026, and the pricing page lists the same modules on both tiers; check current pricing and what separates the two plans before you choose.

KennelBooker focuses on the boarding basics and prices for a smaller operation. Owners see live availability and book online through a branded portal at any hour. The calendar view prevents double-booking, and during busy periods a booking can be split across multiple runs when no single run is free for the whole stay, a practical fix for holiday weeks. At check-in, staff print run cards for every pet with contact details, pet information, feeding instructions and medical notes, which is exactly what a kennel attendant needs clipped to the door. Automatic alerts flag absent or expired vaccinations before arrival, and daycare bookings sit on the same calendar as boarding.

On the money side, it records on-premise payments and keeps wallet funds for credits and overpayments. For a kennel with a handful to a few dozen runs that is moving off paper or a spreadsheet, the focus is the appeal. KennelBooker starts at about $49.99 per month with a 14-day free trial and no contracts, as of 2026; check current pricing.

ProPet serves boarding kennels, dog daycares, groomers, trainers and pet retailers, and it prices by module. You start with the base Pet and Client Manager, which covers profiles, online agreements, vaccination requirements and emergency contacts, then add boarding, daycare, grooming or training as you offer them. Vaccination management includes automatic reminders and cloud storage for records, report cards are customizable for boarding and daycare stays with photos attached, and dashboards cover revenue, occupancy and payments. Payments run through Stripe or Square, and the company highlights geo-redundant infrastructure, two-factor authentication and GDPR compliance.

The modular model suits a facility that starts with boarding and adds daycare in year two, or a groomer adding a few overnight suites. Pricing is published: the base module is about $49.99 USD per month and the boarding module about $20 more per month as of 2026, with daycare and grooming modules priced separately and setup fees that depend on contract length; check current pricing.

A facility whose day revolves around a lodging map should run a kennel specialist as its core system, whatever our ranking says. Deelo does not assign runs, print run cards, hold a booking when Bordetella lapses, chart medications or send photo report cards. Its booking engine is built around timed appointments, not multi-night stays against a run inventory. A facility with thirty runs at holiday capacity, a daycare floor and dogs on medication schedules needs Gingr, PetExec, Kennel Connection, Revelation Pets, KennelBooker or ProPet as its core system, full stop.

Where Deelo earns its place is the layer around that core. Some facilities run a kennel system for the dogs and Deelo for the CRM, retail counter, marketing and phone, and accept keeping customer records in two places in exchange for a stronger business layer. Others are businesses where boarding is a small side line, such as a trainer with a few board-and-train dogs or a groomer with three overnight suites, and the rest of the week is appointments, retail and marketing. Before you pair anything, check what your kennel system already includes for SMS, marketing and retail, because some of that overlaps. The Deelo for pet boarding page shows the business-layer setup.