Who’s Really Getting Paid? The Truth About Dog Field Booking Systems, Passes and Directories

Posted on by
Who’s Really Getting Paid? The Truth About Dog Field Booking Systems, Passes and Directories

‘No Setup Fees, No Subscription, No Problem.’ Really?

If you don’t know exactly how your booking system makes its money, it’s making that money out of you.

  • No setup fees!
  • No monthly subscription!
  • No commission (apparently)!
  • Pay nothing until you get bookings!

But hang on:

  • Where do they actually make their money?
  • If there’s ‘no setup fee’, who’s paying for the setup?
  • If there’s ‘no subscription’, where’s the ongoing revenue coming from?
  • If you’re ‘keeping 100% of your booking fee’, what’s your customer paying on top?
  • Who owns the customer data – you or The Mysterious Platform?
  • When GDPR rules or ICO guidance change, who updates what?
  • If their system goes down on a Saturday morning, what’s the disaster plan?
  • What contract periods are you committed to?
  • And if your field becomes reliant on this one bit of tech, what happens when they pivot, sell, or vanish?

Let’s talk about booking systems, passes, ‘free’ directories – and why a beautifully simple local business (renting out a fenced field by the hour) is being turned into someone else’s tech play.

The Social Dilemma Problem (In Dog Field Clothing)

In Netflix’s The Social Dilemma (if you haven’t watched it, you must!), Silicon Valley insiders spell out how ‘free’ platforms actually work: if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product – your time, your data and your behaviour are what’s being sold.

Swap ‘social media user’ for dog field owner or dog field customer and the pattern looks uncomfortably familiar:

  • ‘No setup fees!’
  • ‘No monthly subscription!’
  • ‘We only make money when you get bookings!’
  • ‘We just charge a small fee to the user / take a tiny margin on credits.’

It feels modern, clever, risk-free.

It also quietly rewires who controls your pricing, your data and your relationship with your own customers.

Three Main Models You’re Being Sold (Without the Fluff)

Forget logos and colour schemes. Look at how the money moves.

1. Old-School, Boring Booking Software (The Useful Kind)

  • You pay: a clear monthly fee or subscription and someone to set it up – or you do it yourself
  • Your customer: books you directly via your site or a link.
  • Revenue model: dull and obvious – they make money from your subscription.
  • Data: you keep the customer relationship and mailing list.

This is the ‘SaaS’ crowd and some bespoke setups. They’re not perfect, but at least you can see the cost, budget for it, and walk away if you don’t like it.

2. ‘No Monthly Fee – We’ll Just Add a Little Something to Each Booking’

  • You pay: either nothing upfront, or a token amount.
  • Your customer: pays extra on top of your normal session fee.
  • Revenue model: fees, surcharges, ‘service charges’, per-booking skims.
  • Data: often shared; heavily used for the platform’s own marketing.

The pitch usually sounds like:

‘You can have a professional booking system with no setup cost and no monthly fee. We only add a tiny fee to each reservation, paid by the customer.’

Which sounds harmless, until you realise:

  • That ‘tiny fee’ appears on every booking, forever.
  • It changes the price your customer pays for your field.
  • Over time, it often ends up costing more than just… paying for normal software.

3. Passes, Credits and ‘Network’ Models

  • You pay: usually nothing up front.
  • Your customer: buys a pass, credits or membership from the platform, not from you.
  • Revenue model: the platform takes a margin between what the customer pays and what you’re paid.
  • Data: fully controlled by the pass provider.

Here, your field becomes one tile in a national ‘network’:

  • Customers become loyal to the pass, not to your field.
  • The platform decides how many credits / what value a session at your field is ‘worth’.
  • They can change margins, prices and rules at any time.

You’re not their client. You’re their inventory.

The Summer Experiment That Made the Numbers Obvious

We’ve been meaning to tackle this for a few years because it’s one of the questions we get asked a lot. But before we wrote about it, we wanted to properly test a few of these systems, compare the costs and benefits, and make sure we knew what we were talking about – not just publish a long-form rant based on instinct.

In this example, we compared two options for a busy dog field over a summer month using real data:

Option A: ‘Boring’ Subscription Booking System

  • Premium plan with a fixed monthly fee.
  • Cost to the field: £55 for the month paid annually
  • No extra charges slapped on top of the field’s own prices.
  • Customers saw the price the field set, and paid exactly that (which includes normal card processing and taxes).

Option B: ‘No Setup Fee, No Subscription, We Only Charge When You Get Bookings’

  • No upfront cost.
  • Fees split between the dog field and the customer on every booking.
  • Big selling point:

    ‘You’re not paying anything upfront for a booking system; we only earn when you do.’

Same field.
Same demand.
Same month.

When we added the numbers up for that month’s bookings:

  • Subscription system: £55
  • ‘No setup cost’ system: £138

More than double.

Some of that £138 came from the field’s share of the fees.
The rest came from extra charges bolted onto the customer’s booking, which included VAT, which this dog field doesn’t have to charge when customers book directly as they haven’t reached the VAT threshold.

All of it came out of the dog field’s ecosystem.

And here’s the important bit:

The ‘no upfront cost’ option was more expensive every single month.
That cost doesn’t flatten out – it grows with your success.

Upfront cost avoided.
Permanent cost baked in.

This was a system that is currently actively pitching to dog field owners and showed the most dramatic impact on dog field owners. The other options tested directly impact the dog field users who end up paying more for the exact same thing.  

‘Free Setup’ vs ‘Renting the Latch Forever’

This is the psychological sleight of hand:

  • Paying £500-£1000 to get a booking system set up feels painful, especially pre-launch.
  • Paying £30-£70/month feels like a commitment.
  • Seeing ‘£0 setup / £0 monthly’ feels safe and clever.

But:

  • A one-off setup or a transparent subscription is bounded. You can see it, compare it, and stop it.
  • Per-booking skim, customer fees or hidden margins are unbounded. The more you succeed, the more expensive they become.

It’s the difference between:

  • Buying a decent field gate once, or
  • Renting the latch forever at 50p every time someone opens it.

One is an investment.
The other is a sneaky little tax on being busy.

Directory Today, Booking Platform Tomorrow

There’s another flavour of this story that deserves daylight.

Some outfits present themselves as:

‘We’re just building a free directory of secure dog fields so owners can find you more easily.’

Lovely. Free listing, a bit of visibility, everyone wins.

Then, buried in the business ambitions, pitch deck or terms and conditions, you find something like:

  • ‘Find and, in future, book secure private dog fields across the UK.’
  • ‘Directory, with booking and subscription payments.’

The playbook looks roughly like this:

  1. Phase 1: Directory
    • Get as many fields listed as possible. (scraped using AI tools – we know this because we have invisible markers on our system that can easily be traced when people scrape the data and content on our website)
    • Train dog owners to search this directory when they want somewhere to go.
  2. Phase 2: Switch on booking and payments and recruit ‘founders’
    • Insert fees, passes, credits, bundles.
    • Own the customer relationship and payment flow.
    • Start monetising every booking that passes through the system.

If they’re upfront about that plan, fine. At least you can make an informed decision.

Where it gets uncomfortable is when:

  • The directory is marketed like a neutral, community-minded listing.
  • The monetisation plan is vague, hidden or ‘TBA’.
  • Opting out later means losing most of the visibility you’ve helped them build.
  • You and your field are the content that makes the directory useful. Later, your customers become the revenue stream.

That’s not ‘supporting dog fields’; that’s using dog fields to build a platform business.

When ‘Fully Booked’ Secretly Means ‘Go Somewhere Else’

Here’s one behaviour we’ve seen – it’s  wild and I simply can’t believe that field owners using this system know that this happens:

  • A customer tries to book at your field for a specific time.
  • That slot is unavailable (because you’re well established and full for that popular slot).
  • Instead of showing the next available time at your field, the system:
    • Searches other fields on the platform with availability around that time.
    • Automatically suggests or redirects the customer to those alternative fields.
    • Presents it as being ‘helpful’ – ‘Hey, here’s somewhere else you can go!’

From the platform’s point of view:

  • Their priority is keeping the booking on the platform, not with you specifically.
  • If you’re full, they don’t want the customer to leave and go to Google – they want to sell them someone’s field.
  • Any field on the network will do because their cash comes form ‘any’ booking

From your point of view:

  • A loyal customer comes to your site or profile.
  • Tries to book you.
  • Instead of being nudged to your next available session, they’re actively steered towards a competitor down the road.

Magic.

How a booking system should work for a local business:

  • If a slot is unavailable, the system shows the next available session at that field.
  • Your customer came to you for a reason; the software respects that.
  • If they want to go off and compare other fields, that’s their choice – not something your booking system engineers behind your back.

Some systems will literally send your customers to another field the second you’re full. Great for them. Absolutely rubbish for your customer loyalty and even worse for dog field owners as a community that needs to support one another.

‘But These People Are Trying to Help, Aren’t They?’

A lot of the new entrants into the dog field world aren’t villains. They’re often:

  • Tech people who’ve discovered secure dog fields and think, ‘We can make this slicker.’
  • Entrepreneurs who see a fast-growing niche and want to be ‘the platform’ that sits in the middle.
  • Nice enough humans who’ve never had to unlock a frozen padlock at 6am in February.

We see this in other areas too:

  • Fencing products claiming to be ‘just as good’ as a more expensive (and better developed) alternative
  • ‘Agility’ and enrichment equipment that looks cute on Instagram and is structurally appalling, riddled with hazards and made of inappropriate materials
  • Access and security gadgets – gate systems, keypads, smart locks, ANPR-style setups, contactless entry solutions that look clever on a sales page but aren’t designed around remote locations, ‘the general public’ (you know what I mean by this) and hourly use, 365 days a year.

Most of it is well-intentioned. Some of it is useful.

Right now though, the most structurally risky stuff for field owners is in bookings, passes and payment layers, because that’s where:

  • your customers enter
  • your money flows
  • your data lives

If someone else owns those three pipes, they effectively own your business model, even if your name is still on the gate.

What We Look For Before We Recommend Anything

This isn’t an anti-tech screed.

We actively help people set up booking systems for secure dog fields – but not because we want to – because, like dealing with dog waste, it’s an important part of the dog field ecosystem.

Because we live in this world full-time, we:

  • Constantly review new booking tools, passes and directories.
  • Get approached by a lot of ‘we’ve built something amazing for dog fields’ outfits.
  • Run experiments (like the summer comparison above) to see what they actually cost and whether they’ve got any value

We also ask questions that most field owners either don’t know to ask, or don’t have time for, such as:

1. What happens when the market shifts?

  • If people start using fields differently – shorter sessions, more memberships, different types of bookings, multi-dog households – can the system bend without breaking?
  • Will they support changes in the industry and how quickly can they react and adapt?

2. GDPR, consent and ICO-style questions

  • Who is the data controller for customer information?
  • How are consent and data rights handled?
  • Are customers’ details being used just for bookings, or also for the platform’s own marketing and partners?
  • How do they handle subject access requests, deletion requests, and security?

3. Data access and portability

  • Can you easily export your customer list and booking history?
  • If you leave, can you take that data with you without paying extra or at all?
  • Are there any nasty surprises in the small print about who ‘owns’ the relationship?

4. Disaster management

  • What happens when – not if – the system breaks?
  • Is there a status page? Backups? Real support?
  • Have they had serious outages, and how did they handle them?

5. Business model honesty

  • Where, exactly, does their revenue come from?
  • Can they change fees or payout terms whenever they like?
  • Do their worked examples and ‘how it works’ diagrams actually add up?

We also look at something simple but important: do their incentives align with yours?

  • A system designed to serve your field should help keep bookings with your field.
  • A system designed to serve a network of fields is incentivised to keep bookings on the network, even if that means passing ‘your’ customers to a competitor.

Those are not the same thing.

Why We Currently Use (and Recommend) a Subscription-Based System

Just to be completely transparent about our own setup:

  • We currently use and recommend a subscription-based booking system
  • It’s not UK-based. That bothers some people more than it bothers us.
  • We’ve stuck with it for years not because it’s perfect, but because:
    1. It has coped well with the weird reality of dog field usage.
    2. It has handled misfires and outages like adults.
    3. The value, flexibility and reliability have beaten ALL the UK-based options we’ve tested so far.

We have been criticised for not using a UK provider.

Here’s our position:

When it comes to your business, you are absolutely entitled to use an overseas supplier if they are better value, more robust, and offer a better service. 

Until there is a UK-based alternative that clearly wins on those fronts, ‘patriotic’ tech buying is not a sensible strategy.

Our loyalty is not to a brand. It’s to field owners having:

  • control
  • clarity
  • resilience

And when something better comes along on those fronts, we’ll change our advice.

Hang On, Don’t You Run a Directory Too?

By this point you might be thinking something along the lines of:

“Isn’t this all a bit rich coming from British Dog Fields – you literally run a directory.”

Fair.

So let’s be really clear about what our directory is and isn’t.

When we started the BDF directory, the goal wasn’t “let’s build a platform business and then monetise the hell out of it later.” It was much simpler:

  • Help dog field users find reliable, accurate information about fields.
  • Help good operators stand out from the random ‘field on Facebook that might actually be a turnip patch’ crowd.

Yes, the directory is now part of a commercial ecosystem. We are a larger operation than we could ever have imagined, and we do monetise our work. But the way we monetise it is:

  • 100% transparent – through consultancy, membership, and services that help people create and run better dog fields.
  • Not via skims on your bookings or selling your data.
  • Not by quietly flipping the directory into a mandatory booking route and then charging everyone to access the customers they helped bring in.

We also do help people set up dog field booking sites – but:

  • It’s by request, not something we aggressively market as our main ‘product’.
  • It’s usually part of a bigger piece of work (planning, launch, business setup), not a random bolt-on.
  • The question we’re always asking is: What’s the simplest, most robust, best-value setup for this field, with this owner, in this market?

In other words:

  • The BDF directory exists to point people at fields, not to sit between fields and their customers and skim value forever.
  • The booking set-up work exists to give owners control, not to take it away and hand it to us or some third-party app.

If that ever changes, you should absolutely call us hypocrites. For now, the entire point of this article is to make sure you understand the difference between:

  • tools and services that support your business, and
  • platforms that quietly become your business.

We’re firmly trying to live in the first camp.

So What Should a Dog Field Owner Actually Do?

Let’s strip it down.

1. Be suspicious of ‘no setup / no subscription / no commission’ bundles

Not paranoid, just healthily sceptical.

Ask:

  • Where exactly does your revenue come from?
  • How much will my customers be paying in total to book my field?
  • Can I see a real month’s example for a field like mine – with actual numbers?

If the answers are vague, defensive, or the maths stinks, you’ve learned something important.

2. Accept that some set-up cost is normal and healthy

A simple, well-chosen booking system:

  • Does not need to cost the earth.
  • Might require a one-off set-up, or a bit of paid help to configure it.
  • Usually pays for itself quickly in reduced admin and fewer ‘Can I just…?’ messages.

Better to pay for a gate you understand than rent a mystery latch forever.

3. Keep the relationship with your customers

Whatever system you use, make sure:

  • Customers know they’re booking your field, with your rules.
  • You can collect and manage email consent so you can contact them directly.
  • Your own website or profile remains the ‘home base’ for information and updates.

A sensible tech stack should help people get to your gate, not replace your gate with an app

4. Know what your booking system does when you’re full

Ask your provider directly:

  • ‘If someone tries to book my field and that slot is unavailable, what happens next?’
  • ‘Do you ever suggest or redirect them to other fields on your network?’

If the answer is anything other than ‘we show them the next available slot at your field and stop there’, think very carefully about who that setup is really designed to serve.

Key Points (If You Didn’t Read the Whole Thing)

  1. ‘No setup fees’ and ‘no subscription’ are not gifts.
     They’re red flags that the fees are hiding somewhere else – usually in per-booking skims or extra charges to your customers that never go away.
  2. We tested the ‘no upfront cost’ promise and it lost.
    In one real-world summer comparison, the pay-per-booking system cost 
  3. More than double the straightforward subscription system for the same field and same month.
  4. Directories often grow into booking platforms.
    That’s not automatically bad, but if they’re not upfront about it, you risk building their platform for them – then paying to access the customers you brought in.
  5. Some systems will literally send your customers to another field the second you’re full.
    Instead of showing the next available slot at your field, they redirect people to other parks on their network to ‘keep the booking’. Great for them, awful for your customer loyalty.
  6. Whoever controls bookings, payments and data has leverage over your business.
    That’s why we interrogate providers on GDPR, data access, resilience and incentives – and why you should, too.
  7. We’re not anti-tech. We’re anti-fog.
    There are perfectly good, boring booking tools with clear pricing and honest limitations. The danger lies in clever-sounding models that look risk-free, but cost you and your customers more, forever.

You are a local business for local people.

You do not need to become inventory in someone else’s app to run a brilliant, profitable dog field.