PetGroomBossPro Blog — Online Booking & Quotes

Quoting Giant Breeds: Pricing Great Danes, Newfoundlands and Big Doodles

A Great Dane in a grooming van is a different job than a Yorkie. So is a Newfoundland, a Saint Bernard, a Great Pyrenees or a doodle that turned out much bigger than anyone expected. Giant breeds take more time, more product and more of your day. Quoting them well is mostly about making sure that time is paid for.

Giant Is Its Own Size

Matted dogs, covered in Quoting a Matted Dog: Setting Expectations Before the Van Arrives, change the price because of the coat. Giant breeds change it because of sheer size.

PetGroomBossPro has five sizes on every pet and on the booking page: Toy, Small, Medium, Large and Giant. Giant is there so the biggest dogs do not get priced like a Lab. On the booking page, each pet is priced as the service base plus the add-on for its size, so the Giant add-on is how big dogs get their own price.

Option One: A Real Giant Add-On

The simplest approach is to set a Giant size add-on that reflects how much longer a giant breed takes than your base dog. With made-up numbers for a groomer's own services, if a full groom on a Small dog is $85 and a Large is +$30, a Giant might be noticeably more than Large rather than a small step above it.

Because size add-ons apply across services, check that your Giant add-on makes sense for a bath & brush as well as a full groom. A Giant bath & brush on a short-coated Great Dane and a Giant full groom on a Newfoundland are very different jobs. If one Giant add-on cannot cover both, consider option two for the heavier one.

Option Two: Quote Giants by Estimate

Some groomers prefer not to give an instant price for giant breeds at all. They use the note under the price to say so, such as “Giant breeds and heavy coats are confirmed by quote,” and then send an estimate when a Giant booking comes in.

An estimate lets you price the specific dog: a short-coated Dane at one price, a Newfie with a full double coat at another, with de-shedding included where it makes sense. Build it from your service list, describe what it covers, and send it. The customer approves it online and the approved estimate becomes the job. More on that in Building Grooming Estimates From Your Service List.

Check the Size on Every Big-Dog Request

Customers do not always pick Giant when they should. Owners of a very large dog sometimes choose Large because it sounds less dramatic. Every request in Leads includes the breed, so look for mismatches: a Great Pyrenees, a Bernese or a big doodle marked Large or Medium. Ask on the confirmation call. “Roughly how much does Bear weigh?” is a normal question that customers do not mind.

Once booked, update the size on the pet if needed. Size is saved on each pet at that home, and the next visit fills in from the last one.

Plan the Day Around Giants

A giant breed affects your schedule as much as your price. A Newfoundland full groom can fill a big block of your day. When you confirm the time for a giant breed request, think about where it fits:

• Earlier in the day, while you have energy, can make sense for the biggest jobs.
• Fewer stops that day. Do not stack three Giants on one route.
• The right van. If you run more than one van, assign giant breeds to the van and team best set up for them; a groomer and a bather can share a van.

Appointment times show on every card in the groomer app and on the Scheduled list, so the day is planned around the real length of each groom.

Giants on a Repeat Schedule

Giant breed owners who find a mobile groomer they like tend to want to keep them. Big dogs are hard to get into a car and hard to handle in a busy salon. Offer a repeat schedule, with your frequency discount if you have one, and set it up with Add Recurring Grooming on the same weekday, time and van. Every visit is written up front and waits on Pending Jobs until you confirm it.

Keep the notes line useful: the cut, the behavior, and anything about the van setup the next groomer should know. For all of the booking and quoting tools, visit the pet grooming booking software page.