Mad Paws Reviews 

Had a great experience with MadPaws last Christmas (only just created a trustpilot account), we had a last minute get together at our friends and planned to stay the night. Booked a sitter and they provided regular updates, overall good experience.

The sitters do just enough on a short term stay to convince you to book again but then weeks out from your overseas booking, that you have had with the sitter (sudden vague reason and cancellation). It forces you to scrape the bottom of the barrel, invite someone into your home at a higher premium and then of course you have no idea what they are going to do. There are several instances where sitters offer a service only to find out that they dont really provide the service. Like pet sitting is overnighting with the pets at your residence but then some sitters offer that in their profile but tell you they can't do it. Then you have sitters that try to make out that they are confused about things only to find out that they are trying to double and triple stack bookings and work around system constraints. To say I am livered that a 2 week booking that is a repeat booking with a sitter that did a short stay with my pets, that suddenly cancels a couple of weeks out - is an understatement and quite frankly unacceptable. Dont believe the fluff and advertising.

Couldn't get booked in.
Was declined without a reason.

Very friendly and everso helpful, and quick to respond to my query. Awesome!

Good concept poor implementation.
As a repeated pet sitter, minding and pampering the pet is easy. Keeping the oner happy is easy.
But getting paid from MadPaws sours the experience.
For such high fees, the level of customer service and battles to get paid, despite good reviews is absolutely not acceptable.
Zero Communications from Support, they just continually cancel payment.

The site has a a good idea/concept, but needs alot of work and refining to make it more appropriate practically.

The biggest issue is that the pricing model is terrible and deceiving. The payment the app shows as final is never the amount you are getting in your account. As a sitter, there is no breakdown of the payments (ie holiday season surcharge, long stay discount, the fee MP is taking). Not to mention, after speaking to many of the dog owners, the double dipping Madpaws is doing. They take 20% of the sitter fees + 10% of the owners' fee. However, we are still not sure what this is for or what this is covering? If you read the MP T&Cs there is no insurance or cover of any sort to cover damages (physical or death) to the sitter, sitter's home or the pet. The only insurance mentioned is to cover "public liability".

Another major issue is the single pricing option for all dogs, regardless of size or needs. Large dogs, for instance, often require more maintenance, exercise, and cleaning—especially if they shed a lot or slobber. In contrast, smaller dogs need less of these things. It doesn’t quite make sense to charge the same amount for both, considering the differences in care required. This is something that should have been factored into the user experience design.

Finally, the lack of reviews for dogs and their owners. Currently, only carers can be reviewed, which makes it hard to get a full picture of what you’re signing up for.

From my ongoing experience with Mad Paws, it can be quite unpredictable how a dog will behave or how transparent their owner is about the dog's level of training and needed care. The meet-and-greet isn’t always enough to fully understand a dog’s behavior or the level of discipline and training they’ve received. We've encountered issues such as dogs crying throughout the day and night unless they're right next to you or on in bed with you, being unable to be left alone, barking throughout the night, and accidents inside the house. Many owners are not as transparent or knowledgeable about their pet’s training and care, which can make looking after their dog more challenging.

Introducing tiered pricing based on the size and needs of dogs and allowing reviews for both dogs and their owners would significantly enhance the experience for everyone involved. And the way pricing works needs to be reviewed ASAP

I have to say at this point that my experience of MadPaws has been very hit and miss, with only one success and two abject failures.

The first booking I tried to make was accepted, confirmed and paid-for. But the sitter who accepted the booking never replied to a single message, phone call or text message after accepting the booking.

The second (who was back up to the aforementioned first; stepping in at the very last minute) was hugely successful; looked after my dog with fantastic care and at very reasonable rate on five or six occasions in the past eight months. I’m just very sorry that they moved away from the area.

The third was when I started looking for a replacement for the second sitter. I found two suitable possibilities and just happened to meet-and-greet one before the other. Despite being considerably more expensive than the other, we agreed to have a first try. Then at the very last minute, without warning without reason, this sitter raised her advertised daily rate by $15/day.
When I complained to Madpaws about price gouging and false advertising by this sitter, they stated that the sitter was perfectly within their rights to do this and advertised prices are there as a guide only.

THIS NEEDS TO BE MADE VERY CLEAR ON THE MADPAWS WEBSITE.

They also refused my request to accept and display a one-star rated review of my experience with this sitter.

This third debacle of an experience makes a one in three hit rate of my experience with the MadPaws website. Not exactly a roaring success, is it?
Potential users of the site need to be made more aware of these types of failures before putting their faith in such unreliability. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the bias of the site leans towards the interests and profits of the pet sitters and certainly NOT the pet owners.

Patricia was very helpful and prompt and I find Mad paws a great place as a pet sitter. :-)

Our pet sitter Maina has been amazing from the first visit to going extra mile to send me pictures of my babies when I was overseas and unable to access the website.

The customer service was also amazing and screenshotting all messages from Marina to reassure me them comfort.

I was and still am very grateful for their help.
Thank you 😺😺😺🥰

Bronte is a lovely person and Audrey enjoys her walks :)

Mad Paws is not just a platform for pet services; it’s a platform willing to take your ideas and potentially leave you in the dark. My experience with Mad Paws has left me deeply disappointed and frustrated. Despite pouring my heart and soul into the interview process and sharing my ideas, I’ve seen my concepts implemented without credit or acknowledgment. It’s disheartening to witness my ideas brought to life by the company, only to be left out of the equation.

To add insult to injury, neither the CEO nor the employee responded to my email seeking clarification on why I wasn’t deemed sufficient for employment. Instead, I received a rejection letter expressing their delight in taking my ideas while neglecting to offer me a position. This blatant disregard for decency is appalling. My ideas exactly happened the very next day and even a month later, which made me sick to my stomach. This business survives by taking ideas from people who have a lot of passion in their hearts and are truly part of the pet community. Unfortunately, Mad Paws is not part of the pet community; they’re there to take your money and your ideas without caring about you.

It’s so funny how the interview was said, I “missed Mark on a few call questions”; however, these were the questions that they asked, and here are my thoughts:

Question 1: How would you go about setting standards for Pet Sitters to ensure the quality of service they deliver is great and their behaviour is in line with what the business needs?
My thoughts now: It’s ironic they ask this when they can’t meet these standards themselves. I can understand why they’re really struggling in this area because this is the way they treat you.

Question 2: How would you tackle the issue of Pet Sitters not reading the exclusions in the public liability insurance, resulting in dismissals of cases and frustrations on public forums?
My thoughts now: They talk about building trust, yet they haven’t even gained trust from their contractors and clients in the first place. How can they expect cooperation on matters like public liability insurance with such a glaring lack of trust and transparency?

Question 3: How would you validate if our Pet Sitters feel heard and an integral part of the larger group, and what initial steps would you take to make them feel that way?
My thoughts now: They inquire about making Pet Sitters feel like a part of the team, yet my experience of receiving no response whatsoever from the interviewer or the CEO speaks volumes. I can understand why they’re really struggling in this area because this is the way they treat you. Their silence is the answer.

Mad Paws claims they want to build trust, encourage teamwork, and make their contractors feel like an integral part of the team. However, this is how they treat you. If I can save your time by sharing my experience, here it is: Don’t waste your time with Mad Paws. They will take your ideas and possibly employ their mates instead. Their silence is the real answer to how they operate.

I have been waiting for a response for a little over a month now, and I’ve still heard nothing. This doesn’t sit well with me, as it reflects another company that sweeps things under the rug—something I definitely do not want to be a part of.

Out of courtesy and respect, I have decided to block out the names because I don’t feel like it is the employees’ fault. At the end of the day, it always starts from the top. If I can’t even get a response from the CEO, despite the website encouraging direct contact, it clearly shows the company’s true colours.

I thought honestly I would get a response from the CEO. I have been very keen on working with this company for a long time, but now I’ve been completely put off.

I can't pay with a VISA DEBIT card. You have alternate payment methods, why coerce naive, elderly to accommodate you. I requested a link to your payment terms that were offered after complaining about inability to access credit card, Pay Pay or 7 days advance debit transfer. Kind of poor form... inconvenience to elderly and vision impaired and disengenuous when your terms are not transparent.

I've been sitting for Madpaws for around 16 months now. It is a more expensive platform than other commensurate platforms however its user experience is far superior.

I haven't had any issues with Madpaws so far and I have done around 10 jobs for them for the current financial year. In the few times that I've needed support, they are responsive and usually helpful. I have had very poor experiences with other platforms in comparison with issues around timely payments and lack of backup and support when things go wrong (i.e. caring for a dog which was not housetrained despite being described as such).

The Madpaws platform is by no means perfect, and they do take a big percentage of the total fee for not much in exchange, but you can tell that they really do their best to develop the platform and improve it. I get the vast majority of my pet sitting jobs through Madpaws.

My elderly cat needed to be euthanised before booking. I never expected the possibility when I booked. I received a full refund promptly with words of sympathy from Madpaws.
Thank you!

Good communcation. Gemma, the sitter was lovely and looked after our two girls well.

Cancellation of booking
The issue was followed up and resolved quickly

Mad Paws is very responsive on live chat. All my questions have been promptly answered and all the resources I need to begin my Pet Sitting role very helpful.

Madpaws have a good customer service with their petsitter, furthernore the app is awesome and reliable. Thanks for have a great service. 🐱🐶🐣

There were some places where we had to answer questions. The website gave more detailed knowledge on why an answer was right or wrong