Dog Daycare Franchises: 11 Brands, Real Investment Numbers, and Who Actually Publishes Revenue
“Which dog daycare franchise” is a spending question, so here are the answers in dollars: total investment for 11 brands from each brand’s own disclosures, the fee and royalty stack side by side, and which of them publish what their locations earn. Only five of eleven do. We franchise dog training, not daycare, so no brand on this list competes with us, and we show how the two businesses compare further down.
A dog daycare franchise costs between roughly $100,000 for the one small-kennel brand and $3.9 million for the luxury-resort brand. Most established brands publish total-investment ranges between $550,000 and $1.5 million, and most ask for $250,000 to $500,000 in liquid capital before they will start the conversation. Those are the numbers that actually sort this decision, and they come from each brand’s own Franchise Disclosure Document as published on its site, read in September 2026. The harder number to find is what these businesses earn: only five of the eleven brands below publish any revenue figure at all, which is the single most useful thing to know before you wire anyone a deposit.
Where we stand: we franchise dog training businesses, not daycare, so nothing on this list competes with us and we have no reason to tilt the roster. Daycare is a different business with a different bank balance. If the capital requirements above give you pause, the comparison of a daycare franchise with a dog training franchise further down shows what a cheaper door into the dog business looks like.
The real entry-cost spread across 11 brands
Each brand’s published Item 7, read September 2026
Brands that publish any revenue figure
The rest make no Item 19 representation
Liquid capital most major brands require
Before the first conversation
Best-disclosed avg gross: 207 Camp Bow Wow locations open 24+ mo
Camp Bow Wow, 2026 FDD, Item 19
Square-foot footprint, small-format to luxury resort
Brand investment pages, 2026
U.S. pet industry spending, 2025 (up 3.7%)
APPA, March 2026 release
The 11 brands, sorted by entry cost
Sorted by the lowest published total-investment figure, cheapest first. Every number is the brand’s own published figure unless labeled "third-party FDD summary," and each row names its source and date. Two brands (Playful Pack, TailWaggers) publish no figures on their own franchise sites, so their ranges are labeled third-party. We are not on this list; we do not run a daycare.
| Brand | Total investment | Fee | Royalty / fund | Liquid / net worth | Revenue? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preppy Pet | $100,000 – under $200,000 | $19,900 – $34,500 | 6.5% / not published | $25,000+ cash or credit | No |
| Playful Pack | $286,250 – $489,000 | $60,000 | 6% / 1% fund | $65,000 liquid | No |
| Dogdrop | $302,000 – $568,000 and $356,050 – $645,410 | $12,000 (its page) | 2% / 4% fund + 2% digital | not published | No |
| The Dog Stop | $553,500 – $1,112,800 | $49,500 | 6% / 2% brand dev | $350,000 liquid · $750,000 net worth | No |
| Central Bark | $569,200 – $1,394,250 | $55,000 | 6% / 2% (or $500/mo min) | $300,000 liquid | Yes |
| Dogtopia | $664,355 – $1,478,820 | $49,500 | 7% / not published | $300,000 liquid · $1M net worth | No |
| Hounds Town USA | $667,610 – $1,122,153 | $49,000 | stepped fund: $5,000, then $4,000, then 2% | $250,000 liquid · $500,000 net worth | Yes |
| TailWaggers Doggy Daycare | $712,300 – $1,107,667 | $45,000 | 5% / 2% marketing | $500,000 net worth | No |
| All American Pet Resorts | $798,000 – $1,650,000 | $60,000 + $10,000 real estate | 7% / 2% brand dev | not published | Yes |
| Camp Bow Wow | $954,606 – $1,229,536 | $50,000 ($25,000 veterans) | not published (third-party: 7% / 1%) | $500,000 liquid · $1.2M net worth | Yes |
| K9 Resorts Luxury Pet Hotel | $2,357,802 – $3,949,331 | $49,500 + $29,500 real estate | 7% / 2% + $599/mo mktg + $260/mo tech | $750,000 liquid · $2.5M net worth | Yes |
1. Preppy Pet
$100,000 – under $200,000The only genuinely sub-$250K entry on the list, built on a low-cost kennel model with tiered plans. The trade for the low door is a more modest facility than the premium brands. Source: preppypet.com franchise page (undated); ~20 units per Entrepreneur.
2. Playful Pack
$286,250 – $489,000A newer, small system (8 locations) whose own site publishes no financials, so every figure here is a third-party FDD summary, with the fee and royalty corroborated by a second source. Source: Vetted Biz (2025 FDD summary).
3. Dogdrop
$302,000 – $568,000 and $356,050 – $645,410A live example of why you read the FDD and not the website: its franchise page shows two conflicting investment ranges, and a third-party summary lists a third entirely ($308,000 to $597,360) with a far higher $50,000 fee and 7% royalty. The small-format, daycare-only membership model is genuinely differentiated; the published numbers conflict, and only the current FDD resolves them. Source: dogdrop.co/franchise (undated); Entrepreneur (2025).
4. The Dog Stop
$553,500 – $1,112,800Full-service boarding, daycare, grooming, retail, and training across roughly 31 locations. Source: thedogstop.com franchise investment page (undated).
5. Central Bark
$569,200 – $1,394,250 Publishes: $826K AUV (2025 FDD, cohort not stated)A 44-unit, membership-driven "whole dog care" system. Its own site gives an average investment ("around $1,066,168") and the AUV but not a full range, so the range is third-party. Source: centralbarkfranchising.com (2025 FDD for the AUV); Entrepreneur for the range.
6. Dogtopia
$664,355 – $1,478,820The largest daycare-first brand on this list at nearly 300 locations, with a clean investment page (the reason AI answers cite it) and a 10% veteran fee discount, but no financial performance representation you can read without requesting the FDD. Source: dogtopia.com investment page (modified May 2026).
7. Hounds Town USA
$667,610 – $1,122,153 Publishes: $842,716 avg net revenue, 5+ yr cohort (2026 FDD)A "no-frills," lower-build-cost model founded by a former NYPD K-9 handler. Its own FAQ page still shows an older, wider range, so we cite the investment page. Source: houndstownfranchise.com investment page (2026 FDD).
8. TailWaggers Doggy Daycare
$712,300 – $1,107,667Cage-free daycare, boarding, grooming, and retail. The range is a third-party FDD summary corroborated within about $15,000 by a second source; its official site confirms the 5% royalty, 2% marketing fund, and $500,000 net worth. Its 2022 FDD made no financial performance representation. Source: Vetted Biz (2024 FDD); official site (royalty, fund, net worth).
9. All American Pet Resorts
$798,000 – $1,650,000 Publishes: $1,659,361 avg revenue, $250,411 EBITDA (2025 FDD, cohort not stated)Boarding, daycare, and grooming. Its own investment page shows a higher $1,900,000 top end than its FAQ, so the figure here is the FAQ’s. Source: allamericanpetresorts.com FAQ (2025 FDD).
10. Camp Bow Wow
$954,606 – $1,229,536 Publishes: $1,089,859.75 avg gross, 207 locations open 24+ mo (2026 FDD)A 220-plus-location system with the best-disclosed revenue on this list (top-quartile mean $1,480,842.45). It cut its investment range by more than $400,000 in 2026, which is why current figures run well below older aggregator lists. Source: campbowwow.com investment page (2026 FDD).
11. K9 Resorts Luxury Pet Hotel
$2,357,802 – $3,949,331 Publishes: $2,819,159 avg gross (2025, top-performer cohort, not an average)The most expensive and most upmarket brand on the list. Read the revenue cohort carefully: its published figures are drawn from "top franchisees" open more than four and a half years, which is a highlight reel, not a system average. Source: k9resorts.com investment page (2025 FDD).
Figures as published by each brand as of September 2026; every brand refiles its FDD annually and ranges move. "Third-party FDD summary" figures are from franchise-listing services (Vetted Biz, Entrepreneur), not the brands themselves. Where a brand’s own pages disagree with each other, we cite the page that names its FDD year.
How much does a dog daycare franchise cost, really
The sticker price is the total-investment range, and the fee stack is what you actually sign up to pay. Franchise fees on this list run from $12,000 (Dogdrop) to $60,000 (Playful Pack, All American), and two brands add a separate real-estate fee on top ($10,000 at All American, $29,500 at K9 Resorts). Royalties run 2% to 7% of gross; brand or marketing funds add another 1% to 4%, and two brands stack flat monthly charges (K9 Resorts adds $599 a month for marketing and $260 for tech). The total-investment range is mostly build-out: the more building the model needs, the higher the number, which is why the ranges climb almost perfectly with square footage from Dogdrop’s 2,400-to-3,000-square-foot small format to K9 Resorts’ 8,000-to-10,000.
One thing every range hides: working capital. Most Item 7 tables include only about three months of additional funds, and a seven-figure facility does not fill on opening day. Qualify yourself against the top of the range plus six to twelve months of operating costs, not the teaser low end. On financing, two brands publish specifics worth knowing: Dogtopia cites an SBA registry listing with "90% financing available" and a 10% veteran discount, and Camp Bow Wow halves its franchise fee for veterans, to $25,000. And distrust any list still quoting 2021 or 2022 figures: Camp Bow Wow alone cut its range by more than $400,000 in 2026, so a stale number can be off by the price of a house.
Who publishes revenue, and who does not
Five of the eleven brands publish a financial performance representation on their own site. Camp Bow Wow discloses the most usable figure: an average gross of $1,089,859.75 across 207 locations open more than two years, a cohort large and specific enough to mean something. Hounds Town publishes $842,716 in average net revenue for locations open five-plus years. Central Bark publishes an $826,000 AUV. All American publishes $1,659,361 in average annual revenue and $250,411 in EBITDA. K9 Resorts publishes the biggest numbers, $2,819,159 in gross sales and $819,431 in EBITDA, but read the fine print: that cohort is "top franchisees" open more than four and a half years, which is a highlight reel, not an average.
The other six, Preppy Pet, Playful Pack, Dogdrop, The Dog Stop, TailWaggers, and Dogtopia, publish no revenue figure on their sites. That is worth understanding correctly: a franchisor that makes no Item 19 representation is not hiding fraud, it is choosing not to make a claim it would have to stand behind, which is legal and common. Your move is the same either way. Get the full FDD, read Item 19 and its cohort definition, and call the franchisees listed in Item 20, including one who left. We publish our own numbers, in a much cheaper segment, and we think every franchisor should; but "they do not publish" is a reason to ask harder, not to walk away.
What it takes to run one
A dog daycare franchise is a real-estate business with dogs in it, and the building is the biggest bet you make. Footprints on this list run from about 2,400 square feet for the small-format brand to 10,000 for the luxury resort, and the lease you sign is a fixed cost that does not care whether attendance dipped this quarter. Site selection and zoning come before anything else; some brands coordinate the real estate for you (and charge a fee for it), which is worth more than it sounds.
Licensing is the next reality. No state licenses dog trainers, but many license the facilities that house animals, and a daycare is exactly that. Colorado’s Pet Animal Care Facilities Act, for one, requires a license and a $500 fee for any business housing more than three pet animals at once; your state may be stricter or looser, and your municipality will have its own kennel and zoning rules. Staffing is the third: attended dog care lives or dies on hiring and keeping people who can safely manage a room of forty dogs, and in the staffed pet segments, recruiting is the actual job. Models differ in ways that change all three: Dogdrop’s daycare-only membership format is deliberately small and lean, the full-service brands add boarding, grooming, and retail revenue at the cost of more building and more staff, and K9 Resorts is boarding-first luxury at the top of the cost curve. Capacity is a hard ceiling either way: your square footage sets your maximum revenue, and no marketing changes that.
Daycare vs the other pet segments
Daycare is the most facility-intensive way into the pet industry, which is worth seeing against the alternatives before you commit to a seven-figure build. The pattern is simple: entry cost tracks square footage, so the segments that need little or no building start far cheaper.
| Segment | Entry (published low end) | What you actually operate |
|---|---|---|
| Dog training | from $53,175 | No building required at launch (that’s us) |
| Pet sitting & walking | from ~$88,000 | A roster of sitters, no facility |
| Mobile grooming | from ~$65,000 | A vehicle and a route, not a lease |
| Grooming salons | from ~$328,000 | A fixed location, membership revenue |
| Dog daycare & boarding | $100,000 – $553,500+ | The most facility-intensive segment |
The takeaway is not that daycare is a bad business. It is that daycare and, say, mobile grooming are different bets: one is a building and a payroll, the other is a vehicle and a route. If the daycare model is what you want, the roster above is your shortlist. If it was the pet industry you wanted and daycare was just the first idea, the cheaper segments deserve a look first. Our full six-segment breakdown is on the best pet franchises comparison, and the non-facility dog franchises, from waste-removal routes to mobile grooming, are priced in our dog franchises comparison.
Franchise or build your own daycare?
A franchise fee buys site selection, a build-out spec that works, operating systems, and brand demand on day one; the royalty is what you pay for those forever. Building independent saves the fee and the royalty and hands you all of it to solve yourself, from the floor plan to the first hundred customers. There is no reliable public figure for what an independent daycare build costs; the business-plan sites that quote $25,000 to $140,000 are describing a bare-bones operation, not anything comparable to the franchised facilities above, and the gap between those numbers and the $300,000-plus franchise ranges is exactly the build-out and brand you would be taking on yourself.
The deciding questions are the same as in any franchise decision: do you want a proven system or a blank page, can you carry the real estate either way, and is the part you dread the operations or the marketing. If it is the marketing, that is what the royalty is really buying. The same trade-off, worked through for the training segment, is on our guide to starting a dog training business.
Dog daycare franchise vs dog training franchise
Most of the roster above asks for $250,000 to $500,000 in liquid capital before the first phone call, and the buildings run from half a million dollars to nearly four million. If you want a business built around dogs, a training franchise is the other way in. Here is how the two compare, using our own model for the training column.
| Dog daycare franchise (this roster) | Dog training franchise (Tip Top K9, that’s us) | |
|---|---|---|
| Total investment | $100,000 to $3.9 million across these 11 brands; most established brands publish $550,000 to $1.5 million. | $53,175 to $104,735 at Tip Top K9, including the $48,000 franchise fee (2026 FDD, Item 7). |
| Real estate | A 2,400 to 10,000 square-foot facility, and a lease that runs whether or not attendance does. | No lease required at a home-based launch. Add a facility when demand calls for it. |
| Staff | A floor team to supervise groups of dogs all day, every day. Recruiting and retention are the job. | Launch owner-operated. A Tip Top K9 unit does not need a 15-person staff; you add trainers as you grow. |
| Operating rhythm | Most are seven-day-a-week operations, with incident and insurance exposure from dogs in groups. | Scheduled training sessions at a home-based launch, rather than a building that must be staffed every day. |
| Who fills the calendar | Local marketing plus the brand; the building has to fill itself. | An 18-person call center answers, books, and bills, backed by brand marketing. |
| What caps revenue | Square footage. When the building is full, growth means another building. | Trainer hours. Growth comes from programs, added trainers, and eventually a facility. |
| Published revenue | 5 of 11 brands publish a figure. Best-disclosed: Camp Bow Wow, $1,089,859.75 average gross across 207 locations open 24+ months (2026 FDD). | Tip Top K9 home-based locations averaged $401,339 in 2025 gross revenue; facility-based, $735,186 (2026 FDD, Item 19).* |
Why we think training is the better first dog business for most people, and we are biased: you enter for about a tenth of a typical daycare build, you carry no lease at launch, you start without a floor staff to recruit, and a call center works on filling your calendar while you train. You also get six weeks of hands-on training at our Tulsa headquarters, ten hours a day with working dogs and paying clients, so no dog training background is required. Franchise Business Review named Tip Top K9 a Top Low-Cost Franchise in 2025 and 2026.
Gross is not profit, the cohorts differ (Camp Bow Wow counts locations open 24 months or more; ours counts locations open the full year of 2025), and all of these are historical results of specific locations, not projections. If daycare is the business you want and you clear its capital requirements, the roster above is your shortlist. If it was the dog business you wanted and daycare was the first idea, our dog training franchise guide walks the training model in full.
*Tip Top K9 gross revenue figures are for locations open the full year of 2025, per the 2026 FDD, Item 19; investment range per Item 7. Not a projection of individual results. See the FDD for the only approved financial performance representations. Competitor figures are each brand’s own published disclosures as of September 2026 and change with each FDD cycle. (2025 results · 2026 disclosure)
The downsides of daycare ownership
The lease does not care about attendance.
A seven-figure build-out carries a mortgage-scale fixed cost from the day you sign, and daycare demand softens with the local economy and the weather.
Staffing is relentless.
You are hiring, training, and replacing people who handle other people’s dogs all day, and turnover in the role is high. In staffed pet segments, recruiting is the actual job.
Capacity is a hard ceiling.
Your square footage sets your maximum revenue. Once the building is full, the only way to grow is another building.
Incidents are their own category of risk.
Forty dogs in a room means the occasional fight, injury, or escape, and the insurance and reputation exposure that come with it. Most of these are seven-day-a-week operations.
The franchise layer adds its own.
Royalties on every dollar you generate, a territory with edges, standards you did not write, and, for six of the eleven brands here, no published revenue figure to tell you what you are buying into.
None of this makes daycare a bad business. It makes it a real one, and the brands worth your money are the ones that do not pretend otherwise.
Due-diligence checklist
Read Item 7 for the investment range and Item 6 for the fees.
Read Item 19 for revenue, and read the cohort definition sitting next to it.
Read Item 20 for openings, closures, and transfers, then call at least five franchisees from that list, including one who left.
Read Item 21 for the franchisor’s own financial health.
Get a local commercial real-estate broker’s build-out estimate for your metro before you believe any national range.
Confirm your state’s pet-care facility license and your city’s zoning before you sign a lease.
Dog daycare franchise FAQ
How much does a dog daycare franchise cost?
How profitable is a dog daycare franchise?
How much do Dogtopia owners make?
Are dog daycares worth it?
What is the cheapest dog daycare franchise?
What do Tip Top K9 franchises cost and gross?
If a $53,000 dog business fits better than a $1 million one, here are our numbers.
We do not run a daycare, so we will not pretend to sell you one. If a daycare’s capital requirements stopped you and a training business fits, request the packet and put our Item 7 and Item 19 next to anything you are weighing.