Guide
Forget the forty-page template. A boarding plan turns on four numbers, and the one that decides everything is occupancy rather than nightly rate.
If you're borrowing, your lender will want a formal document and will usually supply a template. If you're self-funding, you need something much shorter that answers one question honestly: at what occupancy does this pay me a living, and is that occupancy realistic in my area?
That's a page. Here's what goes on it.
1. Kennel count. How many dogs you can legally and comfortably hold. Legally matters — your licensed capacity is a hard ceiling, not a target to exceed at Christmas.
2. Average nightly rate. Not your headline rate. The blend across standard runs, larger suites, multi-dog discounts and any peak pricing.
3. Average annual occupancy. The number people guess at and get wrong. Not your holiday-week occupancy, and not a hopeful round figure — a realistic average across a full year including February.
4. Fixed monthly cost. Mortgage or rent, insurance, utilities, license, software, and the staffing you need even when half-empty. This is what you owe in a week where nobody boards.
Multiply the first three and the structure of the business becomes obvious.
Twenty kennels × 365 nights = 7,300 kennel-nights a year. At $55 a night that's $401,500 if every single one sold — which it won't, but it sets the ceiling. And it means each percentage point of average occupancy is worth about $4,015 a year.
| Average occupancy | Annual revenue | vs 50% |
|---|---|---|
| 50% | $200,750 | — |
| 65% | $260,975 | +$60,225 |
| 80% | $321,200 | +$120,450 |
Now compare that with a rate rise. Going from $55 to $60 — a 9% increase your clients will notice — is worth about $32,850 at 65% occupancy. Moving occupancy from 65% to 80% is worth nearly twice as much and nobody has to agree to it.
That's the difference between boarding and a service business. A groomer sells hours and can price each one higher. You sell nights, you can't make more of them, and the ones you don't sell are gone.
Pro tipModel occupancy at three levels — pessimistic, expected and good — and check the business survives the pessimistic one. Most failed boarding plans aren't wrong about the rate. They're wrong about how full the building will be in year one.
Break-even occupancy = fixed monthly costs ÷ (kennels × 30.4 × nightly rate)
Twenty kennels, $55 a night, $9,000 a month of fixed costs:
That's the number to know before you sign anything. It converts an abstract mortgage into a concrete question: can I keep this building 27% full in February?
Run it again with the facility you're actually considering. If a bigger build pushes break-even past about 50%, you're betting the business on holiday demand — which is exactly the bet that fails in a quiet year.
Boarding revenue is not a flat line, and a plan that models it as one will look wrong to you within months.
The shape is roughly: heavy peaks at Christmas, Thanksgiving and summer vacation; reliable secondary bumps at spring break and long weekends; and genuinely quiet stretches in January–February and often September.
Three things follow, and they belong in the plan:
Lenders want the same numbers with more support: personal financial statement, month-by-month cash flow for year one, evidence of relevant experience, and the zoning position and license status. That last one matters more here than in most trades — a lender that understands boarding knows zoning can stop the project, and will ask.
Model the ramp honestly. Occupancy builds over a year or two, and a flat projection makes your real early months look like failure against your own plan.
Answer four numbers: kennel count, average nightly rate, realistic average annual occupancy, and fixed monthly costs. From those, calculate break-even occupancy. Add who your clients specifically are, your rate card, a month-by-month seasonality assumption, startup costs including working capital, and an occupancy floor that would make you stop. That's one page, and it's enough unless a lender wants their own format.
Plan on an average across the whole year rather than your holiday weeks, and model three cases — pessimistic, expected and good — checking the business survives the pessimistic one. The arithmetic that matters: twenty kennels at $55 a night is 7,300 kennel-nights or about $401,500 at full occupancy, so each percentage point of average occupancy is worth roughly $4,015 a year.
Divide fixed monthly costs by monthly capacity revenue, where capacity is kennels × 30.4 nights × nightly rate. Twenty kennels at $55 with $9,000 of monthly fixed costs gives 608 kennel-nights, $33,440 at full occupancy, and a break-even of about 27%. If a larger build pushes break-even past roughly 50%, you're betting the business on holiday demand.
Occupancy, by a wide margin. At twenty kennels and $55 a night, moving average occupancy from 65% to 80% is worth about $60,000 a year, while a $5 rate rise is worth around $32,850 — and the rate rise requires every client to accept it. Unsold nights are permanently lost, which is why filling quiet weeks beats optimizing peak ones.
Very. Expect heavy peaks at Christmas, Thanksgiving and summer, secondary bumps at spring break and long weekends, and quiet stretches in January–February and often September. Budget the troughs out of the peaks, price scarce peak inventory accordingly with deposits and minimum stays, and treat filling the quiet weeks as your main growth opportunity.
Three to six months of fixed costs on top of the build. Occupancy takes time to establish, the first year rarely hits your steady-state assumption, and the seasonal shape means a badly timed opening can put your first quiet quarter before your first peak.
Track occupancy, bookings and deposits from day one.
See the boarding software