5 ways to make money with your pet

Nadia Krige 20th Feb 2020 6 Comments

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Have you ever looked at your pet and just wished they could contribute to the household income in one way or another? Let’s be honest, our dogs and cats have it made. We fuss them, feed them, and clean up after them.

But having pets is expensive, all that pet food, vet visits, toys, accessories and treats you buy them (hopefully healthy treats!) can add up. Not to mention all the shoes, tables and furniture they destroy!

Well, there are actually a few ways you and your furry friend can make some extra cash!

Here are a few ideas:

Help pet-focused companies with market research
Make your pet Insta-famous
Share your pet knowledge with others
Sell photos of your pet to stock photo galleries
Include other people’s pets in activities you’d do with yours
Discover more money-making tips

Help pet companies with market research

Just like every other industry, pet-focused companies need to know as much as possible about their target market to deliver good products.

Of course, since your pet’s ability to provide feedback is limited, you can step in and be their voice. An easy way of doing this is filling in paid online surveys focused specifically on pet products.

The best way to go about this is to sign up for survey sites, such as S wagbucks, LifePoints and Nielsen Panel.

The money isn’t enough to live on and it won’t provide you with a steady income, but paid surveys are a great way to make some cash with very little effort. You could make in excess of £50 a month without doing much at all.

Read more about doing online surveys for cash.

Make your pet Insta-famous

If you have a pet or even pets, plural, you probably have many pictures or videos of them doing cute or funny things at home or when you’re out and about.

People love cute animals, especially when they are doing something funny or memorable. Their demand for new pictures and videos online will never be satiated, so you might as well give the people what they want and get paid for it!

While there is no cut and dried method for turning your pet into an internet celebrity, but here are some ideas that might help:

Give your pet a memorable nickname, think Grumpy Cat, Maru or Manny
Observe their behaviour and document them doing things they love.
Create social media accounts dedicated to your pet. It might be good to focus only on Instagram or Facebook to start off with.
Use hashtags to help broaden your audience.
Take good quality photos and videos.
Post regularly to create consistency.
Focus on something original or specific about your best friend.

While you won’t get any money from your new endeavour initially, you could develop a following over time. Eventually your pet could hit the the big time and advertisers may pay you to show their products and services to your audience.

In time you could be raking in the pounds. Grumpy Cat, for example, before his passing, earned over $100 million. Not bad for such a grumpy moggy!

Another way to get your pet Insta-Famous is to jump onto trends. Search data can be used to determine how much interest is in a trend, which can be a factor in how profitable it is.

The graph below shows the most popular pets based on Google searches which can be used to gauge the online market for your pet. Finding a niche trend that can be easily repeated and has high reachability is the way to propel your pet to fame on Instagram.

For more tips, read our article about turning your pet into a star.

Share your knowledge with others

If you’ve had pets for a long time and enjoy reading articles and studies about their behaviour, breeds, etc. why not share your knowledge with others? They may find it useful and in time this could earn you some money.

You can achieve this by setting up a blog and writing regular posts about interesting pet-related topics. As more and more people start reading your blog, you could approach pet product companies to partner with you. They could buy advertising on your site or sponsor some of your social media posts.

In time your blog could even lead you to an eBook or a full-blown book deal!

Finally, you could offer to do talks at local events, schools and community organisations for a small fee. Who knows, you might even get the chance to share your pet knowledge on world stages one day.

Sell photos of your pets to stock photo galleries

You can also make money by selling them to stock galleries and other online resources. Believe it or not, people really need these to help draw people to their articles, products or website with your adorable pet’s pictures. It’s a nice way to make some money from things you enjoy.

While you probably won’t make buckets full of cash, it could provide you with a welcome little windfall every once in a while. And your fluffy friends will live on forever in the work of others.

Read more about selling your photos online.

Include other people’s pets in activities you’d do with yours

There are some things you do for your pet without a second thought, such as walking them. Some pet owners love their animals just as much, but aren’t able to do these things for one reason or another. But they will pay someone else to do it for them.

Cash in on this by offering your services as:

A dog walker (only if your dog is okay with other dogs)
Pet taxi service on days you’ll be taking your own dog/cat to the parlour
A pet-sitter (especially if your furry/feathery friend enjoys company)

Read more about making money with other people’s pets.

Bonus: Save money by entering pets into shows and competitions

Finally, you will notice that many pet related competitions don’t really offer prize money. However, in many cases, once you enter your little friend, you could be in the running to win pet food for a year or something similar.

Many companies regularly run competitions like these, where all you have to do is simply upload a photo and to join.

Remember to also keep an eye out for dog/cat shows in your local area too if your furry one is particularly bonny!

Discover more money-making tips

Want to find more ways to make money? Fancy entering competitions for cash, vouchers, and more?

The new MoneyMagpie Messageboard is full of money-making and saving insights, plus there’s a whole forum just for free stuff! Take a look here.

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Emmaline

3 years ago

I love this article, i’ve owned pets my entire life and have always loved learning and reading about them, right now i have 3 cats with insane personalities (the oldest is 21 and still acts like a kitten at times). I didn’t even think that my knowledge and experience could be useful to others!