Animal Welfare Professionals

So, here: http://chewonthis.maddiesfund.org/2018/07/adoption-fees/

Maddie's discusses SJACC's use of variable adoption fees not just to drive adoption fee revenue but to help reduce LOS.

I'd like to consider doing a more variable pricing scheme for our rescue, but I know that a lot of times when we do use adoption fees that differ from the norm, we get negative feedback from potential adopters.  NOTE:  the people who end up adopting are fine with it, but I worry about reputation as people who are unhappy talk a lot more than people who are happy.

Currently we charge $100 for felines, regardless of age, which we sometimes knock down to $50.  Young puppies are $300, adult small dogs are $250, and other canines are $225.  If we have a nice-looking purebred we may charge up to $450 for a puppy, usually $300 for adult purebred (or highly desirable mix like a doodle).  Sometimes.  We rarely charge less than $225 for a dog, but if we have a dog like Charlie--an oversized chocolate toy poodle who went through FHO surgery with us--do you think the market would bear something like $350?  Even $400?

Clearly, to do this successully, one has to gauge public interest in adopting verus buying, and assess the market.  How would one do this?  The last thing I want is to have our animals increase their LOS because we're charging too much for adopting, or have adopters think that buying is a 'cheaper' option than adopting.  SJACC, in Silicon Valley, has (IMO) access to a population that is more interested in adoption than ours.  We live in a mixed urban and rural environment where randomly bred puppies and kittens as well as those supplied by 'breeders' are easy to come by and don't require a long drive to find.  Also, our adoption fees are constantly undercut by government-funded shelters or rescues that receive more donations that can 'afford' to do free adoptions or vastly reduced adoption rates.  We try to price competitively with other rescues but we aren't always successful.

Any and all thoughts are welcome.

What is LOS?

Sorry--Length of Stay. (LoS, LOS).

We have always had variable adoption fees.  But have operated a shelter for 5 years now, and that does cause some controversy among clients wishing to get that pure bred high value puppy for a bargain fee.  Some say because we are a shelter we shouldn't be able to charge more.  I think they are both wanting a great deal and don't realize that we are not government funded.  Our fees are fluid.  Cats are typically $10, yep, $10, kittens $20.  Siamese $30.  It's a big fight here to get any adoption fee for cats, competing in a rural area with free cats/kittens everywhere.  We do specials for all kinds of reasons where cats are free.  It makes a difference, the cats get adopted on those 'special price' days, even though it's only $10 off.  We also charge $225 high end 'popular model' and senior dogs or pit bulls are often free.  We suffer emotionally on the free adoptions, but we have no greater return rate than we do on paid adoption fees.  Our typical mixed breed adult dog $75.  It's obviously a lower income community that we reside in.  People will drive from 200 miles away where puppies may be $250-800, to get our puppies for $95-225.  

We are cat-only and for years had somewhat variable pricing, with kittens at the highest rate, adults in the middle, and seniors at the lowest rate. A couple of years ago we expanded that model and now have eight different price levels. The prices are mostly based on the cats' fast-track* scores for adults. We are already scoring cats at intake based on factors that help predict how long they're likely to be with us (a.k.a. how "desirable" they are in our market) so it made sense to use those scores as a reference for adoption fees. And that way it's objective. Kitten fees are based on appearance, time of year, age, and how social they are. 

We had meetings with our staff and volunteer adoption counselors prior to rolling out the new system to make sure everyone understood how it worked and why we were doing it. Some of the key messages we included:

• Not even the highest adoption fees ($200) cover the average investment we make in every cat. In other words, all adoption fees are subsidized. 
• The higher adoption fees help offset the much higher investment we make in cats who require more extensive medical treatment and/or have longer length-of-stay with us.
• Our expenses are up across the board and we need to bring in adoption revenue where we can. If a lower fee isn't needed to move a cat along more quickly, it makes sense to leverage that revenue. 
• We track our length-of-stay and would know if this new system increased it; if that happened, we would adjust adoption fees. (It did not. Length of stay continues to be impacted primarily by season and by the other factors we know influence it--and are therefore part of our fast-track scoring system--like health, behavior, age, and appearance.) 

Our messaging to adopters, if they ask about why cats and kittens have different adoption fees, is that we base fees on the anticipated demand; that the more sought-after cats and kittens have higher adoption fees and that those fees help out the cats who need more help getting into homes. 

If anyone would be interested in seeing our fast-track scoring sheet, our pricing sheet, or the presentation we gave when we transitioned to this new system a couple of years ago, email me at kareng@catadoptionteam.org!

*If you're not familiar with fast-tracking, you can learn more about it here.