Effective pricing decisions are crucial to the business success and long-term sustainability of a
veterinary practice. To support data-driven decisions by veterinary practice managers, this study
provides a detailed analysis of the economic value that pet owners place on eight veterinary
services and service features.
A total of 3,452 pet owners — 1,949 dog owners and 1,533 cat owners completed the study.
The study covered a range of geographic (urban/ suburban/ rural, and region of residence) and
demographic (gender, age, and annual household income) characteristics.
To assess the economic value placed by customers on veterinary services, the study used a
rigorous price discovery method called the Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) to evaluate how much
the pet owner was willing to pay for eight different services: an essential vaccination package,
a physical examination, spaying or neutering, a dental care service package, parasite testing, basic
laboratory test panel, an X-ray package, and a pet wellness plan.
Three measures of willingness-to-pay of pet owners were assessed for each service: (1) the
preferred price which pet owners consider to be an attractive or desired price for the service,
(2) the reference price, a summary price that pet owners remember or know from their
experience, and (3) the acceptable price range which reflects a range of prices within which
pet owners will consider purchasing the service for their pet. Preferred prices are often, but
not always lower than reference prices. In this report, the values of these three measures are
available for each specific demographic group of pet owners so that users of the study can obtain
the willingness-to-pay measures that are most relevant to them.
This report also contains information about how much money pet owners consider as
reasonable to spend for their pet’s total medical care each year, as well as just for routine
preventive care services, and which additional service features that they are willing to pay
significantly more money for.
