# Whelpify vs. Good Dog: The Real Math on Fees and Ownership

> Good Dog takes a percentage when you sell; Whelpify charges a flat subscription and never touches your sales. A dollar-by-dollar breakdown at real sales volumes, plus what each platform actually gives you.

- Source: https://whelpify.com/blog/whelpify-vs-good-dog
- Publisher: Whelpify (https://whelpify.com)
- Author: The Whelpify Team
- Category: Comparisons
- Tags: Comparisons, Good Dog, Fees, Marketplaces
- Published: 2026-07-05

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Let's start with the honest part: Good Dog and Whelpify are different kinds of tools. Good Dog is a **marketplace** — it screens breeders, lists them in a directory, and sends buyer inquiries. Whelpify is **your own platform** — a website, waitlist, payment system, and breeding-program toolkit that belongs to you. Plenty of breeders use a marketplace for discovery and their own site as home base.

The reason this comparison matters is what happens to your money and your customer relationships on each. That difference is large, it compounds every year, and it's worth seeing in actual dollars.

## How the money works on Good Dog

Good Dog is free to apply to, and its screening carries real weight with buyers. The costs come in on the payment side:

- **Payments must run through Good Dog.** Their on-platform payment policy requires that deposits and puppy payments between Good Breeders and Good Dog buyers happen on the platform.
- **A percentage comes out when you sell.** Good Dog doesn't publish a complete public fee schedule — fees appear in the breeder dashboard and at buyer checkout. As of this writing, third-party reports put the platform's service fees **typically between 5% and 10% of the puppy's price**, with breeder accounts describing a breeder-side service fee of roughly **6.5%** per completed sale and smaller buyer-side fees on top (plus card processing unless the buyer pays by bank transfer, plus an optional "Protection & Support" package).

None of that is hidden villainy — it's how marketplaces make money. But it means the platform's cut scales with *your* production, and buyers see fees stacked onto your price.

## How the money works on Whelpify

Whelpify is a flat subscription: **$29 per month**, 30-day free trial, cancel anytime. On the payment side:

- **Whelpify takes 0% of your sales.** Not a reduced percentage — zero, on every plan.
- Card payments carry Stripe's standard processing fee (about 2.9% + 30¢), which goes to Stripe — the same class of processing cost that exists behind every card payment anywhere.
- Offline methods like **Zelle and Venmo cost nothing** — Whelpify records them against the reservation with receipts, and no one takes a cut.

## The breakdown, in dollars

The table models one year of puppy sales. The Good Dog column uses the reported ~6.5% breeder-side service fee; the Whelpify column uses $29/month ($348/year). Card processing is excluded on both sides, since on both platforms it's avoidable (bank transfer on Good Dog, Zelle/Venmo on Whelpify) and goes to a processor, not the platform.

| Puppies sold per year | Good Dog fees (~6.5%) | Whelpify ($29/mo) | You keep with Whelpify |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 (one litter) | ~$650 | $348 | +$302 |
| $25,000 | ~$1,625 | $348 | +$1,277 |
| $50,000 | ~$3,250 | $348 | +$2,902 |
| $100,000 | ~$6,500 | $348 | +$6,152 |

Two things jump out. First, even at a single small litter per year, the flat subscription already comes out ahead. Second, **the gap grows with every litter you produce**, because a percentage taxes your growth and a subscription doesn't. A program selling $50,000 a year pays Good Dog's reported rate more than nine times what Whelpify costs — every year.

> A percentage fee is a business partner who takes a bigger check the better you do. A flat subscription is a tool that costs the same whether you have one litter or six.

## What you actually get on each

Fees only matter relative to what they buy. Here's the honest feature picture — Good Dog is a lead source with payments attached; Whelpify is the infrastructure for the entire program:

| | Good Dog | Whelpify |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer leads from a marketplace audience | **Yes — their core value** | No — buyers find *your* site |
| Breeder screening badge buyers recognize | Yes | No |
| Your own website, under your brand | No — a profile on theirs | **Yes — included on every plan** |
| Custom domain (connect or buy your own) | No | Yes |
| Website templates & custom branding | No | Yes |
| Litter & puppy pages with live availability | Listings on their site | Yes — on yours, auto-updated |
| Dog & parent profiles with health testing | No | Yes |
| Multi-generation pedigrees | No | Yes |
| Heat cycle tracking, calendar & reminders | No | Yes |
| Waitlist with pick order | Their inquiry flow | Yes — your list, your rules |
| Custom application forms with conditional logic | Basic questionnaire | Yes |
| Reservation offers with expirations | No | Yes |
| Puppy matching tools | No | Yes |
| Card payments | Theirs — mandatory, with % fees | Yes — Stripe, **0% commission** |
| Zelle/Venmo logged with receipts | No — off-platform payments barred | Yes |
| Deposits, balances & invoices | Through their checkout | Yes — full lifecycle |
| Refunds & credits tracking | No | Yes |
| Finances dashboard | No | Yes |
| Customer CRM | No | Yes |
| Buyer portal where families log in | Theirs — they own the account | Yes — on your site |
| Customer email center (white-labeled to your kennel) | Platform messaging only | Yes |
| Reviews that build *your* name | On their profile | Yes — on your site |
| Blog on your own site | No | Yes |
| Shop page — recommended products & affiliate links | No | Yes |
| Auto-posting puppies to Facebook & Instagram | No | Yes |
| Contracts & e-signatures | No | Yes |
| CSV exports of your data | No | Yes |
| SEO built in (metadata, sitemaps, breed pages) | Their SEO benefits them | Yes — yours benefits you |
| What happens if you leave | Profile and history stay behind | Your site, data, and exports are yours |

## The real takeaway: rent leads, own the relationship

Good Dog is genuinely good at what it is — a screened marketplace that produces buyer inquiries, especially for newer programs without a reputation yet. If the leads convert for you, that percentage can be worth paying *as a customer-acquisition cost*.

The mistake is making a marketplace your whole infrastructure. Every family who finds you there, pays there, and stays in touch there is a relationship the platform owns. Move those families to your own site — your waitlist, your payment records, your email list — and each future litter costs you $0 in commissions and markets itself to families you already know.

That's the setup we'd argue for even if you never use Whelpify: **marketplaces for discovery, your own platform for everything after the first hello.** If you want that home base without building it yourself, [that's exactly what Whelpify is](/signup) — and the [live demo](/api/demo/site) shows what your version could look like.

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*Fee figures for Good Dog are as reported by third-party sources and breeder accounts as of July 2026; Good Dog does not publish a complete public fee schedule, and its fees and policies may change — always verify against their current terms. $29/month is Whelpify's lowest plan — and every plan includes every feature; higher tiers only raise usage limits like contacts and monthly email sends.*