FAQ

PawPlacer is a modern shelter management platform built specifically for animal shelters and fosters. We help streamline operations with features like pet tracking, adoption management, foster home partnerships, volunteer coordination, task boards, and much more. We develop features based on direct feedback from shelters and fosters, ensuring PawPlacer meets the unique needs of animal welfare organizations.

Yes! PawPlacer includes a free forever plan with access to all features, limited only by number of active pets, users, and task boards. Perfect for small shelters, fosters, or trying out the platform.

We keep costs low by using a modern, efficient tech stack and avoiding expensive legacy systems that require large teams to maintain. Unlike competitors who rely on heavy advertising, we focus on word-of-mouth and community-driven growth. As a remote company, we don't have expensive offices. These efficiencies let us offer a powerful platform at a price that makes sense—without cutting corners or relying on ads or data sales. And as a highly passionate team, we all wear multiple hats to keep costs down and quality high.

No hidden or per-pet fees, ever. Cancel anytime without penalty. After canceling, you'll have read-only access to your data. Reactivate your plan anytime to regain full access. You are also able to export your data at any time (including after cancellation) and we encourage you to reach out to us to give you a file formatted to your needs, for free. (For the developers out there, we know SQL very, very well. For the non-developers, this means you can ask us for any combination of data you need and we can provide it to you in a spreadsheet that's easy to read and use.)

No problem! Unlike many websites that load everything on your device, PawPlacer does most of the work on our servers first and then sends you only what’s needed. This means your device doesn't have to process or download as much, and pages load quickly—even on older devices or slow internet. For more details, check out our Technical FAQs.

Yes, set default fees by age and species or customize per pet. Enable temporary discounts for events. We never take a percentage of your adoption fees. You choose the methods you accept, from PayPal to Venmo to Bitcoin, and keep 100% of the proceeds. We also offer a donation feature for those who want to support your shelter directly.

No. While adoption fees are permitted, selling pets is strictly prohibited. PawPlacer supports legitimate shelter and foster adoption processes only. Puppy mills, backyard breeders, and other unethical practices are not allowed and will immediately result in account closure and subscription cancellation. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Yes. You can easily import pets with our CSV importer. Our AI-powered data migration assistant automatically maps fields, standardizes formats, and handles all the technical details, no matter what your data looks like. It works like magic!

Yes. Create custom forms for adoptions, fosters, volunteers, and partners with our form builder. Add any field type and set required responses. All terms are fully customizable in settings.

PawPlacer is a mobile-responsive web platform accessible from and formatted for any device with an internet connection. This ensures you always have the latest features without managing separate apps. You can add a shortcut to your home screen for easy access, and with recent updates to web technology, the experience is nearly identical to a full-screen native app. Because of caching techniques we use, you can still view most of your data even without any connection.

We're not focused on competing with others—we're focused on creating the best and most accessible platform for shelters and fosters. PawPlacer was founded out of a passion for animal welfare and a belief that there's a better way to meet the unique needs of these organizations. If your current platform works for you, that's great! For those seeking a different approach, we're here to help, with a commitment to innovation, usability, and continuous improvement based on your feedback.

PawPlacer is here to stay. We have plenty of capital available, personally invested by our founder, to ensure continued development and growth. Our lean, efficient approach keeps costs low while allowing us to continually improve the platform. We're committed to keeping PawPlacer affordable, scalable, and evolving based on the needs of shelters and fosters—now and in the future.

PawPlacer provides shelter management software only. We don't take in, house, foster, or transport pets. Contact local shelters directly for these services.

Yes, PawPlacer is built to scale with your organization, no matter how large it grows. We use modern cloud infrastructure, proper database design, and efficient code to ensure fast performance and reliability at any scale and on any device. (See the final FAQ for a more technical explanation.) We stress tested our platform with 1,000,000 (yes, 1 million) pets under a real-word shelter scenario just to try to break it, and it handled it with ease.

We take data security and privacy very seriously. PawPlacer is built with modern security practices and encryption to protect your data. We never sell or share your data or any data you collect from fosters, adopters, etc. with third parties. We do not handle payments directly and instead use the secure third-party payment processor Stripe. If you enter a highly sensitive custom field on an adoption form (like a SSN), we will display a strong warning advising against collecting it to maintain a security mindset. We also offer a data export feature from each report page so you can keep a local backup of your data at any time. See the security FAQ for a more technical explanation.

PawPlacer is built by a small, dedicated team of developers, designers, and shelter volunteers, all who understand shelter needs firsthand. Our support staff handles most inquiries, with developers and leadership available for technical discussions or available upon request. We respond within 4 hours during business hours (8AM-8PM EST) and within 24 hours maximum, 7 days per week. Everyone contributes across multiple areas to ensure PawPlacer truly serves the shelter community.

PawPlacer is proudly built on legacy PHP, jQuery, and a single-table SQL database, lovingly hosted on a shared cPanel server. Just kidding. We run a modern, high-performance stack: React, TypeScript, and PostgreSQL, all powered by a serverless architecture with Supabase and Vercel. The front end is rendered with Remix for near-instant loads using SSR, even on low-bandwidth networks—perfect for shelters with limited resources. We've crafted highly optimized RPCs that minimize database calls and properly indexed data to make even the largest queries blazing fast. The UI is built with custom shadcn components for accessibility and consistency. Payments are handled through Stripe, emails through Resend, and AI-driven features—like pet biographies and intelligent column mapping—are powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini. Scalability, speed, and developer joy, all in one stack.

If you're reading this and wondering why this matters, it's because most existing platforms are shockingly vulnerable—and data security is more important than you think. We take a no-compromise approach: strict Row-Level Security (RLS) everywhere, because we like our data like we like our pets—safe and protected. Public pet profiles are fully separated from private data, and our QR adoption process generates self-destructing, tokenized links. PostgreSQL policies and RPC validation keep everything locked down tight. Are we storing nuclear codes? No. But your shelter’s data deserves real security—not the outdated, easily exploited systems others rely on. Overkill? Maybe. But we sleep well knowing your data is safer than theirs.