It was a great app, but has now transitioned with Rover. I can no longer access my account, and I have upcoming bookings for my pets on there. I have emailed them twice for support to gain access to my account with no response still so far.. Absolute Shambles! I also use Rover and it has very high booking fees, which Cat in the Flat didn't used to have. I used to recommend Cat in the Flat to everyone, but will no longer be using it or recommending it. Very disappointed.

Was good until it transferred to Rover and the site is horrendous

I have first joined CIAF in 2017. Met many great local sitters and I feel heart broken that I will have to leave the platform as can't justify the hike in costs since merger with Rover. To give an example booked a lovely cat sitter for a week over Easter half term at a cost of £221, to repeat the booking with same cat sitter for same amount of days and visits would cost over £400! Absolute disgrace and pure greed! Needless to say I will not be using CIAF ever again!
Shame on you CAIF! I hope the management can sleep well at night knowing they destroyed a community that provided valuable service to pet owners and most importantly the furry clients.

I have been a sitter and user of Cat in a Flat for 5 years and used to recommend this to all my friends. It had a pretty simple user experience and was really reliable. Recently CIAF merged with Rover, who are a primarily dog sitting app owned by a private equity firm. If the words private equity don't immediately give you an idea of what the state of this business might be, look it up - it's an interesting and depressing read. After the merge, CIAF users are forced to shift to a different UI - with more options but not including all previous functionality, less suited for catsitting as the defaults are all dog sitter focused, and not intuitive for users at all. On top of that, the fee system is completely different so now making bookings is more complicated for both the sitter and client in comparison to past process, and everyone pays higher fees to Rover. It's not a good experience and I feel awful for anyone who used CIAF as their main/predominant source of income as this will drive loads of cat owners elsewhere

I left, but my 70 year old mom uses it.
I am her IT helpdesk and can say the recent updates are confusing!!!
I cannot make head nor talk of her setup and how to help her use it anymore.
I will be suggesting she consider a different platform because she is already digitally insecure - and now needs to deal with this - feeding cats!!!
Its ridiculous

Vor der Übernahme von Rover war die App mega und ich war vollsten zufrieden. Doch leider sind nun die Stornierungsgebühren und auch Servicegebühren erhöht worden. Sorry, ich werde mich dann anderweitig orientieren. Die Erfinder von Cat in a Flat hatten seit Beginn etwas ganz tolles ins Leben gerufen, nur leider mit Rover nun total kaputt gemacht. Schade, es tut mir auch für die Sitter leid, da vermutlich einige Kunden sich anderweitig orientieren.

Not sure what’s happened to this app recently. I’ve used it for the past year and it was great, but now key features like filtering visit frequency are gone, there’s an extra 15% fee, and prices seem higher overall.

The app is also harder to navigate and no longer user-friendly. Unfortunately, I won’t be using it again.

5 stars for the old version tho

I’m a long time sitter and customer on CIAF. Only a few weeks ago, I would have given a glowing review and five stars.

Following the mess with the merger, I have am now no longer taking new bookings on this site and will be closing my account after honouring existing bookings. As for my greatly valued clients that I have been working with for years, they will be coming with me to my private cat sitting business. :)

I am actually hopeful that this will work out well for me, but I genuinely feel sad when I think about the negative consequences of this merger on cat care. Clients may cut corners as services are now prohibitively expensive.

Lost message notifications, massively hiked fees, a lack of transparency for clients, payment issues, a weird website mostly tailored to dogs, AI responses to reported issues… I can only assume that the service does not care about the living creatures that we look after, the cat sitters or the owners, and was instead focused on removing competition from the new platform.

I can’t wait until I have finished my remaining bookings, so that I will no longer be associated with this app.

Leider ganz schlecht bei uns….
Sitter gebucht und diese auch bestätigt bekommen. Dann eine Woche vor dem Urlaub abgesagt.
(natürlich rechtzeitig um keine Entschädigung zu erhalten).
Zweite Buchung und Anfrage bestätigt.
Der Sitter ist dann zum ausgemachten Kennlern-Termin gar nicht erst erschienen (sicherheitshalber auch Profil gelöscht (und ja, war eines mit durchaus positiven Bewertungen)).
Vielen Dank an die Plattform, das wir jetzt überlegen müssen, unseren Kurzurlaub auszusagen.

As a cat sitter of 8+ years, it's heart breaking to see that greed and rushed implementations have literally destroyed one of the best communities we've built over the years through the Cat in a Flat pool of wonderful people.
The merger is now putting a stop to this as prices are soaring, the structure of fees is insane, the interface is busy, confusing and dog-centric, and yet, a lot of the functionality of previous pricing flexibility has been lost.
Service has gone down and I have had 0 bookings over the bank holiday period.
Phenomenal failure.

Habe mein Konto als langjähriger und sehr gut bewertete Sitterin gelöscht. Das ist nicht mehr Catinaflat

I have been a cat sitter on CIAF for over 3 years and loved it! I have kept it small with 5-7 regular clients and built up a continuous 5* feedback rating. Since the move to Rover, the platform has been plagued with issues - clients are being charged more, I never charged holiday rates before but my profile now states I do and I can't change it. The nonsense about having to do all communications via the app is a pain and visits are expected in 30 min increments. I get that CIAF may want to expand in Europe etc but they have sold their soul to Rover, which is geared up more for dogs. Well that clue is in the title after all. Cats are just an after thought there. Thank you CIAF but this is not for me.

Cela faisait 4 ans qua j'utilisais ce service mais visiblement ils viennent de se faire racheter par un groupe et les tarifs sont devenus horriblement chers.
700 € pour venir nourrir 1 fois par jour 2 chats pendant 2 semaines soit 36€ la demi-heure de visite.
Le taux horaire d'un cadre sup' du CAC 40...

I’ve been with Cat in a Flat for over three years and it’s incredibly disappointing to say that the recent merger with Rover has been such a disaster for all of us!

For a start, the increase in commission from 19% on CIAF to 30% feels excessive and makes it very difficult to justify continuing financially. Not only that, but CIAF would take the 19% off myself, but now both myself AND the cat owner are charged 15% - that is just pure greed. I don believe the owners should have to pay commission on top of the sitting fee.

Secondly, the platform itself also isn’t well suited to cat sitters, it feels overly complex and largely geared towards dog services. Not only that but when looking for sitters for my cat I am shown sitters up to 30 miles away for my top five matches, make that make sense!

I’m also concerned about the payment structure, with owners charged well in advance while sitters are only paid after bookings are completed - what on earth happens to that money? The previous set up where owners payed the day before sittings started made much more sense.

I take no pleasure in leaving this review but it is genuinely disappointing to see such a valued platform change in this way. I hope feedback is taken on board, improvements are made and fees are reconsidered - if so, I would consider returning in the future.

For now I will honour my existing CIAF bookings but I will be leaving once complete which is disappointing for not just myself, but my loyal owners too.

Rover hat bei mir den 1. Platz für die schlechteste Integration eines System, die ich jemals gesehen habe.

Früher war Cat in a Flat übersichtlich und gut strukturiert.

Jetzt gibt es zahlreiche Fehler.

Darunter:
- Ewige Ladezeiten
- Man hat jetzt auf einmal 3 Profile, obwohl man nur eines angelegt hat. Eines ist von Cat-in-a-Flat, eines von Rover und dann kann man noch sein Sitterprofil auswählen. Es ist dadurch total unübersichtlich und es ist nicht klar, warum man als Katzensitter ein Hundesitter-Account bekommt.
- Dann bekomme ich permanent Werbung in der Cat-in-a-Flat-App für die Rover-App, was sehr nervt und unnötige und falsch platzierte Werbung ist.
- Das Bild meines Haustiers ist weg
- Die Zahlungsmethode musste neu eingestellt werden.

Leute, es ist mir der Spaß an der App vergangen.

Eines möchte ich den Amerikanern von Rover noch mitgeben: Never change a running System!

Disgusting.

I do the occasional cat sit for cat in a flat. I have worked in IT for 35 years and I have never seen a more badly managed transition to a system/app that just doesnt work. Even in my situation I was worried that I would end up carrying out cat care at my own expense. The average wait for payment seems to be 2 weeks where the original app paid at the start of a sitting. It must be so stressful for sitters who depend on the money. At the beginning data was lost and the app which was simple and straightforward to use became difficult. It asks you to post photos of people's pets without their permission. It has increased charges to clients by calculating them differently and there have been horror stories from sitters.
Its now the kind of app where you worry about them having your data.
The original app was efficient and easy to use. The new version isnt!

Have been with CIAF for over 5 years. The merger has been so disappointing
*The greediness of Rover is astounding 19% to 30% commission charge - it’s not financially viable to work for this amount
* the website is not fit for purpose for cat sitters. It’s over complicated and is geared up for dog sitters
* appalling customer services- raised 3 concerns on different issues at least 2 weeks ago - received one unsatisfactory response and the other 2 have heard nothing other that the usual automated receipt
* Rover take money from owners well in advance but pay sitters after the booking is complete. Assume they are making a nice bit of interest
* will honour my CIAF bookings but won’t be staying
I take no pleasure in this review and feel so disappointed it has come to this.
am actually hoping (probably futilely) that Rover will listen and give us a platform similar to that we had before and will revise their charges in which case I may just think about staying

Cat in a flat was good before. Yes it was annoying that I couldn't get notifications on the app and always on email BUT everything else was good.

This merger with Rover has ruined everything! It's harder to get jobs, there's so many glitches, there was little notice and it's a dog app company that's trying to impose such ideas onto a cat app! It does not work!

This site used to be great. As a customer I used to recommend it all the time. It was so simple to find a nearby sitter and make a booking.

Went on it today to book my regular cat sitter and it was way more confusing to actually book her. On top of that, when we went to book it had a £20 service fee attached. Sorry what? That's just plain greedy. Spoke to our cat sitter who was also taking a massive hit. So the site is taking more money from owner and the sitter.

We're now speaking to our usual group of sitters and from now on will be booking with them directly. Also passing on this news to our friends as well.