Where the prices come from
We collect prices that clinics, shelters, breeders and service providers have published on their own websites, and we record the provider name, city, state, URL and the date we read each one.
We do not call for quotes, we do not use figures repeated by other blogs, and we do not estimate. If a price is not published somewhere we can link to, it does not appear on this site.
Why so few clinics publish prices
A 2026 study of 177 US small-animal clinics found that only 1.91% published any prices online, and none published prices for complex procedures.
That finding shapes everything here. For routine, shoppable items such as vaccinations, spay and neuter, or grooming, enough providers publish prices to build a real sample. For imaging and surgery, far fewer do, and the sample is smaller and drawn mostly from specialty and teaching hospitals. For emergency, chronic and end-of-life care, prices are essentially never published in advance, because the bill depends on how long treatment runs.
So we sort every topic into three tiers, and we tell you which tier you are reading. A tier A page carries a full sample. A tier B page states plainly how few prices were found and where they came from. A tier C page does not claim a survey at all; it explains what drives the cost and what to ask for in writing.
We publish the denominator, not just the answer
Every survey states how many provider websites we checked, not only how many prices we found, so you can see the rate at which providers in that category publish anything at all.
This is the number other cost sites leave out. A median drawn from twelve prices found across four hundred clinics means something very different from twelve prices found across fifteen, and you should be able to tell the two apart.
Why medians, never averages
We report the median because a small number of specialty hospitals charging several times the typical rate would pull an average away from what most owners actually pay.
We publish the range alongside it, and where the sample supports it we break the figures down by provider type, by weight band and by state, because those are the three things that move the price most.
When pages are updated
Each page carries the month its prices were collected, and we re-run a survey when its figures pass seven months old.
Veterinary prices are not stable: the US consumer price index for veterinary services rose 7.1% in the year to December 2025, against 2.7% for all items. A two-year-old cost page is not a reference, it is a historical document.
What we will not do
We do not publish a number that is not in a survey spreadsheet, and we do not give medical advice.
No figure here is generated, inferred or estimated. We do not offer diagnosis, dosing or treatment guidance, and no page here should be used to decide whether your animal needs a procedure. That decision belongs to you and your vet.
If you find a figure you think is wrong, tell us at corrections@petpriceindex.com and we will check it against the source. Corrections are logged on the corrections page.
