Cat spay cost: 2026 survey of 75 clinic prices

The median published price for a cat spay is $100 across 75 clinic and shelter prices collected in September 2026, ranging from $40 at a nonprofit clinic in Kentucky to $300 at a nonprofit in Rhode Island.

We checked 113 provider websites across all 50 states and Washington DC, and 95 of them published a cat spay price. Half of the 75 general-public prices fall between $75 and $140. Every price below was read on the provider’s own website, with the link and the date it was read.

Fifty-four further published prices, from 44 providers, were open only to income-qualified owners, residents of one county, or feral and community cat caretakers. They are listed in the sources and left out of every figure on this page. The cheapest of them is $10, and the community cat and TNR packages run from $25.

Spaying a cat is the cheapest of the three surgeries we have surveyed. Our dog spay cost survey has a median of $220 from 178 prices, and our dog neuter cost survey $205 from 249. At the 60 providers that publish both a cat spay and a dog spay, the cat price is the lower one every time.

How much does a cat spay cost at a nonprofit or shelter clinic?

Across 66 nonprofit clinic prices the median cat spay is $95, and across the four shelter clinic prices it is $98. The lowest general-public price in the survey is $40 at Franklin County Humane Society in Kentucky, which spays cats free for owners inside its own county and charges $40 to everyone else.

Prices at or under $65 make up 11 of the 75 in the survey, and they sit almost entirely in the South, the Plains and the older industrial Midwest. Great Plains SPCA in Kansas, Iowa Humane Alliance and All About Animals Rescue in Michigan all list $50. SPAY Memphis and Pet Allies in Arizona list $60.

Tulsa SPCA, PPAW in Knoxville, Southern Pines in Mississippi, North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic and The Fix’Em Clinic in West Virginia all list $65. Emancipet in Texas lists $89 for a cat of either sex, with no surcharges or deposit stated on the page.

Nonprofit does not mean cheap everywhere. The nonprofit prices run from $40 to $300, and the top of that range is a nonprofit: Providence Animal Rescue League in Rhode Island lists $300 for any cat of three pounds or more. Monmouth County SPCA in New Jersey lists $230, Humane Pennsylvania $229, Alaska SPCA $225 and Animal Welfare Society in Maine $200.

How much does a cat spay cost at a private veterinary clinic?

Five of the 75 providers with a general-public price were private clinics, and their prices have a median of $140, from $118 at West Georgia Spay Neuter Clinic to $269 at Value Pet Vet in Connecticut.

All five are dedicated low-cost spay and neuter practices rather than full-service hospitals, so this is not a sample of what a general veterinary practice charges. ABQ Spay & Neuter in New Mexico lists $139.91 for any cat over two pounds, with the pre-surgical exam, anaesthesia, pain medication, a plastic e-collar and a nail trim included.

Express Vet in New Mexico lists $125 for a cat spay or neuter over four pounds. West Georgia publishes “Female cat $110.00/$125.00” with nothing on the page explaining the two figures, so it enters the survey at the $117.50 midpoint and is flagged as a range. Every table on this page rounds to whole dollars, which is why that price reads $118 above.

The two dearest private prices are both low bounds rather than totals. Sweetspire in South Carolina lists a feline spay “starting at” $240, and Value Pet Vet labels its $269 a base cost with bloodwork of $119 or $229 by age on top, plus a surcharge for females of six months and over.

A 2026 study of 177 small-animal clinics in eight US states found that 1.91% of clinic websites published any price at all (Adams et al., Frontiers in Veterinary Science). Treat the $140 figure as what five transparent clinics charge, not as the national private-practice rate.

Why is a cat spay cheaper than a dog spay?

At the 60 providers that publish both, the cat spay is cheaper than even the smallest dog band every time, by a median of $74. The typical clinic charges about 1.7 times as much to spay its smallest dog as to spay a cat.

Two things drive it. A cat spay is a shorter operation on a smaller, more uniform animal, and cats are almost never priced by weight. All 75 prices in this survey are flat, while the dog surveys split into four weight bands and a top band that can double the smallest.

Where the gap is widest

The gap is widest at the Northeast clinics, where dog prices climb fastest. Animal Welfare Society in Maine lists $200 for a cat against $425 to $550 for a dog spay, Nutmeg in Connecticut $150 against $350 to $575, and Monmouth County SPCA $230 against $405 to $700. Value Pet Vet lists $269 against $475 to $1,045.

Cat spay against cat neuter

Twenty-two of the 75 providers publish one combined figure for a cat spay or neuter rather than two prices. Where the two are listed separately, the spay is usually the dearer of the pair: Alaska SPCA lists $225 against $150, Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region $180 against $120, Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic $120 against $95 and Heaven Can Wait in Nevada $110 against $80.

PPAW in Tennessee is the exception in this sample, publishing $65 for a cat spay and $80 for a cat neuter. It is the only provider here where the female surgery is the cheaper one.

What does the published price usually include?

Of the 75 prices, 40 state that pain medication is included, 18 a nail trim, 15 a rabies vaccination, 12 the e-collar, 12 an exam and 7 a microchip; ten list nothing beyond the surgery itself.

Clinics that bundle

The bundled packages are easiest to compare. Franklin County Humane Society’s in-county package covers the surgery, a rabies vaccination, an FVRCP booster, flea treatment and pain medication. Animal Rescue League of Boston’s $175 Spay Waggin price is all-inclusive, and the clinic does not sell the parts separately.

Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region publishes both versions on one page: $180 for the Feline Fine package, which includes the El Paso County licence, and $255 for the Fabulous Feline package, which adds vaccines and a microchip.

Clinics that sell the parts separately

At the other end, some clinics publish a bare surgery price and sell everything else separately. Humane Society of Tampa Bay lists the cat package as $70 for the surgery plus $10 for pain medication, $20 for rabies and a $5 biohazard fee, which its own page totals at $105.

Brandywine Valley SPCA’s $80 is the surgery alone, with pain medication and the e-collar a $25 option for female cats. Cabarrus Spay & Neuter Clinic in North Carolina lists $110 and recommends a $10 pain medication add-on that is not in the price. Four prices in the survey were published as an image or a PDF on the provider’s own site rather than as page text.

What costs extra?

The two add-ons specific to a cat spay are the in-heat surcharge, named on 21 of the 75 listings and priced on 13 of them from $10 to $35, and the pregnancy surcharge, named on 22 and priced on 15 from $15 to $200. A deposit or reservation fee appears on 24 listings and pre-surgical bloodwork on 15.

In heat and pregnancy

In-heat surcharges are modest and widespread. North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic adds $10, Nutmeg and Central California SPCA $15, SPCA of Anne Arundel County $20, Sacramento SPCA $25, and Brandywine Valley SPCA, Kent Animal Shelter, Franklin County and Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic all $30. SNIP Idaho adds $35.

Pregnancy costs more and varies far more. North Alabama adds $20, Licking County Humane Society $27.50, SNAP in Houston $35, Brandywine $45, SNIP Idaho $50, Kent Animal Shelter $60 and Idaho Humane Society $75. Pet Allies in Arizona publishes a range of $15 to $200 depending on what the surgeon finds.

Bloodwork and age limits

Bloodwork is tied to age at twelve of those fifteen clinics, and the threshold moves from one to the next. Animal Welfare Society in Maine charges $50 for cats over seven, Southern Pines $55 and up from five years, All About Animals $60 from eight, SOS of Ohio $65 over seven and Louisiana SPCA $75 from seven.

The dearest are at the two ends of the market. York County SPCA lists $70 to $100 from eight years, North Alabama $80 from seven, Virginia Kincheloe $220 from six, and Value Pet Vet requires it from one year old at $119, rising to $229 above three years.

Some clinics set an age ceiling instead of a surcharge. Tulsa SPCA does not operate on cats of six years or older, Animal Rescue League of Boston and Animal Rescue Veterinary Services in New Hampshire take cats from two months to five years, and NHSPCA and Sacramento SPCA stop at seven.

Deposits

Deposits range from token to substantial. Sacramento SPCA takes $5 and Southern Pines $25, while Cache Humane Society takes $40, VT-CAN! $45, Animal Welfare Society $50 and Humane Society of Southern Wisconsin $63.30. Central California SPCA takes $75 and Value Pet Vet $100, both credited to the bill, and Great Plains SPCA’s $20 reservation fee is not applied to the surgery.

How much does a cat spay cost in my state?

The median runs from $75 across 18 Midwest prices to $173 across 14 Northeast prices, and among the ten states with at least three published prices it runs from $65 in Tennessee to $150 in Pennsylvania.

The state table below shows this directly, and a state appears in its own row only when it has at least three prices. Because cats are priced flat, each provider contributes one price rather than four or five, so 32 of the 42 states in this survey have only one or two prices and sit inside the regional figures instead.

The regional pattern matches the dog surveys closely. The Northeast is expensive at every provider type, the Midwest and the South are cheap, and the West sits near the national median. Pennsylvania is the widest of the ten state samples, running from $80 at Brandywine Valley SPCA to $229 at Humane Pennsylvania.

Why is the range so wide?

The $40 to $300 spread comes from three things: whether the provider is a subsidised nonprofit or a private practice, where it is, and how much of the aftercare and vaccination is bundled into the number.

The sample is weighted toward nonprofit clinics because they are the providers that publish: 66 of the 75 prices are nonprofit, four are shelter clinics and five are private. If your only nearby option is a general veterinary practice, expect to be quoted above the $100 median, and use the what-is-included list above to judge the quote rather than the headline figure.

The subsidised prices are the other half of the picture. Forty-four providers publish a cheaper price for owners who qualify on income, residency or a community cat programme, and those 54 prices are excluded here precisely because most readers cannot book them. If you do qualify, the clinic pages in the source list are where to look.

How to get a comparable written estimate

Ask every clinic for the same six things in writing, then compare totals rather than headline prices.

1. The price for a female cat.
2. The surcharge if she is in heat or pregnant.
3. Whether bloodwork is required at her age, and what it costs.
4. Whether take-home pain medication and the e-collar are included.
5. Any deposit, and whether it comes off the bill.
6. The clinic’s age limits.

Prices change without notice, and a published price is not a quote for your cat. Get a written estimate from your own vet or the clinic you choose before booking. Nothing on this page is medical advice; whether and when to spay is a question for your veterinarian.