How Amber's Little Lodgers Is Growing Her Small Pet Boarding Business With PetPortal
Running a small pet boarding business is a lot more involved than most people realise. Beyond the daily care of the animals themselves, there are booking requests to manage, payments to track, customer communications to stay on top of and a constant stream of admin that has a habit of following you around outside of working hours.
For Amber, who runs Amber's Little Lodgers — a small pet boarding service caring for guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, tortoises and other small animals — finding a way to manage all of that efficiently was just as important as providing great care for the animals in her charge.
Since joining PetPortal at launch in May 2026, things have looked quite different.
Before PetPortal
Like a lot of small boarding businesses, Amber was managing the day-to-day admin through a patchwork of tools that worked well enough individually but never quite added up to a joined-up system. Bookings, payments and records were spread across different places, and keeping on top of everything required being at a desk rather than getting on with the actual job.
Visibility was another challenge. Small pet boarding is a niche that many pet owners do not know where to look for, and without a dedicated online presence beyond word of mouth, reaching new customers was difficult.
What Changed
Amber joined PetPortal on the Pro plan from the start, which gave her access to both the business management tools and a directory listing that put Amber's Little Lodgers in front of local pet owners searching for small animal boarding.
The impact on the admin side was almost immediate. All of her bookings, revenue and payments are now tracked in one place through the app, accessible from her phone wherever she is. There is no longer a desk requirement for staying on top of the business.
"I genuinely am so glad I made the switch to PetPortal. It's made running my boarding business so much easier in so many ways. The platform is new and still growing and they're eager to continue building and adding features that us users request. It's increased my booking requests because of their directory listings too which really helps!"
The ability to manage everything from her phone has been one of the most practical changes. For a boarding business where the work happens hands-on with animals rather than at a computer, having a system that travels with you rather than anchoring you to a desk makes a genuine difference to how the day runs.
The Directory Listing
Alongside the operational tools, the directory listing included with Amber's Pro plan has opened up a new channel for incoming bookings. Pet owners searching for small animal boarding in her area can find Amber's Little Lodgers through PetPortal and send a booking request directly through the listing.
Small pet boarding is a niche where supply is genuinely limited in many parts of the UK. Rabbit and guinea pig owners in particular often struggle to find specialist boarders nearby, and a directory that makes those businesses discoverable fills a real gap. For Amber, being listed means reaching owners who are actively looking for exactly what she offers.
Support and Development
One of the things Amber has valued most is knowing that the platform is actively being developed and that user feedback shapes what gets built next.
For a business owner who relies on a piece of software to run their operation, knowing that the team behind it is responsive and that improvements keep coming matters a lot. PetPortal's support has been easy to access when needed and the regular updates mean the platform keeps getting better rather than standing still.
This kind of relationship between a small business and the tools it uses is harder to put a number on than booking figures or revenue, but for many small business owners it is what determines whether they stick with a platform long term.
What Amber's Experience Shows
Amber's Little Lodgers is exactly the kind of business PetPortal was built for. A dedicated, knowledgeable small animal boarding service run by someone who is passionate about the animals in her care but who also needs the operational side to work without consuming all of her time.
The combination of easier admin, payment tracking, a directory listing that brings in new enquiries and a support team that listens to users is what makes the platform worth it - not just in the first month, but, as an ongoing part of how the business runs.
If you run a small pet boarding business and want to see what PetPortal could do for yours, you can explore the plans available and get started with a listing today.