TutelaPetPoint is one of the most widely deployed shelter systems in North America, and for large operations plugged into its ecosystem it does serious work. But its famous price — free — deserves a clear-eyed look, because free has a shape.
How 'free' works
PetPoint is operated by Pethealth, and the no-cost tiers are built around shelters promoting 24PetWatch microchips and insurance offers to adopters (per their published materials as of mid-2026). For some shelters that's a fine trade — the chips get registered, the software costs nothing. But it means your software vendor's customer is partly the adopter-data pipeline, not only you, and your workflows carry someone else's product placement.
The Tutela trade instead
We charge money — $9/month + $1 per adoption to start, flat $39–$79 tiers above — and in exchange the incentives point one direction: at you. No product pushes at your adoption table, no strings on your adopter data, and a one-click export of every table whenever you want it. Your data is the product you own, not the price you pay.
Feature differences that matter day-to-day
- A modern, phone-first interface — kennel QR cards open full profiles in the aisle
- A website builder with your own domain, themes, and auto-SSL
- AI helpers across intake, applications, bios, photos, grants, and marketing — all human-approved
- Share-first public adoption pages with flyers, videos, and embeds for every animal
- Transparent pricing on one page instead of a sales conversation
Where PetPoint holds advantages
Scale and integration depth: national reporting pipelines, lost-and-found and chip-registration networks, and long-standing municipal contracts. A large city shelter embedded in those systems has real reasons to stay. A community rescue mostly using the animal-and-adopter basics has far fewer.
Getting your data out
PetPoint offers report exports — pull animals, people, outcomes, and medical as CSVs (do it while your access is active), then run them through the free importer. The migration guide covers the order of operations, including the parallel week.