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Route planner for mobile pet groomers
Five to eight dogs a day, each one a booked appointment. See where your regulars live, give each weekday a part of town, and drive the day in the shortest order.
Free plan, no credit card. Works on your phone and computer.
- HomeStart
- Biscuit (Kowalczyk)Full groom, doodle, about 2 hrs1.3 mi
- Luna (Ramos)Nail trim and grind2.3 mi
- Max & Ruby (Chandler)Nail trims for two1.5 mi
- Pepper (Nguyen)Puppy intro: bath, face and feet2.7 mi
- Duke (Hargrove)Nail trim, senior dog1.9 mi
- + 2 more stops
EZRoutePlanner for mobile pet grooming
EZRoutePlanner helps mobile pet groomers plan the drive between appointments. Import your client list, see where your regulars live, and book each day by area. Then press Optimize Route for the shortest order from home. It doesn't hold appointment times, so book times in the route's order, or drag stops to match the times you've already set. Free covers 30 stops; paid starts at $20 a month.
- Typical day
- 5–8 full grooms, 1–2 hours each
- Rebooking
- Every 4–8 weeks per pet
- Appointment times
- Kept in your booking app, not here
- Planning
- Book by area, then order the day
An example day
Wednesday grooms & nail trims
This example is 7 stops on real roads in Sacramento, California. In the order the list had them, the round trip is 25 mi and 1 hr 14 min of driving. Optimized, it's 14 mi and 45 min: 11 mi and 29 min less, 44% shorter.
Full grooms run one to two hours, so most days are five to eight dogs. Many groomers keep a lighter day for quick visits like nail trims and tidies, and that's the day with enough stops for the order to matter most. Book the times in the order the route gives you and the drive between them stays short.
Stops are example points on real streets, not real customers. Distances and times are driving figures for each order.
- HomeStart
- Biscuit (Kowalczyk)Full groom, doodle, about 2 hrs1.3 mi
- Luna (Ramos)Nail trim and grind2.3 mi
- Max & Ruby (Chandler)Nail trims for two1.5 mi
- Pepper (Nguyen)Puppy intro: bath, face and feet2.7 mi
- Duke (Hargrove)Nail trim, senior dog1.9 mi
- Mochi (Tanaka)Cat nail trim1.4 mi
- Bella (Ortiz)Face, feet and tail tidy1.9 mi
Where the day goes
What makes routing hard for mobile pet groomers
Appointments come first, then the drive
Clients pick the time that suits them, so a day can end up with Natomas at 9, Elk Grove at 11 and Natomas again at 2. Once the times are confirmed, the driving is locked in too.
The van needs a place to park
A grooming van needs a flat, legal spot near the door, and room to run the generator or plug in. Apartment complexes and narrow HOA streets turn a short drive into a hunt for parking.
Rebooking cycles drift
Clients rebook every four to eight weeks, and each cycle the slot shifts a little. Without a plan by area, the calendar slowly scatters across the whole city.
Start from your list
Bring the spreadsheet you already keep.
Appointment times, vaccine records and grooming notes stay in your booking app. EZRoutePlanner stores the address and one label (the pet's name works well), and skips clients you've already saved, so you can re-import whenever the list grows.
- 1
Import your client list
Export clients from your booking app or spreadsheet. EZRoutePlanner maps every address; pick the pet's name or the owner's name as the label.
- 2
Give each weekday an area
Look at the map and give each weekday a part of town: Tuesdays in Land Park and Curtis Park, Thursdays in Natomas. Offer clients slots on their area's day.
- 3
Order the day before you confirm times
Put the day's clients on a route and press Optimize Route from home. Book or confirm the times in that order, so the appointments follow the drive instead of the other way round.
- 4
Drive it from your phone
Open the route on your phone and tap Navigate at each stop. If a client cancels, remove them; the rest of the order stays as it was.
| Pet | Owner | Address | City | ZIP | Breed | Every |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biscuit | Kowalczyk | 1421 Robertson Way | Sacramento | 95818 | Goldendoodle | 6 wks |
| Luna | Ramos | 2730 Portola Way | Sacramento | 95818 | Chihuahua | 4 wks |
| Gus | Lawson | 2908 Curtis Way | Sacramento | 95818 | Golden retriever | 8 wks |
| Pepper | Nguyen | 5520 Freeport Blvd | Sacramento | 95822 | Mini schnauzer | 6 wks |
| Mochi | Tanaka | 2215 Castro Way | Sacramento | 95818 | Persian cat | 8 wks |
An example sheet. Columns can be named anything and in any order; street, city and ZIP can be one column or several. Pick one column, like the customer name, as each stop's label.
From the route
Routing tips for mobile pet groomers
Offer the slot next to a neighbor
When a client asks for a date, check who else you're seeing nearby that week and offer the slot beside them. Two dogs on the same street means one drive.
Book the big dogs first
The doodle that takes two hours is the appointment most likely to run over. Putting it first, while the day still has slack, protects everyone booked after it.
Keep a short waitlist for each area
Cancellations happen. A few clients in each part of town who'd happily take a last-minute slot turn a hole at 1 p.m. into a groom two streets away instead of an empty hour.
Pull stragglers into your zones
When a client outside your usual areas rebooks, offer them the day you're nearest. Over a few cycles, the scattered clients drift into the days you already drive.
Set a trip fee by distance
A new client 30 minutes past your area costs an hour of round trip. Book them on a day you're already on that side of town, or charge a trip fee. Run the extra miles through the route cost calculator to size the fee.
Label stops with the pet's name
Groomers think in dogs, not surnames. Choose the pet-name column as each stop's label when you import, and the day reads Biscuit, Luna, Gus.
Honest fit
What it handles, and what it doesn't
EZRoutePlanner is built for putting a day of stops in the right order and getting them to whoever drives. Here's where that fits mobile pet groomers, and where you'd want something else alongside it.
Good fit
- Seeing where your regulars live so you can book each day by area
- Putting a day of appointments in the shortest driving order
- Quick-visit days like nail trims with a dozen or more stops
- Solo groomers working from one van and one phone
Not built for
- No appointment times or time windows; your booking app keeps those
- Optimization ignores appointment times, so check the order against your bookings
- No client reminders, rebooking or online booking
- No pet records, vaccine notes or payments
Last reviewed October 21, 2026.
Mobile pet grooming: questions
Can EZRoutePlanner schedule my grooming appointments?
No. It has no calendar, online booking or time windows. Groomers use it to see clients on a map, decide which area to work each day, and put the day's stops in order; appointment times live in your booking app.
How many grooming appointments fit in a day?
Most mobile groomers book five to eight full grooms, fewer with big double-coated breeds. Drive time is the swing factor: clients in one area can often fit an extra dog compared with the same clients spread across the city.
How should I order appointments that are already booked?
Keep the times you've confirmed, and use the map for next time. Put the day on a route to see where the drive is wasted, then book each client's next visit on the day you're in their area. Over a few cycles the days get tighter.
Can I import clients from my grooming software?
Most grooming apps can export a client list to a spreadsheet, and that file is all you need. The import spots the address fields by itself and previews every client on a map first. One column becomes the label (the pet's name, say); breed, notes and the rest aren't kept; see mapping addresses from Excel.
Is there a free route planner for mobile groomers?
EZRoutePlanner's free plan has no time limit: 30 saved addresses, and unlimited routes of up to 30 stops, kept one at a time. That's enough to plan a day; a full client list needs a paid plan, from $20 a month.
Does it work on my phone in the van?
Yes, in the browser on iPhone or Android, no app. Open the route, tap Navigate at the next stop, and Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze drives you there. You can plan the week on a computer and open the same route on your phone.
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Plan tomorrow's grooming route tonight.
Import your customer list, optimize the order with one click, and open it on your phone in the morning. Free to start, no credit card.
Free plan. No credit card. Works in any browser.