I often get asked about free pet microchips or microchip chargebacks.
Some databases offer this because they are charging ridiculous fees to pet owners to register or update their microchip details. This means that they can either give the pet microchips away for free or give a microchip implanter free microchips on the basis of previous microchips they’ve used generating revenue for them.
We do not give free pet microchips or do any type of chargebacks for a few reasons:
It goes against our mission of helping lost pets get home
In a survey we completed, 72% of people said they would consider not updating their pet’s microchip is they were charged £10 or more. (You can see the different costs HERE.) Many stated they would do it if their pet ever went missing. The problem is people forget. If your pet ever does go missing people panic and are out looking for them, calling Vet clinics, dog wardens and animal rescues.
With every microchip we sell it’s 100% free to register, update and transfer for the life of the pet. This means our microchips are a little more expensive at times, but we believe responsible microchip implanter will choose us because they want the best for their customers and the pet’s they are microchipping.
In ensuring the whole process is free forever we can help ensure we have a pet’s most up to date records. We even go a step further checking in with the pet owner every 6 months to ensure their details are still up to date. This feature is also completely free of charge.
Charging pet owners actually makes our customer's lives harder!
90% of our business is generated via Veterinary practices.
85% of our calls for lost pets are made by… you guessed it Veterinary practices.
By charging pet owners between £15 and £30 to update their pet’s microchip details we drastically reduce our chances of ensuring we have the right details. This means the Vet practice can’t easily and quickly get in touch with the pet’s correct owner if they are handed into their practice. This leads to added admin, wasted time and potentially lost revenue as they may treat or keep a pet overnight and never get paid for it as the pet ends up with the dog warden.
We believe our customers can charge more for the MyPet service!
I’ve added a few reviews (all posted within the last month) below that I found on different review websites. Pet owner’s don’t expect to pay to update their details after paying to have the microchip implanted! I hear this compliant every single week on sales calls.
I think it totally unreasonable to pay a vet to chip your dogs at 30 pound a dog. Then expect the new owner to pay another amount to transfer the chip into their name.
Two out of three customer service staff were not helpful. Pushing for me to have the £19 (company name removed) for microchipping management
They charged the breeder to chip his new litter. 9 weeks later when I bring one of the puppies home, they want to charge me as well. Just to change the “owner” field in the database.
Absolutely awful, registered my pets details, paid nearly £20, still not been registered on their database, still in process after nearly 2wks.
At every part of the journey we let the pet owner know the microchip implanter has paid for the registration. Just take a look at the card below. (If your a vet and you order from us, your cards will say Vet, if your an implanter your card will say implanter)
Some people ask why our website mentions a £1.99 charge. This is for non MyPet microchips that aren’t registered on any other Defra compliant database.
How do we operate without the average registration charge of £20
- We're a technology company and build all our own technology. Many other databases pay someone else to build their platform!
- We are software experts, lots of our processes are automated, and our platform is cloud based and hosted on AWS meaning we need less human intervention unlike our competitors.
- We help pet owners save money and make some in return with MyPet Perks which allows pet owners to save money on products such as food and toys. We get a cut of the sales generated through MyPet Perks!
What do your customers think?
We will let our customers speak for themselves. You can find Trustpilot reviews HERE or you can also see our reviews.io reviews below. (We’re in the middle of changing our reviews platform!)
Here are a few of our Veterinary customer reviews:
In summary
When a microchip provider / database gives you microchips for free the cost is being passed onto your customer! We think this is the wrong way to do business and negatively affects animal welfare and reduces the chance of a pet making it home quickly and safely.
We believe that a responsible microchip implanter will want to ensure the microchips their implanting will get registered and the pet’s details will stay updated for the life of the pet.
Sure, we make less money but we believe long term it’s better for our customers (microchip implanters, the pet owners and pet’s that are registered on our database) which will be better for us in the long term.
