What does a dog or cat actually cost, year by year?
Built only from routine preventive-care items we have real regional pricing data for — wellness exams, vaccines, dental cleanings, and heartworm tests — plus clearly-labeled assumptions about how often each is needed.
Source: FairVet Lifetime Cost Estimator, September 16, 2026. https://fairvet.app/lifetime-costs
Not enough regional data yet — check back as more estimates are processed.
What's not included
This is deliberately narrow. It does not attempt to estimate food, treats, grooming, boarding or pet-sitting, monthly flea/tick or heartworm prevention medication, emergency or illness care of any kind, insurance premiums, or supplies — we either don't track pricing data for these at all, or the real-world variation is too wide for a single figure to mean anything. Adding a made-up number for any of these would be worse than leaving it out.
Methodology
Per-item prices are FairVet's regional median prices, from the same de-identified, combined data behind /pricing-index and the cost guides — never an individual user's estimate.
Frequencies (how many times per year an item is assumed to recur) are stated inline next to each line item — they are our assumptions about typical care schedules, not something we measured. Change the assumption and the total changes; we show the math so you can.
First-year and steady-state annual totals are shown separately, not blended. Year one includes one-time costs (spay/neuter) and initial vaccine series that don't recur — repeating a flat annual figure for every year, including year one, would overstate later years and understate year one.
A line item below our minimum sample size is labeled "Not enough data yet" and excluded from the totals entirely, rather than shown as an unreliable average — so a total made of fewer items is a floor, not a complete picture.
This is an educational projection, not a guarantee, and not medical or financial advice.
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