Our Services: Everything PetGuru Offers

What is PetGuru?

PetGuru is South Africa's most trusted pet platform, purpose-built to protect buyers, verify sellers, and connect pet lovers with the services they need.

AI Verification

Every breeder, service provider, and merchant is verified by our AI-powered system before they can list on PetGuru.

Marketplace

Buy pets from verified breeders, adopt from verified shelters, and shop quality pet products from trusted merchants.

Community

Create pet profiles, connect with fellow pet lovers, read our magazine, and share your pet stories with South Africa.

AI-Powered Verification System

Our flagship feature. Three specialised AI agents work around the clock to verify every breeder, service provider, and merchant on PetGuru, ensuring only genuine, trustworthy professionals make it onto our platform.

Breeder Verification Agent

Validates KUSA and SABBS registration numbers, scans breeder certificates, analyses health testing records, checks breeding frequency, and detects puppy mill indicators.

Service Verification Agent

Verifies SAVC registration for veterinarians, validates NPO registration for shelters, checks professional certifications for groomers and trainers, and confirms credentials for pet sitters and dog walkers.

Merchant Verification Agent

Validates CIPC business registration for pet stores, restaurants, dog hotels, and e-commerce stores. Checks health and food safety certificates, verifies trading addresses, and confirms business legitimacy.

What the AI Checks

Identity Verification

Scans SA ID documents, validates identity against submitted profiles, and detects duplicate or fraudulent accounts across the platform.

Document Scanning

Analyses uploaded certificates and registration documents using computer vision. Extracts registration numbers, verifies issuing bodies, and checks document authenticity.

Scam Detection

Detects duplicate accounts and reused ID, phone, and registration numbers, and flags behavioural red flags such as rapid sign-ups, copy-paste descriptions, and suspiciously low pricing — common South African pet-scam patterns.

Image Moderation

Every image uploaded to PetGuru is scanned by AWS Rekognition technology that detects and blocks inappropriate, explicit, or offensive content, keeping the platform safe and family-friendly.

Fraud Risk Scoring

Each application receives a comprehensive risk score based on profile completeness, document quality, registration validity, address verification, and behavioural patterns.

Business Validation

Verifies CIPC company registration, confirms physical trading addresses, checks business legitimacy, and validates health and safety compliance for food-related businesses.

Pet Marketplace

Browse and buy pets from verified breeders, or adopt from verified rescue shelters across South Africa. Every listing on PetGuru comes from a verified source, no exceptions.

Verified Breeder Listings

Every breeder on PetGuru is AI-verified with confirmed KUSA or SABBS registration. Browse listings with confidence knowing the breeder is genuine, registered, and ethical.

Shelter Adoption Listings

Verified rescue shelters list their animals for free on PetGuru. Find rescue dogs, cats, and other animals looking for their forever homes across South Africa.

Secure Inquiries

Contact sellers through PetGuru's protected inquiry system. Your personal details stay private until you choose to share them. All communications are logged for your protection.

Favourites & Alerts

Save your favourite listings, follow breeders, and get notified when new pets matching your preferences are listed. Never miss the perfect pet again.

Side-by-Side Compare

Add up to four listings to your compare tray and review them on a single page: price, breed, age, location, declared health status and seller side by side. Helpful when you're weighing two breeders against each other or a rescue against a private rehoming.

Health Status at a Glance

Every listing card surfaces the seller's declared health flags (vaccinated, microchipped, dewormed, sterilised) as small green pills on the card itself. Listings without any health info show a single red "No Health Info Provided" pill so you know to ask before committing.

Browse Pet Listings

Pet Products Marketplace

Verified merchants selling quality pet food, accessories, health products, grooming supplies, and more, all from trusted South African businesses.

10%

Commission, that's it

Weekly

Payout settlement cycles

R0

Setup fees: zero

Full E-Commerce Platform

Complete warehouse management, stock control, product variants, bulk uploads, and inventory tracking: everything a pet business needs to sell online.

Secure Online Checkout

Seamless checkout with secure credit and debit card payments. Fast, PCI-compliant, and designed for the South African market.

Delivery Integration

Integrated delivery solutions including same-day delivery options. Automated shipping calculations, tracking, and delivery notifications for every order.

Merchant Analytics

Detailed sales reports, performance tracking, customer insights, and revenue analytics. Understand your business and grow your pet product sales.

Become a Merchant

Boost & Sponsorship Tools

Four boost tiers, smart bundles, monthly subscriptions and editorial slots: everything you need to put your listings or business profile in front of the right pet owners across South Africa.

Bump Up

Instant one-time push to the top of search results: the simplest boost. No visual change to the card, just reordering. From R19 for small pets, R29 for cats, R39 for dogs.

Highlight (7 Days)

Soft gold gradient border on your listing card so it stands out in the grid, plus sort priority above regular listings for a full week. From R49 / R59 / R99.

Urgent (7 Days)

Magenta gradient border + a fire-icon URGENT badge on the card and the highest non-Sponsored sort priority. Built for time-sensitive listings: rehomings, last-of-the-litter, animals that need a home this week.

Top Ad (7 / 14 / 30 Days)

Full premium treatment: rich gold border, sponsored carousels across the homepage, listings index, magazine, pet profiles and success stories, plus AI-targeted email + push notifications to active users when you activate.

Bump Bundles

Pre-buy 5 or 10 Bump Up credits per species group at a discount. Apply them to any of your listings whenever you need a refresh. Credits never expire and stocking up always saves you money over per-bump pricing.

Litter Packs

The breeder bundle: 8 Bump Up credits + 1 Top Ad credit (7 days) in a single purchase. Pin a Top Ad to your hero pup and drip the bumps as the rest of the litter goes live. Available in Dogs / Cats / Other.

Always-On Top Subscription

Recurring monthly billing that keeps one specific listing on Top Ad placement, no re-buying every month. Cancel anytime. From R199 / R269 / R349 per month depending on species.

AI Listing Polish

Our AI rewrites your listing's title and description for clarity and search-friendliness. You review the suggestion before it goes live, nothing changes without your sign-off. R29 per polish, one-time.

Buyer-Lead Board

The marketplace in reverse: buyers post a brief describing the pet they're looking for, verified breeders & shelters browse and unlock briefs to make contact.

Post a Brief (Free for Buyers)

Pet owners describe what they're hunting for: species, breed, age range, region, budget, lineage requirements. Posts stay open until you mark them matched or close them. Always free.

Filter & Browse (For Breeders)

Verified breeders & shelters see open briefs filtered by species and region. Public details (what's wanted, area, budget) are visible without unlocking, so you can decide which leads are worth reaching out to.

Lead Packs: Pay-Per-Unlock

Spend one credit from a Lead Pack (10 / 25 / 50 sizes, R24 to R30 per lead) to unlock a buyer's contact info. Per-credit cost drops with bigger packs to reward active responders. Credits never expire.

Privacy by Design

Buyer contact info is masked until a breeder spends a credit. After unlock, your details go to that one breeder, not other unlockers, not a public list, never scraped. Every unlock is logged in your dashboard.

Professional Directory

Find trusted, verified pet professionals near you. Every business in our directory has been through our verification process to ensure quality and legitimacy.

Veterinarians

SAVC-registered vets for check-ups, vaccinations, and specialist care.

Emergency Clinics

24/7 emergency vet clinics for when your pet needs urgent care.

Groomers

Professional pet grooming services from qualified groomers.

Trainers

Certified dog trainers for obedience, behaviour, and socialisation.

Pet Sitters

Trusted pet sitters to care for your pets while you are away.

Dog Walkers

Reliable dog walkers for daily exercise and outdoor adventures.

Dog Hotels

Premium boarding and accommodation for your furry family members.

Pet Stores

Verified pet stores selling food, toys, accessories, and supplies.

Dog-Friendly Restaurants

Restaurants and cafes where your four-legged friend is welcome.

Browse Full Directory

Pet Community & Social

Connect with fellow pet lovers across South Africa. Share your pets, discover stories, and be part of a community that truly cares about animals.

Pet Profiles

Create detailed profiles for each of your pets. Share photos, track milestones, record vaccinations, and showcase your furry family to the PetGuru community.

PetSocial Feed

Post updates about your pets, like and comment on other pet owners' content, and stay connected with a vibrant community of animal lovers across the country.

Hall of Fame

Celebrate the most loved pets in the community. Like and follow your favourite pets and see who makes it to PetGuru's Hall of Fame each month.

Lost & Found

Report lost pets and help reunite families. Our community rallies together to help find missing animals and bring them home safely.

Found-a-Pet Microchip Lookup

Found a stray? Enter the microchip number on our Found a Pet page. If the chip matches a pet registered on PetGuru, the owner is notified instantly with your contact details. No account needed. Reuniting pets and families is always free.

Pet Health & Vaccination Calendar

Track every vaccination, deworming dose, sterilisation, microchip event and vet checkup in a single calendar built into each pet's profile. Overdue events surface automatically; certificates can be uploaded as proof. Free for every PetGuru pet owner. Read the full guide »

Events & Meetups

Discover local pet events, dog shows, adoption drives, and social meetups happening in your area. Connect offline with people who share your love for animals.

Success Stories

Read inspiring adoption and fostering stories from real South African families. Share your own story and inspire others to give a rescue animal a loving home.

Visit Our Community

PetGuru Magazine

Expert articles, health guides, training tips, and breed profiles: everything you need to give your pet the best life possible.

Health & Wellness

Vaccination schedules, nutrition guides, common illness prevention, and expert advice to keep your pet healthy and happy throughout their life.

Training & Behaviour

Expert training tips for puppies and adult dogs, behavioural advice, socialisation techniques, and positive reinforcement methods that actually work.

Breed Guides

Detailed breed profiles covering temperament, exercise needs, health predispositions, grooming requirements, and suitability for South African climates.

Adoption & Fostering Guides

Step-by-step guides for adopting or fostering a rescue animal. What to expect, how to prepare your home, and tips for a smooth transition for your new family member.

Read the Magazine

Professional SEO & Visibility

Every listing, profile, and business page on PetGuru is professionally optimised to be found on Google, driving real customers to your door.

Structured Data & Schema

Every page includes rich structured data markup that helps Google understand and display your listings in search results with enhanced snippets, ratings, and pricing.

Optimised URLs

Clean, keyword-rich URLs for every listing and business profile. Your page ranks higher because search engines can clearly understand what your page is about.

Meta Tags & Open Graph

Professional SEO metadata, Open Graph tags for social sharing, and Twitter cards, ensuring your listings look great when shared anywhere on the internet.

Google Ads Integration

Targeted advertising campaigns driving qualified traffic directly to pet listings and merchant products. We invest in getting your listings in front of real buyers.

Social Media Promotion

Product spotlights, listing features, and business highlights shared across PetGuru's Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok channels reaching thousands of pet lovers.

Automated Sitemaps

XML sitemaps automatically generated and updated for every listing, article, product, and business profile, ensuring Google discovers and indexes your content fast.

Automated Notifications & Communications

Stay informed with real-time updates on everything that matters, from new inquiries and order updates to verification progress and community activity.

Email Notifications

Beautifully designed, branded email notifications for every important event: inquiry alerts, order confirmations, verification updates, welcome messages, and more.

Real-Time Alerts

Instant in-app notifications for new messages, listing activity, favourites, followers, and important updates. Never miss a potential buyer or an important update.

Newsletter

Weekly curated newsletter with the latest articles, featured listings, special offers, and community highlights delivered straight to your inbox.

AI Chat Support

Intelligent chat support powered by our AI assistant. Get instant answers about the platform, breeding regulations, verification status, and navigating PetGuru, 24/7.

Trust & Safety

Your safety is our highest priority. Every feature we build, every decision we make, starts with one question: does this protect our users?

AI Fraud Detection

Our scam detection AI proactively identifies fraud operations, detects duplicate accounts, analyses pricing anomalies, and catches scammers before they reach you.

Content Moderation

AWS Rekognition scans every uploaded image for inappropriate content. Combined with AI text moderation, we keep PetGuru safe and family-friendly at all times.

Secure Communications

Protected inquiry system between buyers and sellers. Your personal contact details remain private until you choose to share them. All messages are logged.

Community Guidelines

Clear, enforced standards for behaviour, listings, and content. Community guidelines protect buyers, sellers, and animals from misrepresentation and abuse.

POPIA Compliance

Full compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act. Your data is encrypted, protected, and never sold to third parties. Your privacy matters.

Admin Review & Oversight

Every AI verification decision is backed by human review. Our admin team monitors the platform, reviews flagged content, and ensures standards are maintained.

Founding Member Programme

The first 100 verified breeders, shelters and service pros on PetGuru get lifetime perks, our thank-you for helping us build the platform from day one.

Two Lifetime Sponsorship Slots

Pick your two most important listings: they stay in the featured carousels forever, surfacing on the homepage, listings pages, magazine articles and pet profiles. Swap them out as your inventory changes, never pay a sponsorship fee on those slots again.

Lifetime Directory Boost

Breeders, shelters, vets, groomers, trainers, sitters, walkers: your business profile is permanently promoted at the top of directory search and on the matching category landing pages. New visitors find you first, every single time.

Permanent Founding Badge

A numbered badge on your profile (#001 to #100) so the community knows you helped build PetGuru from day one. Travels with you across listings, reviews and PetSocial posts, permanent recognition that you were here before there were a thousand of us.

Direct Line to the Team

Early access to new features before anyone else sees them, a real say in roadmap decisions, and priority support for as long as you're with us. We loop you in when something's coming, and your feedback actually shapes what ships.

See Spots Remaining

Everything PetGuru Offers

South Africa's most comprehensive pet platform. From AI-verified breeders to professional directories, product marketplaces to community features, discover everything we do.