You searched “napps certification” because someone told you it is the credential to get, or you found it while looking for anything that would make your pet sitting team look more credible. Then you read the actual course description and realized it is built for one sitter proving their own knowledge, not for training the four new hires starting next month. NAPPS certification and Pet Care Team Training both use the word certification, and they are not solving the same problem.
Quick Answer
NAPPS certification is an individual, exam-based credential from the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. A sitter studies on their own and takes a proctored exam to prove knowledge they already have. Pet Care Team Training is a team-training course an owner assigns to every hire, new or experienced, that builds the knowledge from scratch and layers in the company’s own procedures. One validates an individual. The other onboards a staff.
What NAPPS Certification Actually Tests
NAPPS, the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, is a membership-based national association built around individual professional pet sitters rather than pet sitting companies. Its certification follows the same pattern most individual credentials in this industry use: a self-study course covering pet care, health, safety, and general business basics, followed by a proctored exam that requires a passing score to earn the credential.
That structure makes sense for what it is built to do. A NAPPS certification says one specific person studied the material and passed the test. It says nothing about whether your other five employees have ever seen the same material, and it does not include a way to add your company's own key-handling policy, cancellation rule, or what a sitter does when a client's gate is left unlatched. The exam checks a sitter's existing knowledge. It was never built to teach a new hire who does not have that knowledge yet.
What Pet Care Team Training Actually Does
Pet Care Team Training solves the opposite problem: getting a whole team, including a brand-new hire with zero experience, trained to the same standard without you personally re-explaining it every time someone new starts. The course runs under two hours per person across 13 video lessons, taught by named instructors with checkable credentials, including licensed veterinarian Dr. Josh Sosnow, DVM, on the pet health and safety modules.
Every hire gets quiz-verified fundamentals plus your own company procedures through the Paw Prints feature, a set of fill-in-your-own-answer fields built directly into the course at no extra cost. An owner who would rather not write those procedures personally can get them written through PCTT's done-for-you Paw Prints build instead. Basic runs $117 per seat and includes the core course plus an owner dashboard. Plus+ runs $157 per seat and bundles ProPetHero pet CPR and first aid certification in with it, something a standalone individual exam does not include.
Watch before you spend a dollar
Five free training videos from Pet Care Team Training, no certification required.
The Real Difference: Who Is Being Certified, and For What
NAPPS certification and Pet Care Team Training are not two versions of the same thing at different price points. They certify different things entirely.
NAPPS certifies a person. A sitter who already knows the job studies independently and proves it on an exam. That credential travels with the individual, which matters if that sitter later works somewhere else or wants a personal line on their resume separate from any one employer.
Pet Care Team Training certifies a team, inside your business, on your procedures. It teaches a sitter who does not already know the material, verifies they learned it through quizzes, and records who finished what on an owner dashboard you can see. A five-person team that goes through Pet Care Team Training walks away trained on the same fundamentals and the same company-specific rules. A five-person team where two members hold individual NAPPS certifications still has three people who learned the job however you personally explained it to them, on whatever day you had time.
When an Individual Credential Like NAPPS Still Makes Sense
None of this makes NAPPS certification a bad choice. It fits a specific situation: an experienced, veteran sitter who wants a personal, portable credential to put on their own resume or LinkedIn, independent of any one employer. If you have a long-tenured team member who wants that kind of individual recognition, NAPPS or a similar exam-based credential can be the right add-on.
What it does not replace is onboarding. A business hiring three or four people a year, or bringing on a first employee at all, needs a way to train someone who does not already know the job, and an individual exam was never designed for that. Most growing pet sitting and dog walking businesses end up using both tools for different jobs: a team-training course like Pet Care Team Training for onboarding every hire, and an individual credential like NAPPS for the veteran who wants personal proof of their own knowledge. For a fuller side-by-side across every certification option in the industry, the complete comparison of certification choices for teams covers NAPPS alongside PSI's CPPS, CPS-DW, and PACCC accreditation in one place.
What Should You Do If You Are Hiring Right Now?
If the reason you searched "napps certification" is that you have a new hire starting soon, or you are trying to build a repeatable training sequence instead of explaining the job from memory every time, an individual exam credential does not solve that problem today. You need something your new hire can go through on day one that teaches the job and your own procedures at the same time.
Watch five free training videos before you decide anything, so you can judge the actual teaching quality instead of trusting a comparison page, including this one. And if you want to see the full system this article assumes, from the initial course through hands-on shadowing in the field, the complete guide to training a new pet sitter or dog walker walks through all four stages an owner actually needs.
Whichever direction fits your team, current per-seat pricing for Basic and Plus+ is public, and Bella Vasta and Liz Illg's own business-owner review of what it is like to actually run the course with a team is worth reading before you commit either way, in the full Pet Care Team Training review.
Certify your team instead of one sitter
Basic runs $117 per seat. Plus+ runs $157 per seat and adds ProPetHero pet CPR and first aid certification.
Basic $117 per seat · Plus+ $157 per seat with pet CPR and first aid
Frequently Asked Questions About NAPPS Certification vs Pet Care Team Training
Is NAPPS certification the same as Pet Care Team Training?
No. NAPPS certification is an individual, exam-based credential from the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters that tests knowledge one sitter already has. Pet Care Team Training is a course an owner assigns to every hire to build that knowledge from scratch, with company procedures included.
Can I use NAPPS certification to train a new hire with no experience?
Not on its own. NAPPS certification is a self-study course plus an exam built for someone who already understands the fundamentals. A brand-new hire with no pet care background needs a course built to teach the material first, which is what Pet Care Team Training is built to do.
Does Pet Care Team Training replace an individual credential like NAPPS?
No, they solve different problems. NAPPS validates knowledge an experienced sitter already has. Pet Care Team Training builds that knowledge in a new hire and adds your company's own procedures through Paw Prints. Many growing businesses use a team course for onboarding and keep an individual credential available for veteran staff who want personal recognition.
How much does Pet Care Team Training cost compared to an individual certification like NAPPS?
Pet Care Team Training runs $117 per seat for Basic and $157 per seat for Plus+, which adds ProPetHero pet CPR and first aid certification. Individual exam-based credentials are typically priced per person as a standalone membership or exam fee rather than a team seat, so check the certifying body's own current pricing directly before comparing the two side by side.
Who should get an individual credential like NAPPS instead of a team course?
A veteran sitter who wants a personal, portable credential separate from any one employer, to list on their own resume or professional profile, is the best fit for an individual exam-based credential. An owner training a whole team, including new hires, needs a course built for onboarding instead.
Can my team have both a team certification and individual credentials like NAPPS?
Yes. The two are not competing options. A team course like Pet Care Team Training onboards every hire to the same standard, and an individual credential like NAPPS gives an experienced sitter their own personal proof of knowledge on top of that. Many established businesses use both.
About the authors
Bella Vasta has worked in the pet care industry since 2002, built a 10-employee pet sitting company and sold it in 2016, and now coaches pet business owners at Jump Consulting. Liz Illg is the CEO of Puff & Fluff Grooming in Phoenix and a small business consultant. Together they built Pet Care Team Training with licensed veterinarian Dr. Josh Sosnow, DVM (North Scottsdale Animal Hospital), certified professional pet trainer Mark Siebel (Doggie Steps Dog Training), and cat behaviorist Missy Pruitt-Chastain.
Pet Care Team Training is a 2-hour online certification for pet sitting and dog walking staff: 13 video lessons, quizzes, an owner dashboard, and pet first aid and CPR on the Plus+ tier. See the license options.