The price of a puppy is the one number every buyer remembers years later, and the only defensible way to reach it is from the costs you actually incurred and the work you actually did — not from what the market will bear this season.
A note on legal information
This article is general information, not legal advice. Contract law, consumer protection and the question of when a breeder counts as a trader differ between countries and change over time, and nothing here is a substitute for advice on your own situation. Have your contracts, terms and refund practice reviewed by a lawyer in your own jurisdiction before you rely on them.
The most important first
- Price from cost and work: screening both parents, the reproductive costs, veterinary care for the dam and the litter, food, registration, and the weeks of your own labor.
- Color and rarity are not a legitimate premium. The Royal Kennel Club’s position is that a puppy should not cost more than other dogs in the breed, and that a rarity claim usually means color has been prioritized over health or temperament.
- If you cannot itemize a price without becoming defensive, the number is not yet properly yours.
- A deposit is worth only as much as the written answers to four questions: what it secures, and what happens if the buyer withdraws, if you withdraw, or if there is no puppy to sell.
- Everything you decide here ends up in a document, which is why this article sits immediately before sales contracts and consumer law.
What a price is actually made of
Start with the litter’s arithmetic. Health screening comes first, because it is the cost that separates a planned litter from an accidental one: the screening schemes and DNA tests your breed calls for, carried out on both parents rather than one. Sire and dam contribute equally, so both have to be tested and both have to be suitable — see health screening and health schemes. Then the reproductive costs: progesterone testing, the stud fee and its travel, a pregnancy scan. Then the whelping, which may be uneventful or may be a cesarean at three in the morning.
Then the litter itself, for eight weeks or more: food for a lactating bitch and then for the puppies, worming, vaccination, microchipping, the pre-sale examination described in vet checks, microchipping and registration, registration fees, bedding, pen, heating, cleaning, and the replacement of what a litter destroys.
Two costs are systematically under-counted. The first is the dam: her own screening, her care through pregnancy and lactation, her recovery afterwards, and the real possibility of veterinary treatment that produces no saleable puppies. The second is your time: eight weeks of feeding, cleaning, weighing, socializing and answering inquiries is not a margin to wave away, even if you choose not to charge for it.
No honest article can give you a figure: costs differ between countries, breeds and litters, and a litter of two carries the same fixed costs as a litter of nine. Build the list for your own kennel and price from it, the method described in kennel economics and budgeting.
What should not be driving the number
Color is the clearest example of a premium with nothing behind it. The Royal Kennel Club is direct: a breeder may call a color rare, but that usually means color has been prioritized in the breeding decision, sometimes at the cost of health or temperament, and such colors are often short-lived fads sold as exclusive. Some are not breed standard colors at all, and some point to another breed in the pedigree. Pricing on markings or unusual size puts you in company you do not want.
Demand is the subtler trap. A long waiting list is not evidence that your puppies are worth more, only that you are visible. Raising the price because you can changes who applies, attracting people more likely to see the dog as an appreciating asset than a fifteen-year commitment — the shift that makes interviewing and selecting buyers harder.
Differences within a litter can be legitimate — a breeding prospect, or a puppy placed at a reduced price with a known condition — but only as an explicit written decision that says what the buyer is and is not getting: see guardian homes, breeding rights and co-ownership and placing puppies with special needs.
Being able to explain it
A buyer who asks why a puppy costs what it does is asking a fair question, and the answer should be a list rather than a defense: these tests on these two dogs, this veterinary care, this many weeks of work. Breeders who bristle at it are usually the ones who cannot answer, because the number came from other advertisements rather than their own records.
The discipline cuts both ways: the list will sometimes tell you that you are charging too little to breed sustainably. Do not compete downwards either, since the cheapest litter in the breed attracts buyers shopping on price — see communication and setting expectations.
Deposits: decide the cases before the money moves
A deposit does two jobs: it signals a serious buyer, and it commits you to hold a puppy rather than sell it to the next inquiry. Neither survives an unwritten arrangement, because the moment a deposit matters is the moment something has gone wrong.
Write down, before you accept a single payment, what happens in each of these situations: the buyer changes their mind; their circumstances change through no fault of their own; you decide during matching that this home is not right for any puppy in this litter; the litter is smaller than the number of reservations you took; no puppy of the sex or suitability the buyer wanted is born; a puppy dies or is found unwell before collection; the bitch does not conceive at all.
For each case the document has to say the same three things: whether the deposit is returned in full, returned in part or retained; whether it can be carried over to a later litter; and whether it counts toward the purchase price or sits beside it. The legal character of a deposit — part payment, or consideration for taking a puppy off the market — differs between countries, which is why your paperwork must state which you intend rather than leaving it to be argued about later. Keeping the amount modest makes every one of those conversations easier. Where you take reservations before a litter exists, say so in writing; the machinery is in inquiries and managing a waiting list.
In practice
A breeder takes six reservations with deposits before the mating, describing the terms verbally as refundable if it does not work out. The bitch whelps three puppies, one of which the breeder keeps. Two families are placed; four are not, and two had already bought crates and booked leave. The refunds are simple, but two weeks of distressed correspondence costs two families who would have waited a year. The next litter, deposits are taken only after whelping, against a written schedule listing each shortfall case by name.
(Illustrative, composite scenario.)
Payment, receipts and the moment of sale
How and where a sale may complete is regulated in some countries. In England, the rules depend on the license. A licensed dog breeder must sell from the premises where the puppy was born and reared, show the puppy with its mother, and tell the buyer its age, sex and veterinary record; no puppy under eight weeks may be sold or separated from its mother, unless a veterinarian considers it necessary for the health or welfare of the puppy, its littermates or the mother. Pet-selling license holders have further conditions under the Government’s statutory guidance for licensing the sale of animals as pets, including completing the sale in the buyer’s presence on the premises and providing a puppy contract and information pack at the point of sale. Other countries and US states have their own rules, so confirm yours.
The practical rules are simple. Use a traceable payment method and keep the confirmation. Issue a written receipt for every payment, including the deposit, showing the date, the amount, what it was for, which puppy it relates to — by microchip number rather than collar color — and the balance outstanding. Do not release a puppy against a promise of later payment unless that arrangement is in the signed contract. File every receipt with the litter’s records: the questions that come back later are almost always about what was agreed rather than what was paid.
Puppy scams are common, and US buyers are now warned by the Federal Trade Commission to be wary of any seller who wants money up front by gift card, payment app, cryptocurrency or wire transfer. Make it easy for genuine buyers to trust you: take payment by a traceable method, give a written receipt every time, and write the deposit conditions on the receipt itself. The Royal Kennel Club suggests a deposit of roughly 10–25% of the price; a much larger one can put good buyers off.
Work on it
A few minutes here will teach you more than re-reading the article.
Ask yourself
- Could I itemize this litter’s costs to a buyer from my own records, without estimating?
- Does anything in my pricing rest on color, size or demand rather than on work and cost?
- Have I written down what happens to a deposit in each of the six or seven ways a reservation can fail?
Find out & check
- Find out what the rules are where you breed on where and how a sale of a dog may be completed, on minimum age, and on what must be handed over at the point of sale — and have a professional in your country check your deposit terms.
Do one thing
- Write the deposit schedule today: one line per failure case, with the amount returned, retained or carried over.
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Sources & further reading
- The Royal Kennel Club — Rare and unusual colours. royalkennelclub.com
- The Royal Kennel Club — Health screening – a step by step guide for breeders. royalkennelclub.com
- The Royal Kennel Club — Selling your puppies. royalkennelclub.com
- UK Government — Selling animals as pets licensing: statutory guidance for local authorities. gov.uk
- legislation.gov.uk — The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, Schedule 6: Specific conditions: breeding dogs. legislation.gov.uk
- Federal Trade Commission — Getting a pet? Avoid scams. consumer.ftc.gov
- Canadian Kennel Club — Code of Practice (September 2017). ckc.ca
- Dogs Australia (ANKC) — National Code of Practice of Responsible Dog Ownership (July 2023). dogsaustralia.org.au
Where evidence is limited, recommendations rest on established practice and expert judgment, and may be updated as knowledge develops. This is general information, not legal or financial advice: requirements differ between countries and change over time — have your own documents reviewed by a qualified professional in your jurisdiction.
Next steps
- Read next: Sales contracts and consumer law.
- Related: Inquiries and managing a waiting list · Spring puppy demand: waitlists, deposits and saying no well.
- Return to the area hub: From first inquiry to settled puppy.