Home exchange between pet owners

Your pets stay home. You travel.

You stay in another owner's home and look after their animals. They stay in yours and look after yours. Nobody's dog goes to a kennel, and nobody's cat wakes up somewhere strange.

Every swap is between fully verified members No booking fee, service fee or cleaning fee Not open yet — when Stead opens, it opens here

The Stead app's first screen: a photograph of two travellers wheeling suitcases to a front door while a golden retriever stands with them at the door, above the words Your pets stay home. You travel.

The week before the flight

It starts about a week out. You do the arithmetic — the kennel, the sitter your neighbour used once, the friend who says yes and then goes quiet. You picture the drop-off.

So you shorten the trip. Or you drive instead of fly. Or you don't go.

A better kennel was never the answer. Keeping the animal home is.

What Stead actually is

Pet-friendly is a filter. This is an obligation.

Other home exchanges have a pet-friendly setting — a box on a listing saying an animal is allowed in the house. Stead is the other thing. Both households have animals, both are occupied for the same nights, and looking after the other family's animals is the exchange itself rather than a favour attached to it.

Your home

They stay here The other owner, in your kitchen, feeding your animals on your schedule.

Your animals never leave

You travel They travel

Their home

You stay here You, in their kitchen, feeding their animals on theirs.

Their animals never leave

Every swap runs in both directions at the same time, which is what keeps both homes occupied and both sets of animals where they live. There is no balance to build up, nothing to convert and no points jargon to learn.

Host 1 night = travel 1 night. That's it.

Start to finish

How a swap happens

Three steps — and the last one only opens once the first is finished on both sides.

Get verified

Four checks — who you are, that the home is yours, that the animals are yours, and the care pledge. Three of them need evidence and a person reads it. Nothing turns green on its own, and sending a document is not the same as passing a check.
Find a home that fits

Somewhere you want to go, dates that overlap yours, and animals you are able to look after. Browsing, listing your home, adding your pets and asking for a swap are all free.
Swap

You are in their home with their animals; they are in yours with yours. A swap can only be confirmed once all four checks are green on both sides.

The search screen in the Stead app, headed Where could you go?, with a first step labelled Place reading Anywhere members have opened a home, above a city search field. — Step one. Somewhere you want to go.

The dates step in the Stead app, offering four date shapes — any dates, exact dates, give or take, and a whole month — above a note reading Keep every open window in view. — Step two. How firmly your dates are set is a choice, because the whole thing turns on two households being free at once.

Why it's safe enough to try

You're letting someone in. So are they.

At the same time, for the same nights, with their own animals on the line. That symmetry is the single biggest difference between this and handing a key to somebody you are paying.

Both sides, all four checks

Identity, home, pet ownership and the care pledge — all four, on both sides, before a swap can be confirmed. A person reads the documents behind three of them, and the app never shows a tick nobody has granted.
Your address stays private

Until a swap is confirmed, your street address stays locked at the database itself — a member who is not your confirmed counterparty cannot read it, whatever the app asks for.
Reviews are double-blind

Both sides write within fourteen days, and nothing publishes until both are in or the window closes. Neither of you sees the other's review before writing your own, so nobody is marking a review they have already read.
Reliability is computed, not written

Response rate, swaps completed and cancellations are worked out by the system. The member they describe cannot edit them, and no figure appears at all until there is real history behind it.
Talk to a person

Support is a person, not a bot and not a help centre. Stead is run by one person, so you are writing to them directly.

A screen from the Stead app showing a traveller shaking hands with a couple at their front door while a border collie watches, above the words Every swap is between fully verified members. — Both sides pass the same four checks before any swap can confirm.

While you're away

They'll know the routine

Because you wrote it down. Every animal has a care handbook — feeding, medication, walks, the small things only you know. During a stay the traffic runs the other way: a photograph and a note about your animal, in your home, arriving while you're somewhere else.

Both can be drafted with AI — labelled wherever that happens — and every draft is one a person approves, edits or throws away. Nothing sends itself, no decision about your account is made by a machine alone, and emergency contacts are never AI-written — the handbook doesn't give the machine a place to put them.

A screen from the Stead app showing someone photographing a golden retriever lying on a rug in a sunlit living room, above the words Their routine, written down. — From the app's opening screens: a daily update being taken.

What it costs

Free until the handshake

Browsing, listing your home, adding your pets, getting verified, asking for a swap and talking to a host are free and stay free. A membership is what turns an accepted swap into a confirmed one — and both sides need one.

Browse, list, verify, ask, message: Free
Booking fee: None
Service fee: None
Cleaning fee: None
Pet care: Mutual
Membership, to confirm a swap: €139 a year in Europe · $149 a year in the United States

Founding members keep that rate for life. Cancelling stops the next renewal and takes almost nothing away — your listing, pets, reviews and verifications all stay, and browsing carries on free. The founding rate itself survives a cancellation for 60 days, then lapses.

Every membership carries the Stead Member Guarantee: reimbursement for home damage and vet costs up to a stated cap per swap, shown in your own currency in the app. It is discretionary and it is not insurance — it sits behind your own insurance, not in front of it.

Before you ask

The questions you're probably asking

Answered by the person who built it — who is also the person who answers support.

A stranger, in my house?

Not a stranger to the situation. They have handed you their own home and their own animals for the same nights, which is a very different position from someone being paid to hold your keys.

Before a swap confirms, both of you have passed the same four checks, and a person has read the documents behind three of them. Your address stays hidden until the swap is confirmed.

What if something goes wrong?

Every confirmed swap names a backup plan before it confirms, so there is an answer written down before anyone needs it. Messages are screened for the patterns scams follow, and anything flagged is marked in the thread.

Membership carries the Stead Member Guarantee — reimbursement that sits behind your own insurance, never in front of it. And support is a person you write to.

What if nobody's in my city?

Then Stead isn't useful to you yet, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. An exchange is only useful once someone who wants to visit your city is also free on your dates — and Stead is new, so that will be true in some places before others.

Browsing is free and will stay free, so you can find out whether that is true for you before paying anything.

Do I have to own a pet?

To confirm a swap, yes. Pet ownership is one of the four checks and it applies to both sides, which is the whole point — the person feeding your cat at seven in the morning already knows what that morning looks like.

You can browse, list your home and pass three of the four checks without one.

Is this house-sitting?

No. Nobody is paid, nobody is working, and it runs in both directions at once. On a sitting platform one person has a house and the other has a job; here both of you are owners with the same thing at stake for the same nights.

What about insurance?

Listing a home means confirming it is covered by valid home or renters insurance — your own policy is the first line, and the Stead Member Guarantee — discretionary, not insurance — sits behind it.

Pet insurance is encouraged and not required. Requiring it would exclude most owners in most of the world.

The company

Who runs Stead

Stead is operated by SummAIze, LLC — an unfamiliar name, and the one that appears on anything legal. It is run by one person, which is also why support is a person.

Company: SummAIze, LLC — a limited liability company formed in the State of Delaware, USA
Business address: 169 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States