Who is this for? Individuals who are interested in hosting their indoor and/or outdoor space with urban dog parents for private play.

If you're a business owner who is looking for Rome's white glove host onboarding experience, please visit this page.

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Quick Start Guide

• Account Creation

• Yard Listing

• Pricing

• Scheduling

• Upcoming Features

• Frequently Asked Questions

• and More!

Ready to Get Started? Here are the basics.

What makes a great Rome yard?

No need for a football field - just a safe, clean space where pups can be themselves! Here's what we're (ideally) looking for:

• Privately accessible outdoor space

• Secure fencing with working gates

• At least 400 square feet of puppy paradise

• Clean space free of hazards

• Some nice shade for hot days

• Water access (because play is thirsty work!)

Having each of these are not required, but highly recommended to have a successful yard!

Host Experience Overview

Here's a high level overview of what it takes to host your yard on Rome and start getting guests:

1. Download the mobile app

2. Create an account on the Rome mobile app

3. Create your yard (includes setting your hourly rate, availability, and other details)

4. Complete payment account setup and address validation steps

5. Start hosting and earning!

Guest Experience Overview

Things to know about the guest experience:

1. By default, the "advanced notice window" is 15 minutes - you can change this after the yard is created to require more advanced notice from your potential guests

2. The guest experience should be entirely self-service, this means, you should not have to be present during a visit

3. Guests are expected to pick up after their dog, leave the space in the same condition that they found it, and either throw away or take away anything they brought with them

4. Guests can extend their visit during or before this visit— please keep this in mind if you are hosting your space on multiple platforms

5. Guests can book as little as 15 minutes and up to 2 hours

Getting into the details

Account Creation

To host your space, you will need to create an account on the Rome mobile app.

1. Download the Rome mobile app

2. Open the app and click on Sign Up on the top left

3. Create an account with Google, Apple, or Email

4. Select Host on the What brings you to Rome? page so we can make sure we're sending you the right information!

Account creation, yard creation, and yard management currently not available on the Rome website, but coming soon!

Create Your Yard

Start yard setup

1. Create an account and log in on the mobile app

2. Click on the Profile button on the top left to access your profile

3. Click the Host a Yard button to begin yard setup

Provide address

1. Start typing your exact address in the input box, and select your address from the drop down when it appears

2. Please make sure to provide the exact address, this is what will be provided to guests. You can provide further instructions and details about the location in a future step

Guests will not be provided your address until they've made a reservation. Guests can see your location on the map view before making a reservation.

Select key details

Provide some details about your yard that help your potential guests decide whether your spot is the right fit for them!

1. Fencing - Full, Partial, or None

2. Other Animals Visible - Visible or Not Visible

3. Noise - Low, Regular, or High

4. Size - Small, Medium, or Large (we suggest selecting the size relative to your location)

Select amenities

Select the amenities you can and are willing to offer. There are no amenities that you are required to offer, however.

The current amenity options are: Water, Toys, Seating, Restroom, Poo Bags, Trash Can, Obstacle Course, Wifi, Pool, Treats

Have suggestions for other amenities? Send them our way!

Provide photos of your space

You can provide up to 10 photos of your space. The first photo will be highlighted!

At this time, we recommend uploading one photo at a time in the order you would like to display the photos. We are actively working on improving the photo upload and management experience!

Set your availability

Set the times you would like to make your space available. For each day of the week, you can select one time window that your yard is available.

Once the yard is created, you have the option to create date-specific availability and unavailability blocks. You will see this option in your profile.

Once your yard is created, you can also pause your availability for any future bookings. This is a good option if you need to indefinitely pause your yard due to maintenance, travel, emergencies, etc. You can also find this option in your profile.

We are planning to upgrade the entire scheduling system soon!

Set your hourly rate

You can set how much guests are charged by setting an hourly rate. Guests can book in 15-minute increments and will be charged at a prorated rate.

We recommend first considering the location of your yard, then the size, and then the amenities you're able to offer. There is currently no option for providing extras at an additional charge.

At this time, every dog after the first dog is discounted at 75%. However, we are quickly working to allow hosts to set their own multi-dog discount.

Feel free to take a look at the other yards available on the app to get an idea of what to charge, or reach out to us to get help!

💡 Starting Rate Sweet Spot: Most hosts find $8-12/hour works great to get those first bookings rolling in!

You will receive your payout weekly! Rome retains 15% to cover for costs of running the service.

Provide instructions for your guests

Provide clear check-in and check-out details, yard rules, and any important information guests should know. They will see these instructions after they have made a reservation, so this would be a safe space to provide details that you don't just any Rome user to know.

Set the name and description of your yard

You can use our AI feature to auto-generated the name and description of your yard if you can't find the words yourself! Feel free to generate and edit, or create it from scratch.

This is also the place where you can provide a referral or promo code you may have received.

Going live

There are two major steps that need to happen to make your space available to potential guests: payments account setup and address validation. These steps are skippable during initial yard setup steps.

Setup payouts account

Rome uses Stripe as our trusted payments partner. You can select which bank account you would like to receive payments to through Stripe.

Rome will have no access to your bank account information, but we will have visibility on your earnings activity.

You will receive your payout weekly! The day of the week is based on the day of the week your account was setup. The payments you receive will be for the successful bookings that occurred the week prior.

Rome retains 15% to cover for costs of running the service, with no intentions to change this. You will receive a 90-day notice if we make any changes to how you are paid.

We are planning an exciting partnership with a banking partner that can support you in managing your earning and spend as a hosts, including taxes!

Reservations

Marketing you yard

The Rome team is working hard behind the scenes to market your yard outside of the platform.

We're build a feature to help you further market your space as well by auto-generating custom marketing material for you to use!

Details about the guest experience

Here are some high-level things to know about the guest experience that might impact how you run your yard:

1. By default, the "advanced notice window" is 15 minutes - you can change this after the yard is created to require more advanced notice from your potential guests

2. The guest experience should be entirely self-service, this means, you should not have to be present during a visit

3. Guests are expected to pick up after their dog, leave the space in the same condition that they found it, and either throw away or take away anything they brought with them

4. Guests can extend their visit during or before this visit -- please keep this in mind if you are hosting your space on multiple platforms

5. Guests can book as little as 15 minutes and up to 2 hours

Chatting with guests

You can chat with your guests after they have made a reservation, and they can also start a chat with you. The chat is a good way to send a welcome message and any special instructions that are only temporarily applicable. Chat is on a per-reservation basis and available from when the reservation was made to 30 minutes after the reservation has ended.

Notifications about reservations

At this time, these are the notifications you will receive:

1. When the reservation is made: push notification, email

2. Reminder 1 day before the reservation: push notification

3. Reminder 1 hour before the reservation: push notification

Upcoming Features

We want you to know that Rome is very new but evolving quickly! The features listed below are either mentioned above!

We're Here for You! 🤗

Need anything? We're just a message away:

1. Email us: hello@theromeapp.com

2. Text us: 302-428-9599

3. Follow us on social media!

   • Instagram

   • Facebook

   • LinkedIn

Again, welcome to the Rome family! We're so grateful to have you. 🤍

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is responsible of cleaning up after visiting dogs?

Guests, not hosts, are required to clean up after the dogs that they bring with them. You can report a reservation through the app if you believe a guest is not fulfilling their responsibilities.

What makes Rome different than other space-sharing platforms?

Rome is purpose-built for dogs.

We're a dog-first company, and so our app's features are based on what helps urban dog parents find safe spaces for their dogs.

Rome hosts earn more.

Rome only retains a 15% from hosts' earnings and hosts get paid weekly!

Rome treats hosts like small business owners.

We want hosts to have full control on how they decide to run their space, with certain guardrails and defaults in place. This is our vision, but we are quickly implementing features to make this happen in the short-term. We believe hosts will learn how to run their yard the best based on their guest's behavior, and Rome's job is to give you the right tools to make the best decisions.

Rome should be an every-day experience for guests with weekend getaways as an option.

Our goal is to keep Rome affordable to guests so that guests visit spaces multiple times a week. This means that we focus on finding yards within major cities, where most guests exist. However, if your yard is not in a major city, but still in a major town or in a metropolitan area, we will market your yard to apartment complexes, townhomes, etc. near you. Finally, if there are not many potential guests very close to you, we will market your yard as a weekend getaway to urban dog parents.

Rome flexes around guests' schedules.

To make Rome be an affordable, every day option for urban dog parents, we allow yard reservations to be as short as 15 minutes and guests are charged an exact prorated amount. This means a 15-minute booking's subtotal will be 25% of your hourly rate, 30-minute bookings with be 50% of your hourly rate, and so on.

Does Rome offer liability or damage protection?

Yes! See this page about Rome Cover.

Can I host my space on multiple platforms?

At this time, Rome doesn't integrate with your personal calendar or the calendars of other platforms. [We would love to put this in our roadmap if it is requested!]()

If you would like to host on Rome while hosting your space on other platforms, here are some ideas:

1. Give Rome certain days of the week, and other platforms other days of the week

2. Block off times that are already booked on other platforms - keep in mind that Rome allows guests to extend their visit during their visit! We plan to make this an option that can be configured by hosts.

3. Contact us to give us feedback on how you would like to manage your space on multiple platforms!

If you would like more support in hosting on Rome or transitioning to Rome without impacting your existing exists, feel free to contact us and we will send you further guidance! Don't forget to use your custom referral link when inviting guests to your yard on Rome!