How Much Does a Puppy Cost to Buy?
A well-bred pedigree or designer puppy will cost anywhere from $400 to $2,000 on average. The cost of a puppy varies hugely, depending upon the breed, its popularity, and the amount the breeder has invested into health tests. But just because good puppies don’t come cheap, that doesn’t mean that every expensive puppy is a good puppy.
The true answer to “Why are puppies so expensive?” often boils down fashion, as well as to the fact that dogs are expensive to breed and care for.
It is always a good idea to do your own research into how much does a puppy cost to buy, to feed, to house and to take care of (including veterinary exams).
This way, you can decide now – before you make the initial commitment and investment – if the puppy you want to buy is a dog you can both afford to purchase and take care of for the rest of their lifetime.
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As mentioned, the average cost of almost 50,000 puppies reviewed was $1,300. It seems like a reasonable amount as I was expecting something between $1,000 and $1,500.
An interesting fact is that the median cost is $1,000. It means that there were as many puppies for sale under $1,000 that there were over $1,000. It makes sense since there are many more unregistered breeders selling cheaper puppies than registered ones. Sadly, it’s also very well-known that many greedy backyard breeders and puppy mills are operating in the US, selling physically or mentally unhealthy dogs sometimes for a low price.
In fact, according to the Humane Society, there are over 10,000 puppy mills in the US. This is one reason buyers should be cautious about where they buy or (to a lesser extent) adopt their dog.
The other reason explaining the difference between the average and median is that some puppies are very expensive. We found almost 500 ads for puppies over $5,000. These puppies were practically exclusively sold by AKC registered breeders and were purebred show quality dogs from a prestigious bloodline.
To get a better idea of the actual cost people should expect to pay when buying a puppy, we have established a cost range excluding 10% of the cheapest puppies and 10% of the most expensive ones.
We found that 80% of the ads reviewed were between $500 and $2,500. As described later in this article, this range varies a lot depending on the breed.
For example, 80% of French Bulldogs were priced between $1,800 and $4,500 (from over 3,000 ads), while 80% of Labrador Retrievers were in the $400 to $1,500 range (from over 3,000 ads as well).
Some rare breeds tend to be very expensive because puppies are hard to find. In many cases, the only option is to put your name on a waiting list at a registered breeder and hope to get a puppy when the next litter is ready.
Within the same breed, there can also be a significant price difference between puppies. Many factors can explain this:
Finally, there was no direct correlation between a breed’s size and puppy prices.
Grand total from our puppy litter
We originally started to breed puppies, we thought that our dark red golden retrievers would be worth $2,000 each. But after no phone calls for a couple weeks, we slowly had to drop the price of our puppies. Because the mom and dad didn’t have an OFA score for hips, shoulders and eyes, we couldn’t charge top dollar for our puppies. Instead, we settled charging the following for our puppies:
After all of our puppies were sold, six people bought breeding rights for the girls. We also had to provide a $100 discount for four of the puppies because we didn’t cut their dew claws deep enough and they grew back. Here’s how much money we ended up earning once all of the puppies were sold:
GRAND TOTAL: $7,620
Overall, I feel like the effort to breed puppies was definitely worth it. We pocketed more than $7,000 and it was a fun experience for the whole family. However, there’s a few things I would do differently the next time: