It’s part of a general trend toward happily paying for services that make living life in general a little easier.

A new survey found that 46% of Americans regularly pay for delivery, driving, cleaning, handyman, and pet care services—a total of $177 billion dollars a year.

How much are they willing to spend to make pet owning in particular a little less stressful? A lot, it seems.

Of the top five most popular convenience services, pet-related services ranked third, with 43% of Americans spending an average of $19 per month on dog walkers, pet groomers, and similar services. Those services include entertaining pets as well when you factor in the popularity of subscription boxes such as BarkBox, which, each month, delivers to your door a mystery gift box for dogs that contains two toys, two bags of treats, and a chew starting at $15 per month.

Those figures can be broken down by gender.

Men spend roughly 50% more than women on food delivery services and more than 200% more on subscription services, and they spend more than double what women spend on pet services such as walkers and groomers: an average of $26 per month versus $11 per month.

And as always, spending trends like these can be broken down along generational lines, too, with millennials willing to spend more on convenience services in general at an average of $41 per month—a significant increase over baby boomers and Generation Xers, who spend an average of $20 and $13 per month respectively.

That spread varies only slightly when it comes to pet-related services specifically: Millennials still top the list at $33 monthly, with Gen Xers coming in second at $9 per month, and baby boomers a distant third at $5 per month.

Surprisingly, the amount of money pet owners are willing to spend on pet-related services doesn’t necessarily correspond with the amount of free time they have, as defined by their employment status. Those with full-time jobs spend an average of $21 per month, while part-time workers spent the most at $44 per month. Perhaps unsurprisingly, retirees spent the least, at $4 per month.

Even unemployed pet owners spend more than that, at $10 per month.

Maybe they’re hiring over at rover.com

Photo credit: © iStock/Lya_Cattel