Bittsi vs Shepherd
Shepherd and Bittsi were both built by people who have worked clinic shifts, both run in the cloud, and both bundle payments and client communication. The differences are in what is written down: price, term, the migration fee, the export clause and the AI. Checked on Shepherd's own pages and its published service agreement.
Facts checked on the vendors' own pages, September 3, 2026 · written by the Bittsi team · sources at the end
- You want unlimited users and workstations on one negotiated price and are comfortable with a one-year term that renews annually.
- You want a vendor founded by an emergency veterinarian and are happy to get the price from a sales call.
- You are certain you will stay past the first year, so the $2,750 early-exit migration fee does not apply to you.
- You want the price published, month to month, no annual auto-renewal and no migration clawback.
- You want the hospital floor built in: live treatment sheets, an anesthesia sheet that charts from the monitor, Triadan dental charting that bills itself, inventory with recall trace, and reporting.
- You want AI that reads the whole chart, not one field of it: Sage works from the full record; Scribe writes the note and the draft invoice.
One system. Nothing to integrate.
Everything below is built into Bittsi and priced on one page. Enter it once and it is everywhere it needs to be: the charge posts and inventory moves the moment a treatment is logged. The only integrations are the ones only a lab or a card network can provide: IDEXX, Antech and Bittsi Pay.
Records and charting
Structured SOAP with templates and dictation; vitals and weight trends; vaccines and certificates; prescriptions, refills and labels; consent forms; the invoice drafts itself from the note.
Also: How the visit flows →Hospital floor
A status board with TV mode and shift handoff; live treatment sheets with due times, owners, protocols and fluid alerts; Crash Card dosing by weight with a CPR recorder.
Anesthesia and dental
Vitals charted every five minutes from the monitor with the drug timeline beside them; Triadan dental charts that bill the procedures when completed.
Also: Dental chart →Inventory and purchasing
Batch-level tracking with automatic FIFO, recall trace in about 30 seconds, purchase orders grouped by supplier, cycle counts and COGS per line.
Money
Estimates that convert in one click, Bittsi Pay inside the invoice, next-business-day funding reconciled to invoices, QuickBooks and Xero export.
Clients
Two-way SMS, MMS and email in one thread per patient, reminder cadences that stop on confirmation, and the clinic-branded Companion app.
Also: Companion app →Reporting
Financial, appointment and inventory dashboards that refresh as charges post; shareable links, scheduled PDFs and exports.
AI in the record
Scribe writes the note and the draft invoice from the conversation; Sage briefs every appointment, flags interactions and lab trends, and reconciles close-out.
Also: Sage →Side by side, from the published record
Every Shepherd cell carries a source number. “Not published” means the vendor does not say on the pages we checked; ask them, and get it in writing.
| Topic | Bittsi | Shepherd |
|---|---|---|
| Company and hosting | ||
| Owned by | Bittsi, an independent practice-software company | Shepherd Veterinary Software, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company founded by an emergency veterinarian; the contact address is in New Jersey[1][2][3] |
| Hosting | Cloud-native, built for the browser from the first line of code; any device, including phones; no server, no install, no nightly batch | Cloud-based[4] |
| Price and contract | ||
| Published price | Published, from $249 a month: Foundation $249 with one veterinarian included and $99 per additional veterinarian; Standard $379, or $249 with Bittsi Pay as the primary processor, $129 per additional veterinarian. Unlimited staff users on both. The pricing calculator is the bill, not an estimate | Not published on shepherd.vet; the pricing address returns a 404. Features page: unlimited users and workstations, training, support and Shepherd Pay included, no implementation fee[5][6] |
| Minimum term and renewal | Month to month; annual billing saves 10% and can be cancelled at renewal | "An initial term of one (1) year", automatically renewing for successive one-year terms; the client may exit on 14 days' notice, Shepherd on three months'[1] |
| Migration fee | No setup fee. One fixed migration quote before you sign, included with annual billing; a sandbox loaded with your own records before you commit | Marketed as free; the agreement charges "a $2,750 migration fee" if the client cancels within the first twelve months or fails to launch; migration error support runs 90 days from launch[7][1] |
| Changes to the terms | Prices are published; a change is a change to the pricing page | Amendments take effect one business day after Shepherd emails a link to the amended agreement[1] |
| AI pricing | Published add-ons: Scribe $89, Sage $99, AI Suite $159 per seat a month; a seat can go to a veterinarian, a technician or the front desk and be reassigned as the team changes | Not published on the AI pages[8] |
| Your data | ||
| Who owns it | You do, in writing | "Client is the sole owner of its customers' data"; Shepherd may analyse and publish anonymised, de-identified practice data[1] |
| Export when you leave | Your data is yours, always: exported free, in standard formats, whenever you ask; no hostage clause, written into the agreement | "Client will receive all data as raw data tables exported in .CSV form" and up to two data backups[1] |
| Migration, training and support | ||
| Who does the migration | A named migration lead, one person from signature to go-live: clients, patients, visit history, prescriptions, reminders and balances moved, verified row by row against the old system, and you get the report | Shepherd's migration team; Hippo Manager practices were moved onto Shepherd; other source systems are not listed[7][9] |
| Time to live | Live in 14 days with role-based training; you keep seeing patients throughout; the lead stays on call through week one | Not published |
| Support | One named lead from signature through go-live, then a real person who replies, usually within one business day; engineers answer when a question needs one; demos are hosted by a working DVM | "Qualified, clinically trained professionals"; hours and response commitments not published[6] |
| Integrations, AI, payments, clients | ||
| Laboratory and analyzers | IDEXX Laboratories, IDEXX Imaging and Antech Diagnostics built in, both directions: order from the record, results and images land on the visit and post their charges to the invoice; one-click activation from the admin panel. Your lab contract stays yours | Antech, IDEXX, Heska, Moichor and Midwest Veterinary Laboratory; IDEXX PACS and Web PACS; Zoetis is not listed[10] |
| AI | Sage reads the whole chart: an overnight brief for every appointment, lab trends across panels, medication safety checks, close-out reconciliation of what was documented against what was billed, answers with citations. Scribe writes the SOAP note and the draft invoice from the exam-room conversation. Nothing is sent, billed, prescribed or signed without a clinician | TranscribeAI ambient scribe, SummarizeAI record summaries and DiagnoseAI decision support, with no third-party login; DiagnoseAI reads history from the SOAP Subjective field only[8][11][12] |
| Payments | Bittsi Pay inside the invoice: tap, dip, swipe, Apple Pay and Google Pay on the terminal; interchange-plus with the network cost and our margin on separate statement lines; next-business-day funding reconciled to invoices; refunds in-line; QuickBooks and Xero export; PCI-DSS Level 1 processor | Shepherd Pay bundled with no added fees and a free first USB terminal; processor and rates not named[13] |
| Client communication | Built in: two-way SMS, MMS and branded email in one thread per patient; reminder cadences at 30, 7 and 1 days and day-of that stop when someone confirms; post-visit summaries and post-op check-ins drafted from the chart; mass campaigns; and the clinic-branded Companion app for pet owners | Two-way texting into the record, customisable text and email reminders and a portal, included at no extra charge[14] |
Bittsi prices from bittsi.com/pricing. Bold text marks the stronger side of a row where there is one.
What Shepherd does well
- A data-exit clause in the contract: at termination the client receives all data as raw CSV tables and up to two backups, in the contract.
- Unlimited users and workstations included, which suits technician-heavy and multi-shift teams.
- Two-way texting, reminders, a pet portal and Shepherd Pay with a free first terminal are native and stated as no extra charge.
- A 14-day customer exit right at any time, unusually short, alongside the annual term.
- Founded and led by an emergency veterinarian, with support staffed by clinically trained people.
- Three native AI tools, an ambient scribe, record summarisation and decision support, with an explicit clinical-responsibility disclaimer.
- Multi-location administration from one portal, and a public position in favour of open API access.
What a switch actually looks like
The same plan for every clinic that moves to Bittsi, with a date and an owner on each step. It is written into the Switch Guarantee.
- 01Before you sign: one fixed quote and a sandboxWe size the migration from your current system and load a sandbox with your own records. You click around your real patients, not a demo clinic.
- 02Days 1 to 3: exportYour data comes out of the old system while it keeps running. Nothing changes for the front desk.
- 03Days 3 to 8: mapping and importClients, patients, visit history, prescriptions, reminders and balances, mapped field by field. Anything that cannot be mapped cleanly is archived read-only and labelled.
- 04Days 8 to 10: verificationEvery record checked against the source, row by row. You get the report.
- 05Days 10 to 13: training by roleShort sessions for the front desk, technicians and doctors on the parts they touch, not an all-day shutdown.
- 06Day 14: go-liveOn a lighter day, with your launch lead on call. The old system stays readable for reference until you retire it.
Questions clinics ask about Shepherd and Bittsi
What does Shepherd cost?
Shepherd does not publish a price on its own site; its pricing address returns a 404, and the real number comes from a sales conversation. What it does publish is what is included: unlimited users and workstations, training, support and Shepherd Pay, with no implementation fee. Bittsi publishes its price: from $249 a month on Foundation with one veterinarian included and unlimited staff; Standard $379, or $249 with Bittsi Pay.
Is Shepherd's migration really free?
Free unless you leave early. The service agreement charges a $2,750 migration fee if a clinic cancels within the first twelve months or never launches. Bittsi's migration is one fixed quote before you sign, included with annual billing, and there is no clawback if you leave.
Which contract is easier to leave?
Both are easier than most. Shepherd runs a one-year term that renews annually but lets the client exit on 14 days' notice, with data returned as CSV tables. Bittsi is month to month with data exported free in standard formats at any time. The difference is the first-year migration fee above.
How do the AI tools compare?
Shepherd has three native tools: an ambient scribe, record summaries and DiagnoseAI, which by Shepherd's own description reads history from the SOAP Subjective field only. Bittsi has Scribe for documentation, Sage as a clinical assistant that reads the whole chart, and Anesthesia AI, priced per seat on the pricing page. Ask both vendors for a live session on your own case, not a demo case.
How hard is it to move from Shepherd to Bittsi?
Shepherd's exit clause helps here: your data comes back as CSV tables. We load a sandbox with it before you sign, give one fixed migration quote, move and verify every row, and go live in about 14 days with role-based training.
Both say they were built by veterinarians. Is that true?
For both. Shepherd was founded by an emergency veterinarian and its support is clinically trained. Bittsi's team has opened and run clinics and works relief shifts across most systems in the market. Judge each by the written terms and a session on your own patients rather than the founding story.
Sources
Every Shepherd statement above points to one of these. If a vendor page changes, tell us and we will change the row: info@bittsi.com.
- [1]Shepherd service agreement and EULA, updated May 22, 2024, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2024.
- [2]About Shepherd, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [3]Contact, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [4]Shepherd home, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [5]Shepherd pricing address, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [6]Features, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [7]What's involved in switching your PIMS, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [8]TranscribeAI, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [9]Hippo to Shepherd, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [10]Integrations, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [11]SummarizeAI, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [12]DiagnoseAI, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [13]Shepherd Pay, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [14]Client communication, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
- [15]Multi-location, Shepherd Veterinary Software, 2026.
Shepherd and the other product names on this page are trademarks of their owners, used only to identify their products. Bittsi is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Vendor facts were read on the vendors' own pages on September 3, 2026 and can change; if you are the vendor and something is out of date, email info@bittsi.com and we will check it and correct the page within two business days.
See your own data in Bittsi before you decide.
One fixed migration quote, a sandbox loaded with your records, and a 30-minute walk through your real patients. No slides.