Routine vet care has no single price, but it has published ones. On the clinic price lists we read on 12 November 2026, a routine exam by a vet was posted at $40 to $86 on the six lists that give one, one dog or cat vaccine at $10 to $52, a cat spay at $95 to $350, a dog spay at $150 to $700 depending on weight and who runs the clinic, and a teeth cleaning under anesthesia from “$250 and up” to a specialist service that “starts at $2,050”.
General information about costs, insurance and the rules, not veterinary, legal, insurance, tax or financial advice. Your vet decides what care is right for your pet; your policy’s wording and your insurer decide what a claim pays; your card or loan agreement decides what credit costs.
The guides below set the published figures side by side, each with who published it and when, and take the bill apart line by line. They are about money only: your vet decides what is right for your pet. We don’t average the figures, we don’t say what any vet should charge, and none of them is a quote.
Start with where the numbers come from
No government agency collects what vets charge for a given procedure. What exists is a patchwork, and each part has a reason to sit high or low. A nonprofit clinic’s posted fee is real, but it is one clinic in one town and is often subsidized by donations. Few private clinics post any price. The survey averages on these pages come from CareCredit’s cost page; CareCredit is a medical credit card issued by Synchrony, which finances vet bills (our page on vet financing and medical credit cards explains how such cards work), and the page doesn’t publish its sample or what each average includes. So every page here names who is speaking.
The overview, what vet care costs and why prices keep rising, puts the published prices for a dozen kinds of care in one table and adds the government’s own figures on the trend. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ price index for veterinarian services (series CUUR0000SS62054, read on 12 November 2026) rose 4.6% in the year to September 2026 and 69.4% in ten years, against 3.7% and 39.6% for prices overall; the percentages are our arithmetic on BLS index levels. The index is not what your clinic will charge, and BLS publishes no breakdown of causes. That page also reads a real posted estimate line by line.
The exam fee: the line on almost every bill
The exam fee is charged before any vaccine, test or medicine. Of the six lists we read, five nonprofit clinics post $40 to $75 for a routine exam and one private clinic posts $86. The survey commissioned by CareCredit, a lender, puts the average routine visit at $57 to $127 for dogs and $58 to $129 for cats, depending on the state. Urgent, specialist and emergency exams are posted higher: the figures we read run from $89 to $292. What a vet visit costs has each figure with its publisher, the survey state by state and the fees by kind of visit. Emergency visits are a different bill, covered in emergency vet cost.
Vaccines: the shot, the visit and the law
Dogs
On the 12 clinic price lists read on 12 November 2026, a one-year rabies shot for a dog is posted at $15 to $48, and the distemper-parvo combination (sold as DHPP, DA2PP or DHLPP) at $15 to $48 on the 11 lists that price it. Those are prices for the shot alone: an exam or visit fee, where the clinic charges one, is a separate line, and so is each further dose. The lender’s survey averages are $35 for rabies and $42 for DHPP. Dog vaccination costs also covers Bordetella, leptospirosis, Lyme and canine influenza prices and four local dog licence fees.
Cats
On 14 clinic price lists read the same day, one cat vaccine cost $10 to $52: a rabies shot $10 to $52, the three-in-one FVRCP shot $10 to $47 and a feline leukemia (FeLV) shot $20 to $47. The lender’s survey averages are $31, $34 and $33. Eight of those lists also post an exam or visit fee of $20 to $86, and a kitten’s first series repeats the shot line three or four times. Cat vaccination costs adds a kitten series up at four clinics’ posted prices; your vet sets the schedule for your kitten.
Rabies law
Rabies is the one vaccine the state laws we read deal with, and there is no single national rule. We read the rabies statute of nine states in official text on 12 November 2026; both vaccine pages give each section in a table. Some speak to cost: Florida’s says “The cost of vaccination must be borne by the animal’s owner” (Fla. Stat. 828.30(1)(c)). We have not read the other states’ laws and do not guess at them: check with your state health department. If a pet bites a person, call your doctor and your local health department.
Spay and neuter: priced by weight, and by who runs the clinic
For dogs, the lists read on 12 November 2026 post a spay at $150 to $499 at eight nonprofit and city clinics and $375 to $700 at two private clinics, depending on the dog’s weight. A neuter is $120 to $445 at the same nonprofit and city clinics and $200 to $490 at the two private ones. The lender’s survey averages are $455 for a spay of a small or medium dog and $487 for a neuter. Dog spay and neuter cost shows every list by weight band, what is often billed apart (bloodwork, an IV line, an in-heat surcharge) and the income-based programs some clinics publish.
For cats, posted fees put a spay at $95 to $213 at seven nonprofit clinics and at $150 and $350 at two private clinics, and a neuter at $70 to $180 at the same nonprofits and $78 and $300 at the two private clinics. The lender’s survey gives $353 for a spay and $262 for a neuter. Cat spay and neuter cost also covers community cat (trap-neuter-return) programs, which are priced apart from surgery for an owned pet.
Teeth cleaning: the widest spread
We read ten published figures for a dog dental cleaning under anesthesia. For a cleaning with no or only minor extractions, six clinics post prices from “$250 and up” to $575, and the lender’s survey gives an average of $379. Two more nonprofits post ranges that run to $1,200 and $1,346, and one university teaching hospital’s specialist dental service says a teeth cleaning “starts at $2,050”. Dog teeth cleaning cost shows how extractions are priced and adds three posted lists up.
Of the ten figures on the cat page, four name cats: the lender’s survey average of $395, one nonprofit clinic’s $500, a humane society clinic’s written estimate of $696 to $1,111 before extractions, and $1,675 at a private clinic that requires dental x-rays for every cat. The other six lists price dogs and cats together. Cat teeth cleaning cost sets the cat prices beside the dog ones.
Most of the gap is what each price includes: the exam, the bloodwork, the x-rays and the teeth that come out. Both pages also cover anesthesia-free scaling, for which we found no acceptable published price list.
Put your own estimate together
The vet estimate builder adds an estimate’s lines one at a time. For each it shows the lowest and the highest published figure and its source. Its opening example, a spay for a dog of about 45 lb with pre-anesthetic bloodwork and a recovery cone, comes to $236 to $957 across those sources, read on 12 November 2026. It gives a range, never one price: your vet’s written estimate decides.
Insurance and routine care
Policies treat vaccines as routine or preventive care. Of the four public sample policies we read on 12 November 2026, three do not pay for vaccinations under the main policy and the fourth has a preventive care section. The three sample policies read for the visit page give three different answers on exam fees: one pays for exams, one excludes them, and one leaves them to the declaration page. Each guide works an example, and how pet wellness plans work covers the plans and add-ons sold for routine care. Your policy’s wording and your insurer’s claim decision decide what is paid.
A reading order
- Read the overview, then the exam fee page.
- Go to the page for the care on your estimate, for a dog or a cat.
- Hold your written estimate against the estimate builder line by line, not total to total.
- If the total is out of reach, see help with vet bills and the other guides under paying the vet.
Sources checked on 12 November 2026. Every figure and rule on this page is taken from the guides it links to, whose sources were read that day. Posted fees and published estimates are not quotes. By The Paw Bill.
