Frequently Asked Questions
Answers for walkers, and answers for parents.
Answers for walkers, and answers for parents.
No — and you can't. SideWalker has no accounts, no sign-up, and no login. Open it and start walking. There's nothing to forget the password to.
Yes. Everything — the timer, clients, scheduling, earnings, report cards — runs on the phone with no connection at all. You'll only need a signal when you hand off to Venmo, PayPal, or Messages to actually send something.
One client, unlimited walks, the timer with Lock Screen Live Activity, the calendar, earnings tracking, report cards (with a small watermark), and the complete Start Your Business guide. It's a permanent tier, not a trial — nothing expires.
It's an iPhone app. Live Activities, the Dynamic Island timer, Apple Cash, and iOS Calendar sync are all built directly on iPhone features.
Not right now — SideWalker is available on the US App Store only. The features it leans on hardest are US services: Venmo and Apple Cash both are, and the app is written around how neighborhood dog walking works here.
Yes, and it's handled properly. Select dogs from several different clients in one walk and SideWalker creates a separate walk for each client, priced at that client's own rate. You walk once; everyone's billed right and everyone gets their own report card.
No. Use Log Past Walk from the Today tab or History. Enter when it started and how long it ran, and leave the fee blank to have it priced from the client's normal rate. It counts exactly like a timed walk.
Yes. The fee is pre-filled from the client's rate, but you can type anything over it — a holiday rate, a short-notice favor, a discount for a friend. The change applies to that walk only.
Yes. Tap any past walk — from Today, the Calendar, History, or a client's earnings — and you can change the fee, note, mood tags, photos, and payment status.
Yes. That's what the Live Activity is for: the walk keeps timing with the phone in your pocket, and the elapsed time shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.
Per walk is a flat fee no matter how long you're out. Per 30 min prices by duration, so a longer walk earns more. Each client can use whichever suits the arrangement.
That's on purpose. Photos you attach to a walk live inside SideWalker and are never copied out to your camera roll — keeping them in the app is part of the privacy promise, since nothing leaves it unless you deliberately share a report card.
They're compressed to stay small, so a season of walks won't fill up your phone. Deleting a walk deletes its photos along with it. To see how much space the app is using in total, open the iPhone Settings app → General → iPhone Storage → SideWalker.
A future update will add a storage meter and photo retention options inside the app.
No. Not a percentage, not a fee, not ever. You pay for the app (or use it free) and every dollar a neighbor pays you goes straight to you. We never process, hold, or see your money — the app writes the request and hands it to Venmo, PayPal, or Messages.
No. Those just make requesting money one tap instead of a conversation. Plenty of walkers get paid in cash and simply tap Mark Paid. Cash, Zelle, and anything else are tracked the same way.
Pick the unpaid walks for a client and tap Request. SideWalker writes the note for you — something like "Buddy's walk Jul 18 (32 min) — $15.00" — then opens Venmo with the amount pre-filled, opens a PayPal.Me link, or texts the owner a message with a tappable Venmo link. Apple Cash requests happen natively inside Messages.
SideWalker will keep showing those walks as Unpaid so nothing quietly slips, and you can re-send a request anytime. Beyond that it's between you and your neighbor — the app isn't part of the arrangement and can't collect on your behalf. This is a good thing to talk through with a parent before it happens.
Batching several walks into a single request is a Pro feature. On the free tier you can send them one at a time, which works — it's just more taps.
The short answer is that there's very little surface for it to be unsafe. SideWalker has no accounts, no chat, no social features, and no other users — your child cannot be contacted by a stranger through this app, because there is no mechanism for anyone to reach them in it. It's a private notebook with a timer.
The real-world part — which neighbors, which dogs, which streets, how far — happens outside the app and is yours to supervise. The built-in business guide explicitly includes a "Get the Parent Sign-Off" step for exactly that reason.
One practical note: rules about paid work for minors — even casual neighborhood work — vary by state, so the plan in the starter guide begins with a parent sign-off, and we'd suggest the same: decide together what's right for your family and your state.
None. There is no analytics code, no advertising code, and in fact no networking code of any kind that talks to us — the app never sends anything anywhere. Its App Store privacy label is "Data Not Collected." See the Privacy Policy.
Yes, in two ways. Open the app on their phone — everything is right there, with no hidden copy elsewhere. Better, turn on Calendar Sync in Settings: scheduled walks then appear in the iPhone Calendar app, which you can share with the family calendar and see at a glance.
SideWalker never handles money itself. It hands off to services you already supervise — Venmo Teen Accounts and Apple Cash Family are both designed for exactly this, and both give a parent oversight. Cash works too; the app just tracks who's paid.
Thirteen and up. Teenagers are who the app is designed around, but there's no upper limit — plenty of adults walk dogs on the side and use it the same way. It isn't designed for children under 13 and isn't offered in the App Store's Kids Category. If your child is under 18, our Terms of Use ask that you give permission and supervise the work itself.
Not to get started — the free tier is genuinely usable. If you do buy Pro, Family Sharing is supported, so one purchase covers the household. Many parents buy the one-time Lifetime option specifically to avoid a recurring charge.
Nothing to unwind. There's no account to close and no data of theirs sitting on our servers. Cancel any subscription in iPhone Settings and delete the app; that removes its database from the phone.
In a private database on your phone, and nowhere else. We operate no servers and hold no copy.
This is the honest trade-off of a no-server app: if the phone is gone and wasn't backed up, the data is gone, and we cannot recover it. Turn on iPhone backup — Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup — and restoring a new phone brings SideWalker's data back with it.
It never leaves your phone, so there's no database of it anywhere to be breached. That said, it's still your neighbors' information — their names, sometimes their addresses, photos of their dogs. Don't share it around, and delete a client when you stop walking for them.
No. Photos attached to a walk stay in the app on your phone. They leave only when you deliberately share a report card, to the person you choose.
Four things: unlimited clients, report cards without the watermark, batch payment requests, and the custom themes (which also recolor the home screen icon). Everything else is in the free tier.
Yearly is the best value if you're walking regularly through the year. Monthly suits a summer of dog walking you might stop in September. Lifetime is a single purchase with nothing to remember or cancel, which is why a lot of parents choose it. See pricing.
iPhone Settings → your name → Subscriptions → SideWalker → Cancel Subscription. You keep Pro until the paid period ends, then the app drops to the free tier. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription.
No. Your data is untouched. You go back to free-tier limits — the watermark returns and batch requests stop — but nothing you've recorded is deleted.
Sign in with the same Apple Account you purchased with, open the Settings tab, tap the SideWalker Pro upgrade row, and choose Restore Purchases.
Refunds go through Apple, not us — request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. If something in the app went wrong, email us anyway so we can fix it.
In SideWalker, check Settings → Calendar Sync → Sync to iOS Calendar is on, then check the Calendar picker below it — walks go to that one calendar, and a rarely-viewed calendar is usually the answer. If the toggle won't stay on, allow calendar access in iPhone Settings → SideWalker → Calendars.
That's by design — sync runs both ways, so deleting the event deletes the walk. If you just want a tidier calendar, switch which calendar SideWalker syncs to, or turn sync off.
Check iPhone Settings → SideWalker → Live Activities. Low Power Mode and Focus modes can also hide or delay them.
Set your lead time in SideWalker Settings → Notifications, then confirm iPhone Settings → Notifications → SideWalker allows them, and check whether a Focus mode is filtering them during your walking hours.
Email support@sidewalker.app with what you tapped, what happened instead, your iPhone model and iOS version, and the SideWalker version from the bottom of the Settings tab. A real person reads it.