SideWalker User Guide
Everything the app does, start to finish.
Everything the app does, start to finish.
SideWalker runs entirely on your phone. There's no account to make and nothing to sign in to — open it and you're already set up. This guide walks through every screen, in roughly the order you'll meet them.
The first time you open SideWalker it asks three quick things: a hello, a note that nothing you enter ever leaves your phone, and what you usually charge. That last one becomes your default rate — the rate every new client starts with. You can change it later, and you can give any individual client a different rate, so don't overthink it.
After that, the fastest path to a working setup is:
That's the whole loop. Everything else in this guide is refinement.
Clients tab → Add Client. The only thing genuinely required is the owner's name. Everything else earns its keep later:
Each client has their own rate, which starts as your default and can be changed anytime. Two kinds:
When you finish a walk, SideWalker prices it from that client's rate automatically. You can always type a different fee for a one-off — a holiday rate, a short notice favor — and the override sticks for that walk only.
A client can have several dogs. Each dog gets a name, an optional breed and photo, and Care Notes — the field that quietly makes you look professional. The app's own placeholder says it best: pulls on leash, gate code 4421, treats in garage. Put the things you'd otherwise have to text and ask about.
Open a client and you get Call, Text, and Directions across the top, plus Schedule Walk and a look at their upcoming walks and rate.
Today tab → Start Walk → pick the dogs. The timer starts immediately and a Live Activity appears on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so you can pocket the phone and still see the elapsed time at a glance.
Pick dogs from more than one client in the same walk and SideWalker quietly does the right thing: it creates one walk per client, each priced at that client's own rate. You walk once; each neighbor is billed correctly and each gets their own report card.
Tap Finish Walk and you land on the walk summary, where you can fill in as much or as little as you like:
Tap Done and the walk is saved to history and counted in your earnings.
Changed your mind mid-walk? Cancel Walk → Discard Walk stops the timer and saves nothing.
Dead battery, phone left at home, or you simply forgot to hit start. Today tab → Log Past Walk (also in History). Pick the client and dogs, set when it started and how long it ran, and save. Leave the fee blank and SideWalker prices it from the client's rate exactly as a timed walk would.
Schedule from the Calendar tab, from a client's page, or from Today. Pick the client, the dogs, when it starts, and whether it repeats:
Repeating walks are laid down about three months ahead, so your calendar stays useful without filling up forever.
When a scheduled walk arrives, open it and tap Start Timer Now to turn it into a live walk.
Opening a repeating walk gives you both Delete This Walk and Delete This and Future Walks. The first cancels a single Tuesday; the second ends the standing arrangement. Pick carefully — the second one removes every upcoming walk in the series.
Settings → Calendar Sync → turn on Sync to iOS Calendar. Scheduled walks then appear in the iPhone Calendar app, where your family can see them.
Use the Calendar picker to choose which calendar they land in. If you don't pick one, SideWalker makes a dedicated calendar called Dog Walks and uses that.
Sync runs both ways, which is genuinely useful and worth understanding:
That second one surprises people. If you only meant to tidy your calendar view, don't delete the event — turn sync off, or change the calendar it syncs to. Deleting there really does mean deleting here.
If the sync toggle won't stay on, iOS is withholding permission. Open the iPhone Settings app → SideWalker → Calendars and allow access.
Settings → Notifications → Remind … min before. The default is ten minutes. That same lead time also sets the alert on synced calendar events, so you only have to decide once.
Not getting them? Check iPhone Settings → Notifications → SideWalker, then check whether a Focus mode is filtering notifications during the hours you walk.
The Earnings tab totals your finished walks over This Week, This Month, or All Time, and breaks the total down By Client so you can see who your business actually rests on.
Tap a client to see every walk you've done for them, sorted into Unpaid, Requested, and Paid.
Only finished walks count. A walk in progress isn't earnings yet.
SideWalker never touches money. It writes the request and hands it to a payment app you already use. Nothing is processed, held, or seen by us — the transaction is between you and your client.
Settings → Payment Handles. Add your Venmo username and your PayPal.Me name. These are what turn a walk into a tappable request.
Earnings → tap a client → select the unpaid walks → Request. SideWalker writes a note for you — something like "Buddy's walk Jul 18 (32 min) — $15.00", or "3 dog walks — $45.00" for several at once — and then offers:
Sending a request marks those walks Requested. When the money lands, tap Mark Paid. Cash, Zelle, and anything else are tracked the same way — you just mark them paid yourself.
Batch requests — asking for several walks in one message — are a Pro feature. On the free tier you can request one walk at a time.
The thing owners forward to their friends. After a walk, open it and tap Report Card. It's built from what you already entered:
Share it three ways: Share Report Card (an image, for anywhere), Share as PDF, or Text to [owner] if you've saved their phone number.
On the free tier report cards carry a small Made with sidewalker.app watermark. Pro removes it.
Built into the app, in Settings and on the Clients tab when you're just starting out. Seven steps, each one checkable as you finish it:
It's free, on every tier, and it's there whether you have five clients or none yet.
The app version is at the bottom of this screen — handy when you email support.
The free tier is a real, permanent tier, not a trial. It gives you one client, unlimited walks, the timer, calendar, earnings, report cards, and the whole business guide.
SideWalker Pro adds exactly four things:
Three ways to buy: monthly, yearly, or a one-time Lifetime purchase. Family Sharing is supported, so a parent can buy once for the household. See pricing and the subscription terms.
Please read this one. Everything SideWalker knows lives on your phone and nowhere else. That's what makes it private — and it means we have no copy. If the phone is lost and it wasn't backed up, the walks, clients, and earnings are gone, and no one can recover them.
Turn on iPhone backup once and you're covered: Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup → Back Up This iPhone. An encrypted backup to a computer works too.
Moving to a new phone? Restore it from that backup and SideWalker's data comes with it. Your Pro purchase travels separately, with your Apple Account — see restoring a purchase.