Shepherd vs Vetstar

Shepherd is cloud-based veterinary practice management software for clinics, with tools for medical records, client requests, payments, and student-facing workflows. Its SOAP process updates the medical record and invoice, then creates discharge instructions. TranscribeAI generates SOAP notes, while DiagnoseAI offers clinical decision support and treatment suggestions; ShepherdAI features are optional. Through the client portal, clients can request appointments and prescription refills, review medical history, and access vaccine certificates. Shepherd Pay is integrated into the system and supports USB terminals, stored cards, and online pet portal payments. The subscription includes unlimited users and work stations, expert training, veterinary-experienced support, Shepherd Pay, and no implementation fees. Listed connections include IDEXX diagnostics, HomeAgain, AllyDVM, CoVet, and PetDesk; the help center also lists Shepherd OpenAPI. The company says onboarding takes four to six weeks without historical data migration, or eight to ten weeks when migrating records. Pricing is discussed during a demo. Shepherd reports an annually renewed SOC 2 Type II examination and says its production data is hosted on AWS in Ohio across multiple availability zones.

Vetstar is veterinary hospital and practice management software for appointments, patient records, billing, inventory, and referrals. It tracks medical records, treatment histories, and visits, and scheduling includes calendars, automated reminders, and referral workflows for external veterinarians or specialists. The integrated accounting package covers invoicing, statements, finance charges, taxes, aging analysis, and revenue reports, with connections to HISA and financial accounting systems. Practices can customize its PIMS architecture to match their business processes. Vetstar can run as a cloud-based application or be hosted locally; SANDI is its web interface for cloud-based applications. Client and referring-veterinarian portals provide secure access to relevant histories, invoices, and referrals, while detailed permission sets support real-time user administration. The maker describes one-on-one onboarding that includes data migration and setup for patient records, billing history, and inventory, plus training, support, regular feature updates, and new integrations. It is tailored to veterinary teaching hospitals, universities, and private practices. The platform is web and self-hosted, and pricing is available on request.