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Veterinary · head to head

Shepherd vs VIA Veterinary

Shepherd logo

Shepherd

Veterinary

Cloud veterinary practice management built by a practising vet

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
VIA Veterinary logo

VIA Veterinary

Veterinary

Medically oriented veterinary practice management, now owned by Antech and Mars Veterinary Health

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Shepherd quote-only pricing with no published rates; VIA Veterinary the vendor is owned by Mars Veterinary Health through Antech, the same group that owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA, so a practice is buying its record system from its diagnostics supplier and its competitor in the consolidation market.
  • They diverge on capability: Shepherd covers Consultation-first records, VIA Veterinary covers Clinical flowsheets.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Shepherd and VIA Veterinary actually diverge.

Attributes where Shepherd and VIA Veterinary differ
AttributeShepherdVIA Veterinary
PlatformsWeb, CloudWindows, Web, iPadOS

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Veterinary).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Shepherd

  • Consultation-first records
  • Charges from treatment
  • Inventory
  • Cloud-based

Only in VIA Veterinary

  • Clinical flowsheets
  • Integrated SOAP
  • DICOM imaging
  • Laboratory results
  • VIA Cloud
  • VIA Touch
  • Multi-site
  • Open standards integration

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Shepherd

  • Practices losing revenue to treatment delivered but never billednot VIA Veterinary
  • Clinics replacing on-premise legacy systemsnot VIA Veterinary
  • Independent practices wanting something designed around clinical work rather than administrationnot VIA Veterinary

VIA Veterinary

  • An emergency and critical care hospital that runs on treatment flowsheets and a live whiteboard rather than an appointment calendarnot Shepherd
  • A multi-doctor specialty referral practice needing DICOM imaging and lab results inside the medical recordnot Shepherd
  • A practice already committed to Antech diagnostics that wants first-party laboratory and imaging integrationnot Shepherd
  • A multi-site hospital group consolidating separate practice management installations onto one systemnot Shepherd

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Shepherd

  • Quote-only pricing with no published rates
  • A smaller vendor than the established systems, with a correspondingly shorter track record
  • Cloud-only, so consultations depend on clinic connectivity

VIA Veterinary

  • The vendor is owned by Mars Veterinary Health through Antech, the same group that owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA, so a practice is buying its record system from its diagnostics supplier and its competitor in the consolidation market.
  • No pricing is published at all, so licence, implementation, conversion, hardware and support costs all arrive through a sales process and cannot be compared against alternatives before you engage.
  • It remains substantially a Windows on-premises product with a cloud option layered on, so hardware, network and backup remain your operational problem in the traditional deployment.
  • Integration depth with IDEXX diagnostics is the obvious risk given the ownership, and a practice with in-house IDEXX analysers should test that path explicitly rather than assume parity with Antech.
  • The clinical emphasis means front-of-house and client engagement features, including online booking and marketing automation, tend to arrive through third-party integrations rather than natively.

Pricing, plan by plan

Shepherd

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Shepherd review.

VIA Veterinary

On request
  • VIA Veterinary$undefined/year
    • Pricing available only through a sales process
    • On-premises or VIA Cloud deployment
    • Implementation, data conversion and training quoted per hospital

Which should you pick?

Choose Shepherd if

  • You need consultation-first records.
  • You work on Web, Cloud.
  • You also want charges from treatment.
Shepherd review

Choose VIA Veterinary if

  • You need clinical flowsheets.
  • You work on Windows, Web, iPadOS.
  • You also want integrated soap.
VIA Veterinary review

Questions people ask

Is Shepherd or VIA Veterinary better?
Neither clearly leads. Shepherd starts at On request and VIA Veterinary at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Shepherd or VIA Veterinary?
Shepherd starts at On request and VIA Veterinary at On request.
Does Shepherd or VIA Veterinary run on more platforms?
Shepherd runs on Web, Cloud. VIA Veterinary runs on Windows, Web, iPadOS.
What is Shepherd best used for?
Shepherd is most often used for practices losing revenue to treatment delivered but never billed, clinics replacing on-premise legacy systems, independent practices wanting something designed around clinical work rather than administration. Of those, practices losing revenue to treatment delivered but never billed and clinics replacing on-premise legacy systems are not what VIA Veterinary is typically brought in for.
What can Shepherd do that VIA Veterinary cannot?
Shepherd covers Consultation-first records, Charges from treatment, Inventory, Cloud-based. VIA Veterinary covers Clinical flowsheets, Integrated SOAP, DICOM imaging, Laboratory results.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Shepherd: What does Shepherd cost?

Pricing is quoted per practice and not published.

VIA Veterinary: Who owns VIA?

VIA Information Systems is an Antech company and part of Mars Veterinary Health, the group that also owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA.

Shepherd: What makes it different from other veterinary systems?

It was designed by a practising vet around the consultation workflow, so charges accrue from recorded treatment rather than being entered as a separate billing step.

VIA Veterinary: Is pricing published?

No. Licence, implementation, conversion and support costs come only through a sales process.

Shepherd: Is it cloud-only?

Yes, which removes server maintenance and makes connectivity a dependency.

VIA Veterinary: Can it run in the cloud?

Yes, VIA Cloud is offered alongside traditional on-premises installation, with cloud backup included.

VIA Veterinary: What kind of practice is it built for?

Medically intensive practices: emergency, specialty, referral, equine and multi-doctor small animal hospitals where flowsheets and whiteboards drive the day.

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