Onward Vetvs
Shepherd
Shepherd: A cloud system for small practices with a larger team behind it and a stronger record workflow
Onward Vet
Small-vendor cloud practice management sold on flat subscription with unlimited users
As of 31 August 2026, Onward Vet's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A cloud veterinary practice management system from a small independent vendor, priced as a flat practice subscription rather than per seat. Softwr lists it under Veterinary. Onward Vet is available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Onward Vet does
Onward Vet is a browser-based practice management system for small animal clinics, covering the appointment book, medical records and SOAP notes, treatment plans and estimates, invoicing and payments, client communication and reminders, prescriptions and basic inventory. It is hosted by the vendor, so there is no practice server, and it integrates with the main reference laboratories so that results attach to the patient record. What distinguishes it commercially is the pricing shape rather than a feature. Most cloud practice management systems charge per user or per veterinary surgeon, which penalises the staffing pattern most clinics actually have: several part-time technicians and receptionists who each need a login but use it for a few shifts a week. A flat practice subscription with unlimited users removes that penalty, and for a clinic with a large rota it can be materially cheaper than a per-seat product even when the per-seat headline looks lower. The buyer is a small independent clinic, often a single site, that wants to leave a server behind and does not need the integration breadth of the larger cloud vendors. The trade-off is vendor scale. A small supplier means a small support team, a slower release pace, a short integration catalogue and genuine concentration risk, so the questions worth asking are about data export, uptime history and what happens to the product if the company is acquired, not about the feature list.
What people use it for
- A clinic with a large rota of part-time technicians and receptionists where per-seat pricing is disproportionate
- A single-site practice leaving an ageing on-premise system that no longer wants to maintain a server
- A new practice that needs a working record system quickly without a long configuration project
- A cost-sensitive clinic that wants cloud practice management without paying for integration breadth it will not use
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Onward Vet.
- The vendor is small, so support depth, release pace and the ability to absorb a serious outage are all limited compared with IDEXX, Covetrus or the larger cloud vendors.
- The integration catalogue is short, so specialist imaging, communication or wellness plan tools that connect to ezyVet or Provet Cloud may need manual handling here.
- Reporting is basic, so a practice that wants production analysis by veterinary surgeon, detailed inventory valuation or multi-site consolidation will be exporting data to a spreadsheet.
- There is no on-premise option, so a clinic with an unreliable internet connection has no fallback when the link goes down and the appointment book becomes unreachable.
- Concentration risk is real with a supplier of this size: acquisition, a change of direction or a funding problem would put your record system into other hands, so test the data export before committing.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Onward Vet
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Onward VetvsDigitail
Digitail: Cloud practice management with a stronger client-facing application and communication features
- Onward VetvsHippo Manager
Hippo Manager: Flat per-user cloud pricing and a longer operating history at similar practice size
Pricing
What Onward Vet costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Onward Vet
On request
- Quoted as a flat monthly practice subscription
- Unlimited user accounts
- Cloud hosting, backup and updates included
- Data conversion quoted separately
Capabilities
Features
Flat practice subscription
Unlimited user accounts rather than per-seat licensing
Cloud hosted
No practice server, with hosting, backup and updates handled by the vendor
Medical records and SOAP
Templated consultation notes with attachments and patient history
Estimates and treatment plans
Costed plans converted into invoices as treatment progresses
Client communication
Automated reminders and confirmations by email and text message
Laboratory integration
Reference laboratory orders and results attached to the patient record
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How is it priced?
As a flat practice subscription with unlimited users, quoted rather than published, which is why it suits clinics with many part-time staff.
Is it suitable for a multi-site group?
Not really. It is built for single-site independent clinics; consolidated reporting and cross-site inventory are not its strength.
What happens if the internet goes down?
You lose access to the appointment book and records. There is no on-premise fallback, so a secondary connection is a sensible precaution.
Can I get my data out?
Ask for a full export during evaluation and check what format it comes in. With a small vendor this is a question to answer before you sign, not afterwards.
Keep looking
Where to go from Onward Vet
- Onward Vet alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Onward Vet pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Onward Vet badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Veterinary softwareThe full category
- Best Veterinary softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Veterinary software for
Compare Onward Vet with
- Hippo Manager
- Shepherd
- Digitail
- Animana
- IDEXX Neo
- VetBadger
- VIA Veterinary
- VisionVPM
- PetDesk
- Talkatoo
- Animana
- Vet Radar
- RxWorks
- IDEXX Neo
- ImproMed
- Vet Radar
- AVImark
- ImproMed
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Onward Vet, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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