A free registry is not automatically a bad registry. But “free” is a business model, not a feature, and it is worth understanding how the service pays for itself before you enrol your pet in it.
Running a registry that actually works in a recovery costs money on an ongoing basis: verifying that the person registering a chip is the owner, keeping records current as people move and change numbers, staying findable by the vets and shelters who do the scanning, and answering a phone at 2am when someone has a found dog in their car. A service with no recurring revenue has to fund all of that from somewhere else, or not do it.
That is the whole argument. Everything below is how to check it for yourself rather than take anyone’s word for it — including ours.
Read the privacy policy first
This takes two minutes and it answers the funding question directly. You are looking for what the service is permitted to do with your name, email, phone number, address, and the fact that you own a pet.
- Can your details be shared with or sold to third parties, and for what purpose?
- Are “partners,” “affiliates” or “marketing purposes” named as recipients?
- Can you delete your data, and is there a stated process for it?
- Is there a privacy policy and a terms of service at all? If a site collecting your address and phone number has neither, that tells you something on its own.
Pet owner contact data has genuine commercial value — a verified email attached to a confirmed dog or cat owner is a useful thing to advertise to. That is not an accusation against any particular company. It is the reason to read the policy.
The questions that actually predict a recovery
Is the registry searchable by the people who scan?
This is the one that matters most and the one almost nobody checks. A microchip number is only useful if a vet or shelter can look it up and reach you. Ask whether the registry is reachable through the standard lookup tools that veterinary practices and shelters actually use. A database nobody searches is a database that will not bring your pet home, whatever it cost.
Is there a human on the phone?
Pets are found at night and on weekends. Check whether there is a phone number, when it is staffed, and what happens outside those hours. A web form that gets answered on Monday is not a recovery service.
How does it verify who the owner is?
Ask what stops someone else from registering a chip that is already enrolled to you, and whether you would be told if they tried. Ownership verification is the difference between a registry and a form.
Does it distribute microchips?
Registries that supply chips to vets and shelters are known to those vets and shelters, which is part of why their records get checked. It is not a requirement, but it is a reasonable signal of whether the industry knows the name.
Can you update your record, and how easily?
Most failed recoveries are not failed scans. They are old phone numbers. Check that you can log in and change your details yourself, without a fee and without an email chain.
Register with the registry your chip belongs to
Register with the registry your pet’s microchip actually belongs to. Every chip carries a manufacturer prefix, and each manufacturer has an associated registry. A nominal fee is required. Registering there means that when a vet or shelter looks the number up through the standard tools, it resolves to you.
Free data aggregators exist that will accept a chip number and add it to a general pool. Some of them are genuinely useful as a backstop. What they are not is a substitute for having a current, verified record in the registry the chip is actually enrolled with.
If you are not sure where your pet’s chip is registered, or whether it is registered at all, look the number up here. Peeva charges $54.95 a year or $249 for the life of the pet, and that covers the support line, ownership verification, and keeping the record current.
Related from Peeva
- How automated owner verification works
- Look up a microchip number
- Why microchip your pet
- How to tell if a dog is chipped
- Register your pet’s microchip
Microchip resources
Find the registry by microchip prefix · Look up a microchip number · Universal microchip scanners · Register your pet’s microchip
