Why are Maltipoos so expensive to buy?

The price of any individual puppy offered for sale can be highly variable, even sometimes for different puppies within the same litter. There are also distinct pricing differences from breed to breed too, and some breeds of dogs are often significantly more costly than others, for reasons which are not always self-evident.

However, across dog breeds within the same sort of size band there tends to be a level of broad uniformity in terms of pricing norms, and breeds that change hands for on average much higher or lower prices than the average are uncommon.

One other pricing norm that makes sense too is that pedigree dogs of all breeds tend to cost more than non-pedigree specimens of the same breed, and of course, non-pedigree dog types (hybrids or cross breeds) would, you would think, cost less than pedigrees of similar breeds full stop.

However, this isn’t always the case, and there are some cross breed or hybrid dog types that actually cost significantly more on average than similar dogs of pedigree breeds – even surpassing the average asking prices of their parent breeds too in some cases!

One of these is the Maltipoo – a hybrid dog comprised of the crossing of a Maltese dog with a toy or miniature poodle.

In this article we’ll share the average asking price for Maltipoo dogs in the UK, and look into some of the factors that might be serving to set their pricing averages at such a high level.

How much does it cost to buy a Maltipoo?

Based on the average asking prices shown on adverts for Maltipoos for sale here on Pets4Homes over the last year, the average asking price for Maltipoos in the UK is currently around £1,188 per dog.

A Maltipoo is comprised of the crossing of a Maltese dog with either a toy or miniature poodle; the average asking price for Maltese dogs in the UK is £1,108 for pedigrees/£765 for non-pedigrees; for toy poodles, £997 for pedigrees/£689 for non-pedigrees, and for miniature poodles, £903 for pedigrees and £680 for non-pedigrees.

As you can see, this makes the average Maltipoo dog, a non-pedigree hybrid crossing, more expensive than the pedigree options in any of their three potential parent breeds!

Why are Maltipoos so expensive?

It would be impossible to state definitively why Maltipoos are so expensive to buy, and no one trait is responsible for their high price point; it comes down to a combination of several factors and variables combined.

Let’s look at the main and most likely combination of factors that contribute to the Maltipoo’s high average asking prices.

The cost of parent dogs

First of all, as mentioned, the Maltipoo costs on average more to buy than a dog from any one of their three potential parent breeds. Whilst the poodle variant used to create a Maltipoo can be either toy or miniature, the Maltese is a given; and as you can see, Maltese dogs don’t come cheap, at over £1,100 for the average pedigree.

Both toy and miniature poodles come close to the £1,000 mark per dog for pedigrees too, and whilst it is still anomalous that the Maltipoo costs more than their parent breeds based on average prices alone, it still plays a part in increasing the cost of breeding Maltipoos and so, their eventual sale prices.

The cost of health testing

All three of the Maltipoo’s potential parent breeds have hereditary health challenges, and responsible breeders undertake health testing on their parent stock prior to breeding. This costs money and so, serves to inflate the asking price for the subsequent pups.

Health tested parents mean higher prices for pups as their health is more secure, and breeders also have to factor in the cost of being unable to responsibly breed and sell dogs and puppies whose health test results are poor, which is passed onto buyers of other pups as a general cost of doing business.

Breeding for a desirable coat

The poodle coat and the Maltese coat are quite different in texture, and one of the main reasons why the poodle of all types is such a popular parent breed in hybrid crossings is because the poodle coat type is widely considered to be a desirable one.

This is because it is low shedding and is widely spoken of as being less likely to trigger allergies in people who usually react badly to dogs, as the small amount of hair that is shed is largely caught up in the coat and not dropped around the house.

However, crossing two breeds results in variable traits like coat, and it can take several generations for a breeder to be able to reliably produce Maltipoos with the type of coat they wish to have, which costs money to achieve and that is passed on in turn to buyers.

The hypoallergenic hook line

The hypoallergenic claims made about certain types of dog coats (regardless of the dog’s breed or type) are widely misused and misunderstood; there is simply no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog coat or one that is guaranteed not to trigger allergies in people who suffer from them.

However, the term hypoallergenic is widely (if wrongly) applied to dog coats that follow the poodle style, which serves to create demand for them and so, comes at a premium price.

Demand versus supply

Ultimately, there are a number of factors that contribute to the high average asking price of the Maltipoo, but the one that likely has more influence than any of the others is that demand at present seems to exceed supply.

When this occurs, sellers can charge more per dog, whereas when the reverse is the case, prices fall.

During 2018, a total number of just 629 adverts for Maltipoos for sale were placed here on Pets4Homes, which is a very low number all told. This likely means that there is a lot of demand for and competition for available Maltipoo pups, and that buyers are prepared to pay a premium to secure the dog they want as a result.