How We Arrive at a Price
Our prices are published, which is unusual enough that people ask how the figure is reached. This page answers that. It is the reasoning behind the three bands on the pricing page, not a second set of numbers.
One Rule Underneath It All
Price reflects how closely a kitten matches the breed standard, and nothing else. It is worth being explicit about what that excludes, because the exclusions are where buyers are most often misled.
- Health screening does not vary by price. Every kitten comes from the same tested parents and carries the same guarantee. A cheaper kitten is not a less-screened one.
- Socialisation does not vary by price. Every kitten goes through the same ninety-day programme. There is no premium tier of temperament work.
- Registration does not vary by price. Every kitten is CFA registered.
- The care does not vary by price. Same food, same room, same handling, same twelve weeks.
- What varies is conformation — bone, muzzle, ears, size and coat — and that is a judgement about show potential, not about the quality of the cat you take home.
A pet-priced kitten from us is the same animal, raised the same way, as a show-priced one. She is simply less likely to win a ribbon, and most buyers do not want a ribbon.
The Three Things That Move the Number
In order of weight.
Structure and type
The largest factor by some distanceHow closely the kitten's build matches what the standard describes. This is where most of the spread between a pet price and a show price comes from.
- Boning — heavier, denser bone through the legs and chest.
- Muzzle — a deep, genuinely square muzzle rather than a tapering one. The hardest trait to get and the first thing a judge looks at.
- Ear set and tufting — large ears set high and wide, with lynx tips and good furnishing.
- Profile and eye — a gentle concave curve, and a large, slightly oblique, well-set eye.
- Size and length — real frame and a long body, not coat volume standing in for it.
Colour and pattern
A moderate factorPurely a matter of scarcity and demand. It says nothing about health and nothing about temperament.
- Silver and shaded coats, and smoke, sit above the browns and blues.
- Tortie and other patterns that cannot be produced to order sit higher again.
- A common pattern in an exceptional structure will still be priced above a rare pattern in an ordinary one — the order of these two factors is not a tie.
Sex
A smaller factorMales are priced above females of equivalent quality. That is demand for size, not a judgement of the cat.
- Adult males reach 6–11 kg against 4–7 kg for females, and the size is what most buyers say they came for.
- The gap is the smallest of the three factors and never enough on its own to move a kitten between bands.
When the Judgement Is Made
A newborn cannot be assessed. Boning, muzzle depth and ear set declare themselves over the first few months, so the figure is set in stages as the kitten becomes readable — and the first of those stages is deliberately the cheapest.
Birth to one month
Nothing about adult structure is legible yet. Litters are recorded and weighed, and no figure is attached to a kitten nobody can yet judge.
One month — the opening price
At a month there is enough to price on: what the kitten is showing in its own right, and what its parents have produced before. This is the opening figure, and it is the lowest that kitten will ever be listed at.
Reviewed every month after
Boning, muzzle and ear set keep developing. Each review either leaves the figure alone or moves it up to match the cat she has actually become.
Two of us look at each kitten and have to agree. Where we disagree, she opens in the lower band — the price can catch up with her later, and a buyer who paid too much at one month never gets that back.
When a Published Price Changes
It can go up
A kitten that develops better than she first looked is repriced upward at the next monthly review. The figure describes the cat, and the cat at four months is not the cat at one.
It is not cut to shift her
We will not drop a price to move a kitten along faster. A kitten still listed at five months is priced for what she is, not discounted for having waited.
Your figure fixes the day you reserve
The figure quoted when you pay your deposit is the figure you pay, whatever a later review would have said. Nothing we see as she grows changes what you owe.
It does not change because of who is asking
The published figure is the figure. Nobody is quoted more for seeming keen or less for seeming reluctant.
Which means the earliest price is the lowest one. A buyer who commits at one month pays least and takes the risk that she grows into something ordinary; a buyer who waits until she is visibly excellent pays for that certainty. Neither is the clever move — they are two different trades, and both are honest.
How a deposit fixes your figureWhy We Publish At All
Most catteries do not, and the usual reason given is that every kitten is different. That is true and it is not a reason to hide the range.
- 01A buyer can decide whether we are affordable before spending an evening falling for a photograph of a kitten they cannot have.
- 02A published price cannot quietly become a different price once we have worked out how much someone wants her.
- 03It makes us defend the figure. Writing down why a kitten is RM 25,000 is a harder discipline than saying it on the phone.
- 04It is the same argument as publishing the deposit terms and the health results. If we would be uncomfortable putting it in writing, that is information in itself.
Common Questions
No. Health screening, the guarantee and the socialisation programme are identical across every band. Price tracks conformation — how close the cat is to the show standard — and conformation is not health. If anything, buy on temperament and on the parents' test results, and treat the band as the last question rather than the first.
Because they are different cats. Litter mates vary enormously in bone, muzzle and ear set, and those differences are what the standard is measuring. Both had the same parents, the same tests and the same ninety days. One of them would place at a show.
No. The published figure is what a kitten costs, and holding to it is the only thing that makes publishing it meaningful. What we will do is tell you honestly when a cheaper kitten in the litter is the better cat for your household.
Yes, and we would be glad to see it. Be aware that show quality at twelve weeks is a prediction rather than a promise — cats change until three or four years old, and some that looked certain do not get there.
Demand for size, nothing else. Buyers come to this breed wanting a large cat, and males end up substantially larger. It is the smallest of the three factors and never moves a kitten between bands by itself.
Say so. We would rather hear the argument than lose the buyer quietly. If you can point at something in the kitten we have judged badly, that is worth knowing — it has changed a price before.
See the Bands
The three price bands, what is included, the payment methods and the timeline all live on the pricing page. This page is the reasoning; that one is the figures.