Thumbtack: Home Service Pros

The idea of thumbtack captivated me, the thought of getting my feet running around starting my own business sounded amazing and a dream come true. The layout of the app is outstanding and everything seemed to be coming together swimmingly.. until. Lead prices, not so much the prices as much as you pay for a “lead” before you can ever message the person. This is an amazing design for the company to make money though you may see no benefit, it’s also great for the customer... they have absolutely no idea you are being charged, so almost every time you message them even at THEIR request they often don’t respond or read your message and not reply. So we are literally paying thumbtack for people to ignore us. On top of that a week into using it I got phone call from a rep from thumbtack and they diligently tried to sell me a prepaid credit for $300. They assured this would increase my business somehow, and that they could get me more jobs. The rep was frustrated when I asked him why would I purchase this when the 6 leads I’ve spent money on haven’t replied or wasn’t a good match. I would be wasting $300. Basically this app would be amazing if you could give thumbtack money after the job was settled, I understand why they can’t... people would find loopholes around that system. So basically this is a horrible alternative to just starting your own business. I regret the money I spent here, you will probably regret it too

I have been with thumbtack almost 3 years. I have watch them go from a platform I would recommend to just about any contractor to a company that just the same as the rest. Thumbtack used to be a reasonable and reliable source for getting new project leads. Now they are just like Home Advisor and the rest of the over prices lead generation companies. I’ve watched gutter projects go from $17 per to $52 per. Wow what an increase. Not to mention they allow a customer to choose from an unlimited amount of contractors. The competition is fine but let’s say,”Thumbtack is charging the contractors $40 per lead and the customer has selected to speak with 5 different contractors. Thumbtack makes $200 off a single lead while only 1 contractor will win the lead of course. The sad part of this equation is the lead itself will only go for roughly about $200. End of the day you only make $160 before expenses like paying for travel, and paying employees. Only 2 things can happen with this equation. 1. People go out of business or 2. Prices go way up for the home owner. It used to be a competition between contractors, but now it’s a competition between contractors and the middle man (Thumbtack). This defeats the purpose of even starting a business. The constant raising of prices really have me considering trying other avenues and letting thumbtack go.

The concept of this app is a great idea for a small business owner such as myself. It gives me a chance to market my counseling business to people in need of those particular services. I initially signed up for instant match in which the customer receives an immediate response when they put in a request. BAD IDEA!!!! Thumbtack did not give me an accurate idea of just how much these rates would cost and I ended up being charged over $40 in less than a week. I then turned off instant match and would send quotes only to the customers I chose and was told just how much I would be charged for the quote. The rates varied anywhere from $1-$12 and occasionally I was given the opportunity to quote for free. This was very reasonable although it was a gamble because the majority of the time, the customers would not respond to my quote. I recently received notice that Thumbtack has changed their policy that I would no longer be charged unless the customer responded to my quote. This seemed like a great idea! I could still pick the customers I wanted to quote but I no longer had to worry about spending money on customers who were no longer interested in counseling. I assumed the rates were about the same as they were before. Boy, was I wrong! I was charged $23 for my quote! That is way more money than I am willing to spend for someone whose business I may not even get! I will no longer be using Thumbtack for marketing under these new rates.