Thumbtack: Home Service Pros 4+

No longer gives quotes. Rates too high.

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.

Developer Response ,

Feedback helps us a ton and we'd love to hear your suggestions about this. Go ahead and send your thoughts directly to our Product Team here: https://help.thumbtack.com/suggestions.

Unfair to all contractors

I’ve been using Thumbtack for almost 5 years as a professional roofer. This app has helped me grow my business, and they use to care for customer support. But as years went on it now seems like money is more important than taking care of the contractors that were loyal to this app. A lead for a roof replacement cost roughly $300. Sure as a contractor we can make the money back if we get the job from the homeowner, but not when there’s 4 other competing roofing companies. It’s unfair to the roofers who supply the community with quality work when you have to compete against low ball roofers who don’t have years of experience as opposed to the ones who do. It’s understandable that you may not get every job, but Thumbtack is very unfair when it comes to their refund policy. I’ve requested $200-$300 refunds for leads, one of them is when a customer contacting me to knock down a wall in their home to create more space for their home. This does not apply to roofing at all, and I was never granted the refund. The worst is when the customers don’t even reply back to your message, and Thumbtack won’t give you a refund. I can speak for all contractors when I say that we work too hard for our money, especially in the winter time when we can’t even work. For these reasons I will be leaving Thumbtack for good.

Amazing idea and design, poor execution

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

Developer Response ,

Oops, it looks like you meant to leave this review on our app for professionals. We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with Thumbtack. We'd love to answer any questions you may have and see how we can help. Please leave us a review on the Pro app, give us a call at 800-948-2034, or reach out to us on Facebook.