What: ThumbTack promises to connect contractors with work in almost any industry or capacity but charges dearly for the service
Expected pay: You set your rates
Husl$core: $$
Commissions & fees: variable, undisclosed fee for each lead
Where: Nationwide
Requirements: You must be over 18 and able to legally sign a contract. Other requirements will depend on the type of work you do
Review:
Thumbtack promises leads for 1,000 different jobs — from personal chefs to general contractors. The site allows workers to register and post profiles. You are then “matched” with consumers, who need work similar to what you provide. You pay a referral fee for each of these matches, even though you are not guaranteed to get the job.
If the referral fee was relatively small, the concept wouldn’t be bad. The problem is that the site isn’t forthcoming about the amount you’ll be charged for any given referral. And, it apparently changed its procedures to “match” far more contractors with each individual opportunity.
To clarify, contractors say they’re paying a higher referral fee to be among 10 or 15 contractors bidding for a single job. In the past, referrals were given to just 5 contractors. This is unfortunate because some users have said that the site provided a great service when it launched and has only recently soured.
The lack of cost transparency and bad current user reviews earned Thumbtack a substandard Husl$core. Better options: Job boards like Indeed and Glassdoor, offer a wide range of opportunities at no cost to the job-seeker.
Contractors can find jobs through JiffyOnDemand. Landscapers can do better with GreenPal.
And there are numerous better options if you’re looking for work cooking, cleaning or in child care.
What their users say: (From Site Jabber)
“Hi my name is Patrick Mock my company is PM Services. I have been with thumbtack for 4yrs. At first it was awesome. [You’d pay] 9 dollars or so for a lead with only 5 contractors biding on those jobs. Then the quotes went to 20 dollars a quote, which I thought was high but fair. Now thumbtack is TAKING 45 dollars a quote with 10-15 people bidding on a job. If the home owner just replies with 1 question, we are still charged. This turns out to be more money for thumbtack and less jobs and money for the contractor. If you are a contractor please do your home work before signing up with them because you will be spending more and making less.”
“I’m a pro on thumbtack and very disappointed how things work in this site. They made this instant match saying its easier for us. But we get charged everytime we get a message. When i got message saying “your price is high” or “i choose another pro,” I have to pay $10 a $20 just to get this message.
Bad changes
“Have been a TOP PRO member for 4 years. Recently they have made some changes supposedly to help professionals and all they have done is figure another way to scam money from the business owners. Basically you pay for all inquires that come through the site whether they become a job or not. In the beginning they would send out five quotes to a client and then they could choose from there. Now it is ten and they sent out a note last week that there is no set price to send a quote. They will decide how much they will charge when the customer contacts you — anywhere from $5- $200 per job. Professionals have to foot the bill even if people are just shopping and not really serious.”
“I created a thumbtack account just to see if it would work for our business. After spending about $30 with no jobs I quit using it and logged out. That was last October, I just checked my bank statement to see they have been charging me each month because my “instant job match” was on (which I did not even know). I was charged hundreds of dollars throughout the past couple months and have not even signed in.”
Fake leads
“I started to sign up-then saw the prices to bid on poorly described jobs. I did not go further. Now my email box is full of crap emails. I looked at them none looked like a legitimate job. and surely none worth 12 dollars to bid upon. I thought some of the Freelancer sites were bad taking 20% of your takings on a job. This one is pure GREED. creepy.”
“This Website 3 years ago was very different and worked to help the pros and customers as well… now I feel like they are faking customers to get our money.
“When I first started using thumbtack I would hear back from a customer for about every 5 leads I applied for. Now Thumbtack is coming up with a random dollar amount just to take all the profit. If 5 designers are bidding on that same quote that’s $200 that Thumbtack pockets. After bidding you never hear back from the customer and its a dead lead. I’ve wasted thousand of dollars on this site. It’s a complete scam.
1/20/2021
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This service definitely has problems, and the company keeps changing things, just not for the better. As a pro who is looking for self-defense customers, I was originally paying about $3.80 to respond to a request from a potential customer. While I don’t have a breakdown, it seems that I have responded to quite a few requests most of which never ended up even responding to my quote. But once I was more selective in which quotes I responded to, I got enough jobs that I continued using the service. Now they have decided to change how they charge Pros, and they claim it will be better for us, only the opposite is true. Instead of the $3.80 I got charged to send a quote, now if a potential customer responds to my quote, I get charged $13. This is a serious problem for me, since I don’t make that much on the jobs that I do get. One of the biggest problems with the way Thumbtack does things is that the quote you receive from the customers is far too vague. I can understand how people in construction feel, they need a lot of information to quote so they know how to budget it properly, but the information provided is simply not enough even for me, and I don’t need much information. So if I respond to a request from a customer saying I need more information, and the customer says, “OK, I’ll get back to you”, and then never does, I still get charged $13. As many others have pointed out, it appears that the new changes by Thumbtack are designed merely to increase the money Thumbtack makes, without any regard for whether the PROS are actually making any money. This recent change has finally pushed me to no longer use the platform because it simply is not worth the time and money.
There site has some wonderful aspects as far as the set up and design but they do not screen their customers and their customer service is obnoxious arrogant and dishonest. Something is out of completed wack in their home Utah office structure and needs deep serious evaluation in how it communicates with long term loyal people. This company needs to send out apology letters to their one sided evaluation if others before obliterating others long hard earned profiles, I have a detailed story I am still sick to my stomach from it!
I really miss thumbtack being affordable and I wish another job match program would start a service similar to Thumbtack’s original platform idea. I think it is greedy and messed up that they are implementing these new policies. I can’t afford them any longer and there is no way to earn credits like they had back in the day. I hope there happy and I hope they’re ready for karma. It’s ridiculous they are getting greedy and not bettering the life’s of others in their country what harm is it to help others that are asking for a service and to guide the, to the people the provide it. We were all,okay with a fee but now it is just too expensive and downright greedy.
Hi all,
I’ve been a loyal ThumbTack pro for the past 4 years or so. We have been in wedding catering for 20+ years and have a 5 star rating on ThumbTack, (with MANY reviews – all of which are positive!)
Though we didn’t always have a booming response, we consistently trickled in enough new leads via TT to justify its continued use. However, in the past year that has slowly changed for the worse.
It began with a change from limiting the number of bids the client would receive (which was set at only 5), to now having clients receive a limitless number of bids. (Keeping in mind that TT makes money for every bid sent, regardless – so of course it is in Their benefit to allow more.)
And they also slowly started increasing the price per bid.
Then, I started to notice in early 2018 that our bids were barely ever even being read by the supposed “Client”. Seemed strange considering our 5 star rating, years of experience, and effusive reviews.
Two months ago I was thinking about it, and I started searching around online to see if others were concerned with the changes. What I found was a LOT of sites dedicated to people’s outright frustration with ThumbTack’s predatory policies, as well as MANY, MANY previous TT pros questioning the validity of the leads. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but of course TT would profit from having more and more jobs for us to bid on, whether they existed or not. Some of the pros even gave specifics of fake accounts they had caught on to and how..
Thus, I slowly backed away from bothering with TT after that. The amount of time it takes to sift through all the leads and write out competent bids became too heavy a price for very little returns.
Then today I was notified that they have changed their entire billing system again. Now you can send out as many bids as you like with no charge. BUT.. you set a weekly spending budget. And if any of the clients send any response to your bid, you are charged an UNSTATED AMOUNT! It says it can be anywhere between $30 up to $75, per bid! The price is based on “size of the job and perceived customer interest levels”
Meaning, they get to arbitrarily make up a price.
So, if i set my weekly limited at $100, the maximum I would be able to possibly reach is 3 people (at $30 per) – once three reply, I am done. And that’s not saying they booked me. It could be a simple question or clarification.
The idea of spending $30-$75 EACH for someone to ask some inane question or simply say “Hi” or “Thanks for the info” is too much for me.
I’ve decide to remove my account.
Good luck to all in finding a service which works for YOU.
~ KM
Thumbtack Survival Guide:
• Make sure to read the FAQs and the small hyperlinks. Prices are hidden in these areas.
• Don’t engage a lead until you 100% understand the costs. We paid $60 for a single chat communication.
• Only buy leads with phone numbers and stay away from all leads where the phone numbers don’t match up with the business zip.
• Check the leads to be sure the area code matches the business location (use online directories).
…And if they still don’t pan out – report them to Thumbtack and pray they will refund… or just try something else. 🙂
1. Massages. 2.Mobile dog Groomers
I was looking for two things and thumbtack.com gave me a list of about three to five businesses.
Each I had to fill out the same form describing what my needs were. Cumbersome and time consuming. I never got a return call from either, although it seemed to indicate at least one person has contacted me, but did not.
They required that the customer read an extensive contract that was overly demanding of personal business and wanting my debit card numbers. That was too legalese. I intend to pay the person, but do not intend to give this business an open charge my card access.
How unfortunate that businesses do not get to list their services like in the Yellow Pages, although that was costly too.
I could not get in touch with any one and did not intend to make a contract with this business to have a dog groomer every two months or whatever in the summer. Nor for unknown sessions for massages. I have peripheral neuropathy and muscle atrophy is part of the complex, and painful, and need this service. Hopefully my medical provider can give me some names.
This is a problem that is huge for businesses to survive after reading the previous entries. Is the cost prohibitive when you develop your own Web site and list with Google and other search engines outrageous. The People need a better way. Someone always there, like the tax man to scrape away your profit. I hated to see the bookkeeper come to do my quarterly taxes as it seemed she had to find a way to write herself more than I paid her. Ugggh. Hate when you need eyes all around you. Everyone has a game except the honest business.
Even when I had a business, to get referrals was a problem and the local Senior Center Director said she needed a $5 K donation to put my assisted living home name, address and phone on their stapled handout that listed services for the elderly on their list the Senior Center handed out to the people who contacted her. That was fraud as she takes Federal and State money and wanted payola. When I contacted the City the Senior Center was in, no one wanted to talk to me about my complaint about her practice. She said she used it to give parties for the volunteers. The Volunteers said they never had any parties.
I feel for you folks. I need a new roof and want an honest and reasonable bid. Maybe a classified ad site is needed. They have the paper ones at the grocery store but having a Peoples Classified Ads on the internet, non profit, might be in order, or would it turn into a ThumbTack?
I gave them plenty of occasions to fix the lie. They let a client (probably a scammer or fake account) tell about my business.
He left a 1-star review after he lied about hiring me
He said he “hired” me, and he never did, I never got paid I never even knew his name I just told him I wasn’t doing the type of work he required
But thumbtack trusted him and with no proof confirmed that I was “hired by him” (that is not true and when asked them to show me proof they said they don’t need any) and consequentially he was able to review me one start!
When I never had any interaction with him other than telling him I couldn’t do his type of job.
(and thumbtack was able to read our correspondence and confirmed to me he was not the type of job I was filtering with for my leads!)
Not only they made me automatically pay for his lead because he lied about the type of job and made me spent 30$! But they allowed a person I paid 30$ (a fake person) to rate me over a service I never gave!?
and I spent 1 hour with your customer service to be told it was okay he can lie about me I need to answer him in the review, and they didn’t want to delete the fake review (nor give me back the money obviously, but that is their standard business).
I will add to all the negative comments regarding Thumbtack and in fact I am getting ready to take down my profile. When i first signed up it seemed like leads were only a small fee Like 3$ or so. I was able to get in touch with the client and have conversation on the phone and email for a reasonable rate and as I mentioned at least a few were free. I was hired several times and it did cost me and I did accept some leads that I paid for and was not hired. Suddenly things started to shift and Thumbtack wanted to do things differently changing a lot more money for every lead. Recently I was contacted by a prospective client but just now noticed it 2 weeks later, since I have not been active on the site. Thumbtack wants to charge me over $12 just to contact the lead who may not even hire me for a $49 training session. I just feel it is a complete rip off, scam and will not be using the service. After reading all the comments above. I suggest others do the same.
I have had the same experience with Thumbtack as others. One of my major issues is that they change the way they do things and do not inform you, the Pros. All of a sudden they change the way they are allocating your budget. It’s no longer your budget to allocate, it’s theirs. You get to determine the total budget but you no longer determine which services get how much of the budget. It is not first come first serve for your budget so all of your budgets can be spent on one service if those leads come in first if you have multiple services.
That is not beneficial at all to the Pro, only to Thumbtack because they get paid and the Pro would have to pay out more money or not get leads, and even with more money you are not guaranteed to get leads for the correct service unless you have a new budget for each service. Which is more money.
Also, Thumbtack leads, and opportunities seem to rarely respond. I get responses in one category and not all the time, maybe 40% of the time. In other categories, most people don’t even read my responses. I get direct leads and my responses are not read or it is looked at so I get charged. Either way, I end up getting charged but no customer.
I’m done with Thumbtack because it is not worth the money. It is pouring my money down the drain. Thumbtack is the only one benefitting here and big time.
I compared what I have paid versus how much I have made, I have made about 15% of what I have spent. There are some jobs that if I take, I will lose money because of how much Thumbtack charges.
Lastly, there is no algorithm to calculate the fee that is charged. They are all over the place for the same service. Consistently high. Also, you are forced to charge too much for your service to cover the fee in some cases because Thumbtack arbitrarily makes up these fees.
If I normally charge $50 for a service, but Thumbtack charges me a fee of $28, I can’t charge $22 for the service. But if I charge $72, then it becomes high, depending on the service. This is just an example, but real.