Thumbtack for Professionals Reviews

by Badleads

I’ve had some good luck with Thumbtack and for the most part it was ok. Recently I have been getting responses worded exactly the same from totally different people, which seemed very strange. Most people sent 3 word responses and when I responded back it was like they fell of the face of the earth. And customer service felt these where valid leads and blamed me. Common sense is not used on any of this, it’s a script and that’s that. They do not back the professional at all. They feel it’s ok for the customer to contact 9 out of the 10 quotes they get. Each of the pros pays this app for that contact. This service is doomed unless they stop the money grab and work with the pro better. The pro that can actually do the job is being constantly charged for dead leads and even possible fake leads, they then need to make that cost up by charging more for the next job. The customer goes with the cheaper job and then is unhappy when done poorly and never uses Thumbtack . Can’t anyone see this? If you are a good contractor you can get some good leads and then have to roll those leads into outside referrals and more work for the same person. You will be out of business if you rely just on sending quotes on this app. To many customers respond with no intent on follow through and they see these as valid leads.

by OG SEVEN ELLIS

I guess you can’t get a bad review while getting work from here. A customer lied about and a job and instead of this app giving me a chance to give them the real story, they took the customer side and disabled my account cutting me off work. When dealing with them they told me to call the customer and resolve the issues after this was tried plenty of times. The customer was also annoying following me around watching everything I do, telling me how to do it and asking me if I’m done every 5 mins or every time I moved. After I was done the customer broke something and wanted me to fix it but I told him I didn’t want to come back due to the aforementioned statement. What he broke didn’t have anything to do with my work but he insisted and told this app he was unsatisfied with the work I did and requested a $300 dollar refund (for a $20 door latch HE broke). I cant get any new work due to that and I am so disappointed with this app I don’t even want my account back. This is just a joke because when you contact them to ask for help you don’t even get a response. The lady who “tried” to help me didn’t even sound like she wanted to do her job. Sounded like she was reading a script. Told me to talk to the customer after I told her it was already no compromises with this customer. So basically you are forced to do what a customer wants no matter if you’re right or wrong or your account will be disabled. Good job this app because I used to recommend Thumbtack .

by Valva1

I had used Thumbtack a few years ago, for house cleaning, and really only got one good lead. At the time they only charged you for leads that you wanted. After a while I had some stuff come up and was temporarily unable to clean houses. So I tried to make sure I wasn’t being recommended anymore and charged for leads. I didn’t want to delete my account because I had good ratings and wanted to eventually go back to cleaning. Despite trying to disable everything I was still being contacted about leads. Since I wasn’t getting charged anymore I thought I would just turn off notifications and that would be the end of it. That was a few years ago.
Two months ago I noticed charges coming up on my account for $9-$21. I saw that they were from this app and I checked Thumbtack . They had started charging me for leads that, not only did I not have the budget or the time for, but weren’t even in my area. I saw that I could request a refund and thinking that this was just an odd situation I went ahead and requested it. They apparently looked at the leads and decided the most expensive lead was perfectly reasonable and did not refund me. On top of that the leads that they did refund were for credit on Thumbtack ! I am not using Thumbtack and may as well not been refunded! I really need that money right now to buy groceries and can’t get it back. I highly recommend staying away from Thumbtack

by Ula Dee

Now I am not talking bad about salespeople because I am one too, but this is pure greed. I spent well over 600 dollars on leads on this app and barely doubled my money in actual photo shoots. They talk a lot about “quality leads” and they will have salespeople call you and sell you on adding more money and they will pretend they will be your point of contact and that you’re going to be so successful, but once you have spent the money? You get nothing. I have been emailing my supposed point of contact for going on 2 months and she has never responded to me after the original phone call where she convinced me to spend more money. They changed how the refunds work. The problem is that there are very few actual quality leads. Most people who are looking for a service on this app aren’t serious. They’re just looking and finding out prices. this app consistently charged me for leads and refused to refund them even though clients would stop responding completely. How is it my responsibility to secure the job when I have paid the service for a so-called quality lead? I could be the best salesperson and photographer in the world and it still wouldn’t make a difference to people who are just window shopping on Thumbtack . I want my refunds!!!! More than 400 dollars worth!! You guys need to stop stealing money from hardworking people just trying to advance their small business!!!!

by M@tvaz

They charge you automatically from your card for customers that “show interest in you” they call it perfect match or direct leads and some of them are ridiculously expensive. Then you send message to the customers and 80% of them don’t even text you back, some even put fake phone numbers. Some take 1 week to answer you after you try to speak to them again and tell you that they are just doing a research for now and they plan to do the job in 3 or 4 months, that’s ridiculous they should let people that are looking for someone to do a service that it’s serious, they hit you up out of curiosity to have an idea how much it’s gonna cost them in the future and you are charged almost $100 from your account or from the credits you put there. When you run out of credits the don’t let you know and charge you from your card automatically so you have to be very careful with that because they send you a lot of “direct leads” at once sometimes, so you have to be very careful and they don’t refund your money, what they do is to give you credits in Thumbtack and just sometimes. It’s ridiculous because even if you have lots of credits in your account and you take your card from Thumbtack so they only charge from your credits they stop sending you leads. Thumbtack took more then $800 from me and i made 2 small jobs in there. Pathetic!

by Assfasfhjvfruvbihdxjnvb

I’m giving a one-star review because most of the leads are garbage. Every now and then I get some leads that generate me enough money to cover what I deserve. However most of the leaves are way too expensive and ridiculously priced. You just charge me $40 for one client. The next lead you sent me you charged me $10 for well it was nine dollars and change but there’s not even an actual phone number. That lead listed their phone number as 000–0 00–0000. If you get a false review from someone, this app you don’t even bother to fix it even if the pro me proves that it’s a false review with screenshots of messages back-and-forth. I’m done wasting my money on your company because your customer service is absolutely horrible and your way over price. I get so many more leads to better companies that I’m done with you guys. Then you write some lame apology saying I can submit a refund request, yet your deny refunds and allow people to put bogus information such as a phone number with all 0s so you can’t even contact them. You’re a rip off and a joke. And we should be refunded for the fake leads you send us when the people don’t even read the messages. Look at all the negative reviews you have! It’s because you take advantage of people, give us fake leads, and basically steal our money with the ridiculous cost of leads!

by Cha Boi AO

If you are new you will not be able to compete with someone that has 200 reviews and 75 hires. They apparently got in when this app started. There is a flaw in this logic. So the 4 others have to pay and that person will win again. Their quote isn't any better than the others. They just lucked out and have more reviews and hires. If you don't believe me just go pretend you are a customer and see who quotes you. Then you will see who your competition is. On the Insights page you can see who is hired and 9 times out of 10 it's the one that has the highest reviews and hires. I decided to put $100 in and I have not received any hires from my quotes. The majority get viewed so I lose my money. After my credits get used up I am done. I have never written a negative review on apps, but this one deserves it because of the flawed logic and I don't want you to be scammed either!!!

Update 6/4/18 - I thought I would give it a try again. 30 quotes and $115 later still no viable business from any of them!!! BEWARE

Update 6/8/18 - still nothing from the quotes. 1 person went back and forth with me. Unrealistic budget wanted a 20+ person Hotel/Villa/Resort for less than $1500pp for flights and lodging in Hawaii for 7 nights. I also sent reminders to the ones that viewed my quotes. In the past the quotes where cheaper per credits and you only competed against 4 other people.

by Negashin

I had a crazed Karen write a review that contained a racial slur on my page; when I addressed it to this app they told me that it wasn’t a big deal and that I should just respond to her. I also had a very long conversation with one of their support people and I reported that I wasn’t receiving notifications for leads even though my notifications were turned on in my phone and in Thumbtack and I was told to just wait for the next update; The support person constantly pointing to me for the malfunctioning of their own app on which he later disclosed there were similar reports since February of other people experiencing the same thing that I was ; In addition to that I have noticed a pattern that I only receive notifications when there is a negative balance on my account making me believe that a lot of the leads that they bring you are fabricated to coerce you to pay. For over two days my phone was actually flooded with notifications -I have been experiencing zero notifications and having to manually find leads for over two years of using Thumbtack I’ve been a subscriber since 2018 . I asked if there be some compensation for the loss of business and they told me “no” I have been able to do OK business on Thumbtack but I would not recommend. Unless they clean up Thumbtack and have a better filter for hate speech.

by Cristian0707

I really like using this app but this is my fifth account to get banned after my first one. My very first account I put a lot of money into so that I can get my company name across, and it worked! I managed to be placed as one of the top pros on Thumbtack and got in a lot of reviews, and then one day I log in to see that my account was banned. I contacted the Help Center and all I got back was an email stating “ you have broke one of the terms and conditions, your account has been banned and won’t be reactivated”. I emailed back to see if I could get a deeper explanation but never heard back. I quit Thumbtack until recently and opened three more accounts all to get banned right after I opened them. My last account finally managed to stay open for about 4 months now, until today I log in and now my account has been DEACTIVATED AGAIN. I never get anywhere with customer service they don’t ever give an explanation for anything, they just ban ban and ban. I again put a lot of money into this last account and got my company name to have good exposure and now I’ve lost contact information for some customers, and now won’t be able to confirm pre- scheduled cleans for this month, which hurt my company name if the customers don’t get confirmation from me. I hope customer service can help me out this time with my account but I don’t have high hopes :/.

by IMac Women

I would love to say this app is okay for someone just starting out. But I honestly can’t because when you’re just starting out you have a low cash flow. This service will ALWAYS MAKE 100% profit when you pay for their leads, but you will will find yourself losing money on the very same leads they send. They have an OPTION to leave their number and email address or not. So these leads they send you, you may only have one way to contact them and that’s through this app! How is it a viable lead if you don’t supply their phone number, email address or anything but the contact on Thumbtack . They also used to send only THREE companies bids to one customer.. now they send 5+! So your closing ratio goes down but guess what... YUP YOUR PRICE FOR THE LEAD STILL STAYS THE SAME! A lot of the people on here are looking for “deals” and when you’re a REAL company not just someone looking to “make extra cash” these things can chew into your profits tremendously. I would recommend anyone with a cleaning/janitorial business to utilize SEO and email marketing instead. Your CPL (Cost per lead) will go down over 100% from using this service. Not going to lie, I love the concept they have and what they’re trying to do but it’s cookie cutter, not industry specific and expensive for the startup company or novice who isn’t paying attention to their numbers or bottom line.

by Iswhatver

The leads cost so much per lead, many times not actually matching my preferences, or customers asking for things I clearly state more than once on my profile I do not offer, such as free consultations for example. When I submit a dispute for them, very often I am denied. There have been MANY weeks I have spent out more in advertising fees for leads than the actual profit I make. Yet there are so few platforms for entrepreneurs to advertise across the US. this app is making a killing off providers, while we continue to eat lead costs for customers who either aren’t serious to hire someone, or seem to want services for free. Any time I pick up a phone I’m exchanging both energy and hard earned knowledge with people. So I don’t offer free consultations, like most counselors. this app forces customers to check they are ok with virtual services in many instances (I’ve heard from customers) so they can submit the lead request, then they don’t in fact want virtual services and aren’t aware you aren’t in there area. I’ve had more back and forth with customer service over disputes than actual customers who follow through with hires. It’s very frustrating and this app is making a more than a 3rd of what I even charge for a session per lead, without even guaranteeing a hire given they send customers numerous profiles/competition.

by Justcheeked

I do like the applications because it helps you c next with a lot of potential clients. However, they can’t get their fees right. When I first joined, you paid to send potential clients quotes-whether you were hired or not. That was a little frustrating because sometimes you’re sending so many out with out a response and still paying. They did refund you for clients that didn’t open your quotes in 48 hours.
Then, they tried to make it so you’d have automatic quotes sent. So anytime a potential client submitted a request your quote would send- but that wasn’t personal enough. I wanted to reach my clients with personal messages soo didn’t like that either.
Now, you pay if they book you! I was so excited about this, but I booked one client and they charged 40% of my profit! That’s an unreasonable rate.
I contacted the help center and they said they don’t go by any percentage and there are a few factors that determine the new cost, to include size of job, amount of other professionals who submit quotes, and available pros in your area.
I’m not sure I’ll continue using Thumbtack because the price I continue spending almost half of what I’m making sending quotes out and now, actually getting hired. I’m disappointed.

by Void98

this app has been amazing for getting me started with real estate photography, and I’ve gotten a handful of jobs that have begun to give me more experience.

My only real complaint about this app is how easy they make it to request quotes, because I often see leads that reach out for pricing to just me or a couple people, and then never respond via message or phone after this. this app will refund you for some of these depending on the circumstances, but I’ve been declined to be refunded $30 for leads before that I can’t even be sure are real customers based on the fact that they never respond and the job status never changes. This can be frustrating, and when you’re just starting off, throwing $30-60 a week at a company for worthless leads can get expensive real quick when you’re only getting a few legit ones with intention to hire, and out of those of course not all will hire you either.

Leads that find someone else for the job are one story, leads that cost $30 and don’t seem to have any interest in actually hiring someone or responding are a completely different story. And I’ve used regular this app before, so I understand exactly why there’s no accountability for some leads…it just takes a minute or two to submit a request, and they have no idea pros are charged to be contacted.

by BigCreature

this app is good, I like the concept, it’s an investment . But let one thing go wrong or one complaint that you don’t go about it thumbtacks way, they will deactivate your account or put it on hold . This a a horrible tactic and kind of messed up for small business owners trying to build something for themselves . this app just wants your money, they don’t care what happens outside of that. You can have the strongest profile, the best reviews, 5 STARS on every job, they will still describe your page if you don’t do what they want in a situation where they have no say. How does this app get in between me. And my customers business ? Then shuts me out ? We are customers too. Someone told me stay away from this app but I didn’t listen, because I was seeing profits . But I see why, they treat pros like crap. And then all the money you spend with them, they don’t give no incentives or free leads the way they should . They wanna give you free perks to talk to customer service and a badge . Horrible , horrible horrible … your better paying for IG, FB and social media marketing traditionally, not through this app . I recommend but don’t . They will crash you

by Psimter43821

I’m sorry, buts it’s just too expensive! this app is an amazing app to start out and work on your clientele, however the leads are just overpriced. I do painting and everyone wants painting done cheap. I offered someone around $350 to paint 1 room and I was told “you’re too expensive “ and I paid around $50 for the lead. How low do you want me to bid? Any lower I go I don’t make any profit or enough profit as a business. And when it comes to big jobs, it’s around $100 a lead. So if I’m looking for work on a daily basis trying to stay busy for a month, I’m paying around $500 a week for just leads. And even around $200 a day. Yes, I’m big jobs im making profit and im paying back the lead but I don’t think it’s worth paying the ridiculous amount for the lead. When you have a small business starting out with little cash flow, idk I can’t even explain how much money you will lose. Once you build a clientele, your clients will refer you to other people and word goes out and at that point you won’t need this app. Even when you are popular or “pro” on here you have people asking for bids, but when you are too busy and booked, you pay for leads… I’m sorry but it’s very iffy on here when it comes to pricing. But other than that great app to find work.

by James7672

Well, let me begin by saying, like others, I too was about to get scammed by a heating and air company! I was told that my unit was too old and that anything manufactured over 20 years ago, the parts are impossible to find. My only option was to replace the entire unit that cost $5,000.

I contacted Guardian and talked with Eveline. She was very courteous and explained their company’s policies, services and options for financing available to me. Richard Eppers was scheduled to come to my home and just as Eveline explained, Richard was very prompt on arriving. It only took him about twenty minutes before he had determined that, I did not need to replace my system, it only needed a condenser and coolant. The level of professionalism exhibited by Richard surpassed all I have ever experienced with the heating and air industry.

Before Richard arrived the temperature in my home was 80 degrees and within an hour, I was enjoying the comfort of my home of 72 degrees. I can not begin to tell you how fortunate I was to contact Guardian. I know that eventually my unit, being 22 years old, will need to be replaced. When that time comes, I definitely will be using Guardian to replace the entire system. Trust me, Richard and Eveline are the very best in this industry. They definitely “save the day with Expert Service” for me and my family! I highly recommended Guardian for all of your heating, air, plumbing and electrical needs!

by 520MnM_My

Very expensive leads!they charge you a lot of money even if leads doesn’t turn into hiring . They also charge you for leads from customers who carelessly send out mass email to multiple pros just to check for pricing without customers even visiting the pros profile first- this mass email is the same model as the knot- but at least the knot doesn’t charge you price per lead! There was a time where I spent close to 1000$ and none of those leads turned into bookings because some of those leads are just price shopping leads or whatever they are. Being a top pro doesn’t really help either. They have this system where they reduce the price of leads if customers contacted multiple pros - it’s not that much reduced . For example - if your price is 1000$ a wedding - everytime a customer reach out to you (even if it’s just price shopping) you get charged around 50$ —- if for example 4 other pros were also contacted - your price of that leads still might be 35$-40$ ... and this same customer can still go ahead and continue sending out more leads later on. additionally , if you are going to use Thumbtack , be aware that customers who contacted you for a quote can also review you anytime before you even accept the job or complete any work for them! Overall - disappointed with how much money I spent on Thumbtack and it’s rate of conversion.

by Nick's Clicks

Advertising is a part of business and it can be very expensive but dollar for dollar this app delivers the most quality leads of any platform I’ve tried. 90% of all my business comes from Thumbtack alone. If it’s not working for you you’re probably doing something wrong. They are also someone that addresses something very important to me: time is money and scammers are everywhere trying to waist you time and money. this app is the only one tries and does a good job trying to keep scammers away and they don’t release your info to to the world like other apps. It’s not perfect but no other advertising agency comes close to keeping scammers away as much as this app. And if you do identify one this app will refund you the money used for advertising to the scammer. It wasn’t till I tried other platforms that I really started having problems with scammers. this app does as much for me as a business owner as they do for the customers they send me, it’s a win win!

by Shushushyshy20

I wish the homeowners would understand that the hard working professionals of this app pay just so they can be clicked on. When I first joined this app, my bids were charged only if I had an interested customer. Now it doesn’t matter if they are interested or not, interact with you or not, just because they clicked on your profile to contact you, you automatically get charged. Even tho this app says you get 20% off the lead through promoting yourself, the same bid you are sending is normally $20. How is $75 20% off of a regular job?

Honestly this is an unaffordable business model for the professionals. If this app could just educate homeowners on the simple fact that: Professionals pay to bid on quoting you; although a homeowner is not required to hire, we ask that you are courteous and serious about hiring professional you are about to click on because pros spend money even if a homeowner is just “window shopping”.

I am also a frequent this app user on the homeowner side, and I am always extremely courteous about this. I don’t just click and ghost.

by All In One HVAC Guy

I look at the reviews as I did when I first tested this app and I read stories like , I wasted time and money on this app and unless you have 200 reviews and seventy five hires you’ll just be spending money with no return. Those statements couldn’t be more wrong. I could only speak for myself when I first started using this app I didn’t know how to make the site work for me as well but I didn't give up just like any business you have to invest in advertising and have an angle that works for you. Through the tips they offer and seeing what other people have done in the past you put together a system in place that works for you. I’ve only been with this app for two years and yes I started with no reviews but I did what they told me I looked up old clients and asked them if they would write a review for me and as long as you did the right thing by that customer they were happy to so I sent them a link. Like I said it’s been two years and so far I have 28 reviews and twice that in hires. Not everyone likes to take the time and writes reviews but some do. I ask all my customers to , and so far it’s been 28 for me my rating is 4.8 out of 28 I’m happy with that. Nothing in this world just happens you have to always shoot for the stars and work hard for it.

by Need One Fax

We are an owner operated small business that have used this app for many years. They updated their system form choosing when we want to pay for a quote to ”Instant Match”. Additionally, they never let us know that people can book same day appointments. At 11am a lady booked an appointment for same day 3pm, then gave our company a 1-star review at 3:30 bc no one showed up to the appointment. We are an owner-operated company and there is no way to do same day appointments, also we didn’t see any of this until later that night. Also, she marked us as “hired” in order to leave the 1-star review - which was an obvious lie as she specifically stated in her review that she never spoke to or met anyone from the company. Anyhow, I asked this app to remove the review as it clearly violates their policy of leaving a review in “reasonable time”.....4 hours is NOT a reasonable time. They refused. They don’t even follow their own policy. Our company relies on reviews and customer trust, and Thumbtacks review system is a huge disservice to small companies. How does it make any sense that a person can mark a company as hired without confirming with the company? Also, customers aren’t required to leave phone number or email so no way to contact them, but you get charged anyhow! Will never recommend them.

by Northpaul

They have removed the ability to send personalized information to clients. The image preview they show is now false advertising - when you send a quote you can’t personalize it and they need to remove that ASAP unless they put the feature they stripped back in.

As a musician who plays several instruments and different styles within those instruments as well as music theory, composition etc. the initial write up I sent to prospective students was essential. Now all the see is a quote, my location and my bio, turning freelancers into data with no personalization. After contacting this app they said that customers requested this - I don’t see why customers would prefer LESS info and the change was probably to benefit the company in some way. An extremely disappointing change. I have told several other musicians about Thumbtack and I’ll continue telling others about it but with the addition of saying not to use it. Perhaps online seeing a price quote, location and bio is useful for some freelancers but I can’t think who that would be and I also don’t image any customers would want less information or a personalized intro written for them. Extremely disappointing, particularly of the change was only meant to benefit this app while making this worse for the rest of us.

by Coco_monki

The worst experience in my like with a Freelance App, they deactivate my accounts, I created one a few years ago and with out no reason they deactivated, I didn’t used anymore until a few weeks ago I tried again. Instead of reactive my past account I create a new one. I create my profile, filled with pictures and sent reviews request to my friends. Then when I realized my account was deactivated again. I chat to help and they told me that was deactivated because I didn’t make a background check. In other words before even test Thumbtack they check your background asking even for my SSN and other personal informations, I really hate giving my personal information, even more when is a service that don’t have my trust. Then when the results went good of my background, they still have my account deactivated because the name of the account doesn’t match with my real name!!!??? What??? You say that my account have to be my name, what if I’m creating an account with my artistic name!!??? I just wanted to have DJ gigs and they make everything so bad and complicated, asking for personal information and deactivating account with out previous requests. In my opinión this is the worst service that I’ve been through. App like this should be smooth and easy to get clients and gigs. Is the worst.

by ElectricMermaid

I started out on this app a while back. It was a great way to get my name out and I even acquired my first client through them. However, they continually push new updates that cost me more money, raise the competition and lower my rate at acquiring a customer. So in essence, (after their last update) I’m paying them money and getting little to nothing in return.

Thumbtack works when a customer sends in a request for a service. Then you, the service provider, pay $ for each bid you submit. If the customer looks at your bid (even if they never reply back to your bid), this app keeps your money. MOST customers do not end up hiring off of this app and go elsewhere, so you’ve essentially paid money for the customer to find out the general price of a service. Then, the next customer comes along and the same thing usually happens. From my experience, only about 1 in 10 end up hiring somebody off of this app and it now has a 1 in infinite chance of being me. (It used to be a 1 in 5 chance before they pushed a recent update.)

this app also hounds you with upgrading to their “plan” which costs a minimum of $15 a week with NO guarantee of acquiring a customer. Overall, I feel as though the company has become very greedy and I’d rather spend the money in advertising or acquiring customers the old fashioned way.

by Dune Rider Terry

All this app wants is your money!! They charge to much for a customer contact and if the customer contacts you just once, even to ask a question you have to pay!! I can understand if paying if you get the job! But nope it’s all about paying for an app that does nothing but take your cash!!!!!!! What I have been learning is this, most of the customers on this app that are looking for service don’t won’t to pay the rates of below the average contractor! This is why they are looking on this app because no one willing to lower their rates! Insta-match is a joke!! It’s worst then a slot machine! It will charge you even if you never had contact with the person looking for services!!! this app will not allow you to delete your debit card or bank account!!!! The worst part is that you could have 5 pros looking at the job and all 5 have had contact with the customer wishing to hire one of them, all 5 get charged for the contact!!! this app is making a lot of money and you won’t! So beware of Thumbtack!! Don’t trust them! I asked and was told that I wine getting a credit when a customer backed out of the job since the 1st contractor was going to fix the mistake, this app never gave me the credit!! I have asked 3 times now and it goes no where with these people!!!

by StevieBStevie

For me, this company and the service they provide to hard working professionals is a total scam. They charge $15-$20 for every referral that contacts you, whether or not you book them. It was my experience that most of the contacts who were reaching out to me were either fake or BOTS. Here’s how it works… Let’s say that you are a plumber and are interested in getting contacts from your area. TT determines that the appropriate rate for your market is $15 per contact. If you set a budget of $60 per week, you will get 4 contacts and then your ad is removed until you “up your budget” to get more contacts or you cycle into a new week. It was my experience that only 10% of the contacts referred to me by TT were legitimate customers and only about 10% of those were serious customers. Most were just shopping and price hunting. I plan on reaching out to every state attorney general in the country and also contacting the Federal Trade Commission regarding this unscrupulous company. They are taking advantage of small business owners and in some cases charging tens of thousands of dollars annually for very few contacts who actually end up being legitimate customers and who book their services. OMHO, There is a very, very, very cold place in hell for these people. If you don’t believe me, google a review of Thumbtack on the web.

by DauntlessTX

I have never written a review before, but this needs some serious attention. This platform is costing me more money than I make. First you charge me for leads I didn’t accept and secondly of the ones I do accept and willing pay, most you never here from again. There’s only one way to correct this. We should only be charged for confirmed and paid jobs. That’s your commission for linking us up through your platform. RideShare platforms don’t charge the driver for canceled calls, In fact they charge the customer and pay the driver for wasting their time. Unfortunately most people are just surfing and not serious or ready to do business. The final draw was a last minute request for service I received last night for today. It was a lead that I was supposedly promoted to. I responded with a quote and I wake this morning to this reply, “Hello: Thanks for your immediate response. I will notify you should I choose your services.” So I paid this app and on the day of service which is today, am I suppose to sit around and hope she calls me? If this app doesn’t change the way you charge the professional for leads, or explain to me what I can do in the settings to stop being charged for jobs I didn’t get, I will be leaving this platform and not recommending it to anyone.

by Disappointed Pro User :/

When I first heard about this app it was about 2/3 years ago. My husband used Thumbtack and found success with it. At that time they used credits and you paid for points.

Recently, I finally joined about 2 months ago. It is a complete rip off. It is not fair that customers do not have to pay to see a quote! How do we know that the quotes are real? If customers view my quote they usually do not hire anyone, not even my competition. As a result, my hard earned money goes DOWN THE DRAIN and I have nothing to show for it. As a pro in the makeup industry, I am not against paying, but it should be fair and consistent across all quotes. You should also have a feature where the customers must write the actual dollar amount for their budget instead of using ($basic, $$standard, $$$premium, $$$$high end) How do I know that my quote is within their budget if they do not have the option to specify the exact amount?

Please revamp Thumbtack because it does not support small business owners who are just starting out. Make Thumbtack fair for ALL users. Customers should have just as much at stake as us pros! Where is their accountability? They should have to pay to view quotes as well! That would certainly weed out the customers who are not serious!

by Jjohnson0404

As a photographer this is a great app for choosing events you’re interesting in working and pursuing those by giving the client a quote. It’s also a good way to fill in gaps in your calendar. The one downside is that Thumbtack charges you for the initial contact from a client and I would say 50% of the time that client asks you a question but doesn’t book you, but Thumbtack still charges you for that interaction. I feel that as a photographer, it would be better if it only charged you when you book the client. That’s the only disappointing aspect for me. Another thing I wish was slightly different is the travel radius. I prefer to book clients farther from where I live and in other places but it only gives you a 250mile distance radius. It would be great to list locations you travel to or list yourself as traveling anywhere and getting more options. I’ve only had it a few weeks but have booked several weddings to fill open spots in my calendar so overall Thumbtack is a great tool.