My History with Thumbtack

HSConstruct

I signed up December 2023 and have spent a total of just under 3100 on carpentry leads. I've done a total of just over 85000 of sales from that dollar amount.

But man do I have a true love hate relationship with the way Thumbtack does business.

Here are questions that I'd like to see answered as I did a search and couldn't find results.

Do the leads have to check a box or otherwise acknowledge that each time they select a pro that that pro is charged a dollar amount. Something polite that says essentially "please be serious because you click submit and you will be making someone pay a lot of money." I find it absolutely appalling when I talk to someone and they "were just curious" about a question that a quick google search would have answered. Or the sheer number of leads that simply do not ever respond to any form of contact through the site or the phone number they provide.

When the hell will Thumbtack follow California state law on the job size unlicensed persons are allowed to perform. In California you are not allowed to do jobs over 1000 without a state contractors license. If you do a quick search for carpenters, painters, kitchen and bath the unlicensed "pro" are almost half the results. Their profiles show jobs that would cost tens of thousands dollars and they do not have licenses. Being listed as a "pro" on thumbtack gives these unlicensed folks a air of credibility they haven't earned. It is also a massive slap in the face to all the licensed operators doing it the right way.

There really needs to be a better way to screen leads. As an example today under the cabinet job preference myself and 3 other "pros" all got a lead that cost us $50 for a job that is at most $150 handyman special. There really needs to be a better way to screen this type of job out.

As an addition to this, you need to give us a way to screen out folks to select X number of pros. 100 percent of the time when someone chooses 4 pros to install a door they are shopping for the absolute bottom dollar cheap job. Those types of customers are not a good fit for certain contractors and it would be nice to eliminate paying for that.

I've made money here and probably won't give up but man your algorithm really makes it tough to want to increase our monthly budget.

NickClearViewAV

I 1000% agree with this, I don’t know who’s running Thumbtack and for the most part I would bet you it’s AI at this point but a serious discussion needs to be had about lead pricing and these multiplier the asked for pros for which is always an overpriced lead for a very low value job, we should not let these lead prices, be subject to these profit multipliers by Thumbtack I do not want to compete with other pros so-called in a race to the bottom dollar , and although I’ve had success with Thumbtack, these charges are like holes in the bucket for my company, and it’s a constant drip, drip drip of profitability from converted leads..