Lead Prices Are Eating My Photography Business Alive

picsbykurt

I got an email from Thumbtack today saying:

“Pros belong where decisions are made.”

It talked about expanding the Pro Advisory Ecosystem so the people making decisions at Thumbtack can hear directly from the pros doing the work.

So, that led me here.

I joined Thumbtack hoping it would help me build my photography business. But as the months have gone on, I’ve watched more and more of the money I actually make through this platform get consumed by the cost of leads.

Photography leads in my market can easily cost me $20–$30 or more. I regularly see customers contacting 3–5 photographers at once. That means several of us are paying for the exact same opportunity, while only one photographer can actually make the sale.

And a lot of these customers are looking to spend $100–$200 on photography.

The math just stops working.

This is especially difficult in a spread-out market like mine, where booking a job can also mean substantial driving time and travel expenses. Maybe the economics are different in a dense metro area, but here, every dollar spent acquiring a customer matters.

What really bothers me is seeing a customer contact several photographers and realizing Thumbtack may collect lead fees from every one of us. One photographer gets the job. Everyone else paid for the privilege of competing for it.

What exactly is that lead fee buying us?

It isn't advertising my website. It isn't generating traffic to my Instagram. It isn't building an audience I own. If I don't win that particular customer, there is very little lasting value to my business from the money I just spent.

Compare that with Airbnb, which has become my largest source of photography revenue. Airbnb gets paid when I get paid. Their fee is tied to an actual booking, so our incentives are much more closely aligned.

That's becoming increasingly difficult for me to ignore.

Why should I keep using income from successful bookings elsewhere to subsidize leads on Thumbtack that may never turn into revenue?

I don't expect every lead to become a customer. That's part of running a business. But I do think the economics need to make sense for the pros who make this marketplace possible.

I'd like to see Thumbtack reconsider how photography leads are priced, put stronger limits or friction around customers mass-contacting pros, or find a model where Thumbtack's success is more closely tied to the pro actually getting paid.

I want Thumbtack to work. That's why I'm posting this instead of quietly leaving.

But if the economics don't change, I don't know how much longer it makes sense for me to stay.

ArvinC

Hi @picsbykurt , welcome to the Community, and I appreciate that the Pro Advisory Ecosystem email is what brought you here. This is exactly the kind of detailed experience and perspective we want Pros to feel comfortable sharing.

You’ve raised a few different but connected points here, including lead costs relative to job value, multiple Pros being contacted for the same project, travel costs in less dense markets, and whether the current lead model makes financial sense for photography businesses specifically.

I also appreciate that you shared actual ranges and compared the cost of acquiring a customer with the revenue those jobs can generate. That gives much more context than simply saying leads feel expensive.

I can’t speak to whether Thumbtack would move photography to a different pricing model, but I’ll make sure the specific feedback and alternatives you’ve outlined here are included as we surface Community insights to the appropriate teams.

And please keep participating in these conversations. The goal of expanding the Pro Advisory Ecosystem is to create more opportunities for perspectives like yours to be heard, alongside feedback from our PAB and PPC members and other Pros across the Community.

EricGilletteDOTcom

This is really a well-presented and well explained critique of exactly how I feel as a Pro on Thumbtack.

Often times, there is no need for a customer to contact 5 PROS - Thumbtack seems to encourage this behavior of presenting customers the appearance of Pros competing with one another. I think it is a flawed strategy which ultimately ends up leading to Pros quietly leaving the platform as you described.

Give a Pro the opportunity to connect with the customer that chooses them before encouraging them contact other Pros - I think this should easily be a 24 hour window. Many of us are busy (you guessed it) working with other customers and giving us a 24-hour window would be extremely useful.

Instead customers are encouraged full scale to contact as many Pros as possible - it's gotten to the point where if I see the customer has contacted 5 Pros, I don't even bother calling because there is very few reasons why a customer needs to contact 5 different Pros in the same market/field.

Most are "kicking tires" or "price shopping" - I've had to tell customers: "Great, I hope you find the price you're looking for, but just so you know, each Pro you contacted, including myself paid a fee for the opportunity to work with you - so it's disappointing to find out that you're only 'getting estimates' or 'price shopping' when there are many of us who are eager to earn your business, and contacting 1 or even 2 Pros on the platform is a better prospect for you as a customer than contacting 5 or 6 of us." They're always surprised when I explain that to them, because Thumbtack doesn't make it obvious to them and in fact, ENCOURAGES them to blindly contact several Pros at once.

I personally have nearly 800 reviews (many times over what some Pros in my field have) and yet there's no real benefit to having so many positive reviews because if someone is willing to bid more than me on a lead, they will show up over me. Worse yet, I don't get any kind of preference (i.e. here's a Pro that has over 700 reviews and can likely solve your problem. Start here. If it doesn't work out, we'll recommend other Pros.) - imagine if that was a thing. :-)

ConceptsAV

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about the lead pricing structure here and it’s not just photography or any set category. It’s rampant throughout all of them, including mine.

For instance, A basic TV mounting and set up, I charge 100.00 normally but because Thumbtack takes 40 or more dollars for a single lead, I am forced to raise that price. To make matters worse, they have the nerve to have us pros compete with each other for lead prices (yes, you have to pay even more to get more or “stay competitive”), which only leads to a runaway train of inflated prices OR we just have to accept the less money we make per job. After fuel and taxes, how do they expect us to roll a truck? Moreover, it’s not fair that our customers eat those price hikes either just to do business.

Factor that all in with the fact that leads are shared across multiple pros (which is encouraged by their platform whether they are committed to buying a service or not), the arithmetic is pretty simple: We make less; Thumbtack makes more. In the end, anything Thumbtack says comes off as completely disingenuous while these practices are in place.

ArvinC

Hi @ConceptsAV , thanks for adding your perspective here. Your TV mounting example adds helpful context because it shows how lead cost can feel very different depending on the typical value and operating costs of a particular service.

One practical step I'd suggest is reviewing your Lead Prices and weekly budget regularly and setting them around what makes sense for your business. Competitiveness can be one factor in how often you're shown to customers, but that doesn't mean increasing what you're willing to pay will always be the right decision. Your fuel, travel time, taxes, and other costs are important factors when deciding what level of lead spend is sustainable.

You can find more information about managing lead prices here:
https://help.thumbtack.com/article/set-lead-prices

I also hear the broader concern you're adding around customers contacting multiple Pros and how that experience can affect the economics of lower-value jobs. That's been a recurring theme in some recent Community conversations, and I'll include your example as that feedback continues to be surfaced to the appropriate teams.

ConceptsAV

@ArvinC

That is just the whole problem. Thumbtack puts pro’s against each other needlessly and there really is no polite way to put that. Otherwise why even bother telling pros that they are “less competitive” if not for the impulse of a Pro to raise the lead costs so Thumbtack gets more per lead?

Example:

Pro A chooses a lead price of 40.00 and Pro B chooses 30.00. Typically this wouldn’t matter or be a problem because in any other given scenario, they wouldn’t know where they stand. They just would get leads.

Pro B then gets notified that he is “less competitive” so naturally he raises the lead costs because he enjoys the idea of getting more leads (who wouldn’t?).

Of course Pro A now gets a notification that he is less competitive now so thus the arms race between pros ensues in order to remain seen. They drive the core cost up per lead for themselves in a constant battle to “be competitive” while Thumbtack gets the dividends. It’s pretty simple. It’s also pretty unethical in my opinion.

Now, in all fairness, I will be the first to say that I don’t know if that was the intention. Maybe this was oversight but that’s what I and other pros see when we talk to each other and we DO talk to each other. We do see each other in the field, especially in a state as small as Massachusetts where there are only a couple handfuls of us Pros who are knowledgeable in this trade.