Custom weekly budget

Fil777
Fil777 Posts: 9
edited November 5 in Thumbtack Resources

Hello everyone. My name is Philip. I'm Top pro from Pennsylvania.

Maybe you have already seen a new update for Thumbtack Pros: now we can't set our weekly custom budget more then 1 time per week. After that we have to choose our budget between:

  • Recommended
  • Keep current budget
  • Unlimited budget

And if you try to set a custom amount after you used it 1 time per week the app will tell you: "You can't set a new custom amount until Monday. Select another option".

Recommended budget is too high or not convenient and out of control, unlimited budget - who in the world use that?

It was very convenient to set a custom budget during a week, so I could control my spends. For example, recommended budget might be $350, but I don't want to spend money like that this week, I just want to spend $180 maximum, so I set this amount as custom budget. After that during the week if I need more leads I could set my custom budget for $250. It's still less then recommended budget and I control my spends depends on my business's needs. Now I can't do that.

Guys share your thoughts about this update. Or maybe it's just me

Comments

  • Fil777
    Fil777 Posts: 9

    Update: looks like a limit has been increased to 5-7 changes of custom weekly budget, so that's better

  • This is going to kill a lot of business…literally

  • chilogm1
    chilogm1 Posts: 77

    yeah I just got that today like what do you mean by I can’t change it until Monday that makes no sense at all I should be free to raise my budget any time any days and however many time I want to this actually throwing me off

  • I understand and it seems to be more expensive so far. Can you tell us if you see a difference in how much you’re spending?

  • please restore to earlier Ui please

  • chilogm1
    chilogm1 Posts: 77

    yes now I can’t really add new budgets anymore which means I have to either choose unlimited which means I’ll have to spent an amount that I have no idea about so they just going to send me anything they find which is not good for my budget. Sometimes I put a budget and whenever I run out I raise it depends if I want more leads or not I start my budget around. $30 den once it runs out I raise it to 50 and if I get some good leads for the week I just close it out and wait for Sunday and raise it up to prep for the upcoming week. Now I can’t do that anymore because they change it to where I can only change my budget on Monday which is ridiculous. We should have free access and free control of our budget not no set time to change it.

  • I agree. I have had to change course and I am now using other resources to get leads. I may not be using Thumbtack for much longer.


    Unfortunately..

  • chilogm1
    chilogm1 Posts: 77

    I might start to look elsewhere also because this week alone I’m pretty sure I spent my budget on unhired leads

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,909
    edited November 12

    @chilogm1 Custom budgets aren't going away, there is now just a limitation on the number of custom budgets you can set once you exhaust your initial budget for the week. This article will tell you more. Hope this helps clear it up! I'd recommend just playing around with your budget to see what works for you — maybe look back at what you have typically spent and keep it in that range. You can make as many changes to your budget as you'd like until you max out your budget for the week, at that point you can still set one additional custom budget. Exhausting your budget multiple times a week puts you at risk of missing out on customers, since when your budget is exhausted you don't show up in search results. But as always, appreciate feedback so let us know how it goes — you can always drop feedback here in the Community, but I also recommend sending to  support@thumbtack.com to ensure it gets logged and tracked. Thank you!

  • @DustiO any chance you guys restore what used to be. Custom budget in response in depend is some useful feature. Also before introduce any minor change to app experience. Maybe give pro at least 30-60days advance notice.

  • chilogm1
    chilogm1 Posts: 77

    @DustiO i have no issues with doing changes but my issues is the people are making changes to things we never had issues with no one ever mention anything about weekly budget changes issues. Limiting us to a set amount of time we can change our weekly budget is a big issues for me because to me here what I see. If my budget was $150 and I use it all on leads and end up getting 100 % hired for all the leads, I will definitely want to change my budget to 200 and if succeed again I might change it to 250 if I keep getting good leads I will keep changing it for 300 all the way to when I feel like I spent enough. I dont have a weekly budget as in a set amount that I want to spent my starting budget is literally $30 and once I spent that I raise my budget to whatever amount that I felt like spending again. It can be an extra 150 250 509 doesn’t matter the number, I felt like this a slap in the face as to us loosing control over things that we supposed to be the one controlling. There shouldn’t be a limit on how many times I can change my weekly budget at all, and I know the solution to the issue will be but you can use the other options they have no I do not want to go unlimited and I do not want to raise my price by X amount of money to get free leads. Also that actually takes away money from y’all because if I run out the amount today time I can change my budget and have to wait until next Monday doesn’t that mean you loosing me as a pro for the week because I won’t be shown in search, and if there’s more like me so that multiply you guys lost.
    So in the long run we are losing on leads because we can’t spend more and you guys are not making money because you limit us from spending more.

    Hopefully this messages can be pass to the higher up thank you

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,909

    @GundamSLK @chilogm1 this is all great feedback - I would recommend also sending this feedback to support@thumbtack.com to be sure it gets logged and tracked (I will pass it on as well). Thank you!

  • KW_CleaningCo2024
    KW_CleaningCo2024 Posts: 11
    edited November 17

    @chilogm1 you are absolutely correct! I spent over $1000-$1400 a week on Thumbtack easily for my business and now I have been reduced to spending about $200, maybe less. As a business owner, I absolutely have to control how much I spend per week.

  • chilogm1
    chilogm1 Posts: 77

    @KW_CleaningCo2024 i been using this for way too long to have a weekly budget and never touch it or change it. I want to have the same control I use to have back done not some limit on how many time I can change it that is not good for business cause currently I want to spend more but I can’t because of the budget limit that I have to wait until Monday to change

  • AG1989
    AG1989 Posts: 1


    @DustiO


    I wholeheartedly agree with everything that the other pros are saying about restricting our custom budget slider. It is actually insulting that you are trying to tell us that it’s for our benefit. You say we are at a risk of losing customers for not appearing in results after maxing our budget which we are all WELL aware of.

    Let me ask you—How difficult is it for us to simply slide our finger to the custom budget we want to then appear on search results again? Not to mention the amount of fore notice that we receive via text and email from thumbtack when we either have hit our budget or are close to hitting our budget.

    Is it really in our benefit or is thumbtack just getting greedy and trying to control that? I vote the latter. By the way, this new change was never even announced to us pros.

    And yes, I already did submit customer service feedback.

  • Fil777
    Fil777 Posts: 9

    Thumbtack, be smart, no need to do something to increase your profit and tell us that's for our benefit. It's obviously for all pros here that restricting custom budget - it's not benefit for us, it's a benefit for Thumbtack. We're not a small kids, we're pros and entrepreneurs, and we can handle with controlling out budget ourselves.

    Other thing - there was not announce or something about this update, Thumbtack did this behind the scene. Highly recommend to Thumbtack to be more respectful to pros, otherwise you'll continue to lose them.

    As other pros I spent $800-$1300 per month for Thumbtack, but now it's 3-4 times less. I'm using other platforms and paying them instead. And you know why it happens, because of Thumbtack policies, about all these small things Thumbtack do to increase their profits by cutting off our rights.

    I suggest Thumbtack to be smart, otherwise you will see the results in coming annual revenue report

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,909

    Thank you for the thoughtful feedback, @Fil777 — I share threads like this with our teams, but I would also advise sending this feedback to support@thumbtack.com to be sure that it gets logged. Have a great day!!

  • KW_CleaningCo2024
    KW_CleaningCo2024 Posts: 11
    edited November 26

    I agree 1000% with all the pros. This was an attempt to grab more money from us and I refuse to be a sucker. Again, I used to spend well over $1000 a week on Thumbtack (not counting my 2nd business on Thumbtack). Now, I will not spend more than $100. All my time is going to Google and other platforms that appreciate their pros.

  • @DustiO While I respect your position and acknowledge that you’re doing your job, it is somewhat insulting to hear that a change that we were not notified about is better for us. The new policy of restricting budget adjustments feels limiting and doesn’t offer the flexibility many of us need to operate effectively. By forcing us to choose between a “recommended budget” and an “unlimited budget,” we lose the ability to fine-tune our spending based on our business needs, seasonality, or changing goals. This one-size-fits-all approach may seem beneficial from a platform perspective, but in practice, it places an undue burden on pros who rely on flexibility to optimize their investments.