How are your leads lately?

I have discussed ROI in

You really should check that out. I'm amazed that Thumbtack hasn't made it a sticky yet, very insightful for new and existing Thumbtack Pros. It's more insightful for Thumbtack developers to be honest. I will be adding more content after my busy season. I've actually had TT off from March until just now since my calendar is usually full. This week, my customer care assistant is on vacation which means no one is making follow up calls in turn, this has lead to holes in my calendar I hope to fill with new Thumbtack CUSTOMERS. I don't mean to shout, I just want to emphasize the word "customer". Because my experience for 2025 is I get a lot of Users, but not many customers from TT. And even though I've had TT on for two days with the same settings I was using in February, I have received one inquiry, who was looking for same day service at 5:30 PM for a TV and mount she hadn't purchased yet. I scheduled her for the next day and she postponed because she still hasn't received the TV mount. That is typical of TT users. I had a user lead me on for three months to install a fence he hadn't purchased but would delay a week every week. I finally told him that I'm running a business and I can't continue to accommodate "maybes" After one month of being lead on, I requested a refund from Thumbtack, which was promptly denied.

I have a theory I need to test before I comment on it, that's going to be documented in a few days.

I've had Thumbtack pretty well turned off since March. Periodically, I turn it on again to see if things have changed. Then I turn it back off again.
Out of 14 Inquiries (I stopped calling these "leads" in quotes a long time ago, because they go nowhere the overwhelming majority of the time) I received in the last month, 3 have resulted in sales and two are scheduled. Out of the three sales, one was miscategorized, but I tried. When I thought I fixed his recliner, I took half my normal rate as that was all the cash the gentleman had on him and he was in a wheel chair.
Sure enough, the recliner broke again so I returned to say "I can't fix this, I build IKEA furniture to get my foot in the door. I'll give you your money back". He let me keep the fee, so I made $13.20/hr.

Of the Users who answered the phone:
1 was miscategorized and I referred her to a contractor who can actually help her.
1 was out of my service area - neither one of us knows why Thumbtack offered my services.
1 was miscategorized, did answer the phone, scheduled work and then cancelled on me causing two lost opportunities - his and the one I would have booked in his place.

4 did not answer the phone or messages.
I think that leaves one that I don't remember what happened and I'm not invested enough to go look.

I had TT turned on for some of last month because I'm trying to boost work for my Custodial Engineer with house clearing opportunities. The good news is 75% of those people answer the phone. The bad news is only one or 25% has been completed in a month. That market is over saturated and having my settings as high as I can justify - which is also about as low as they can go, results in few Inquiries. But that also means I'm not hemorrhaging money.

I have my business hidden until Sept 22. It'll probably stay hidden for a good while longer.