My History with Thumbtack

HSConstruct
HSConstruct Posts: 13
in Business Resources

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.

Comments

  • NickClearViewAV
    NickClearViewAV Posts: 2

    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..

  • Matt
    Matt Posts: 191

    I have had this same thought. There are so many times where the budget of the lead is equal to the amount that Thumbtack actually received and is way too low for anything I would ever consider.

    There needs to be a way to set the budget ahead of finding the Pro, or to allow the Pros to deny a lead with the information that was provided I have thrown away THOUSANDS to leads that are awful and I would never consider working with due to their budget or their job type.

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 2,414
    edited January 28

    @Matt I'm sorry you're having this experience! If you have time and you would be willing to send me either screenshots of those leads or the customers' names, I would love to take a look and send them to our product teams. You can DM me (I think you may have my direct email address too).

    CC: @ArvinC

  • DerHilfer_LLC
    DerHilfer_LLC Posts: 127
    edited January 29

    I'm different from the other pros in this thread, I have no problem taking on a sub-one hour job, charging the customer for one hour and making a new customer even though it's not making me any money today. I had a $9,000 walk-in closet paint and shelving job because of a $93 gas grill with spiders in the tubes job. And I had to go back twice cause the first time the LP tank was empty. Many sub-one hour jobs lead to bigger jobs, or at least great reviews.

    However, my love-hate relationship with Thumbtack has come to a head last March. I am actively not using Thumbtack. I have to log in every few weeks to 'Hide my Business' or else I get a kick in the sack, I mean pocketbook.

    For Thumbtack lead generation in 2025 I spent:

    $345.58 on successful non-taxable jobs.

    $29.04 on successful taxable jobs

    $805.71 on failed "leads" and when I say "failed" I mean the User didn't talk to me at all, didn't answer the phone, rarely read my message. Often these leads are still "Not Scheduled Yet" until I request a refund, then Thumbtack marks it "No Hire". "Not Scheduled Yet" means this User hired no one from Thumbtack.

    I also wasted $127 on Angi, but she gives me my money back when I ask far more often than Thumbtack does.

    In both cases, these were "DerHilfer forgot to 'Hide my Business'" and that's why I got charged anything.

    My total 2025 gross revenue from Thumbtack was $9,027.03 for $1,087.09 in Thumbtack Fees.

    10% of total revenue spent on advertising is horrendous and unsustainable. Since Thumbtack usually convinces the User to send this to three Pros, that means Thumbtack made $3,261.27 or about 60% of what my company's gross revenue is for those "inquiries".

    I use the term "Inquiry" because my experience is most Thumbtack users have no intention to buy from anyone. They're window shopping at my expense.

    My goal for 2026 is to spend ZERO dollars on Thumbtack or Angi or Bark because I made slightly more gross revenue not using "lead" generation services in 2025 than I did using them in 2024.

    Although, I have had six Bark opportunities, one sale and had to ask for zero refunds because Bark charged me zero dollars. But it's rather time consuming to get truly free leads from Bark.

    Thumbtack, please revert your User portal back to 2023 code. It almost worked 'OK' then for both the Pro and the User.

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