Lead Prices

@Brian218 I agree with you that the lead prices have been getting higher. I know it doesn't seem like it's worth the price you pay up front. I remember when we used to have to bid against 10 other people . It was really tough back then. Everything has gone up alot in the past couple years including my prices.

My bread-and-butter is customer retention. We don't have to pay for the customers that call us directly in the future. Keep building that organic customer base .

It's been getting better on my end with that now my problem is getting the client to pay after the job is finished

Jami, you are not alone. I have suspended my business at Thumbtack about a month ago and will do that again. My average charge (IF I am selected) is about $50. A lead (with low probability of getting hired) is about $18+. Is there anybody who can convince me that it is a profitable way of doing business except for Thumbtack itself? Especially taking into consideration that one single lead may be sent to several (!) pros who will pay for it, as well. This is a killing model for any business. Including Thumbtack itself.

My business is translation. I called to the customer because I was the first who responded (and there was still no activity on the customer side). So I decided to call but the prospect "customer" was obviously not interested at anything. When I subtly suggested that a customer should be at least sensitive to the fact that a pro pays just for the air, I got a simple response: "Oh, I hate these apps". And that's it. So I asked the same notorious question to myself, again and again: "what did you just pay for"?

Please keep in mind that my business is much smaller in comparison to yours (from the revenue point of view). A lead costs sometimes 35-50% of the projected cost of my average project. A quality of leads is a different story. Even if I won the business, a customer might require a service to be provided in his/her state only while I had clearly indicated that my services are remotely provided throughout the US. I could continue but I'd better stop here. Frustrated.

DustiO, thank you for looking into these conversations. It would be really nice if you shared your experience re. the following: has Thumbtack listened to its pros at all? Any positive example of any measure taken in relation to issues and/or questions raised by pros? Frankly, my personal impression in that regard has been negative; so many issues have been raised over the years but the overall situation just gets worse.

Thank you and happy new year!

DustiO, thank you for your extensive comment. You are welcome to look at my account; I would gladly follow any sound advise. However, I don’t think that anything is wrong with my account since I have always been very sensitive towards quality of my work and customer service (check my feedback roster). Rather, I would summarize just three critical points:

1) An average ratio lead/pros in my business is 1:3. It means that, as soon as a new lead appears, 2-4 pros react to it trying to be the first. If I am just the second one (not to mention about being the third or forth in the row), I would have to pay for a lead which goes to someone who responded faster. That is a reality. This situation leads to a funny competition between pros; no time to even analyze the request, the most important thing is to be the first! One of the customers who got my response in SECONDS, reasonably asked: “did you read what I need before responding?”. No, because I would have to pay for nothing if I am late! (Likely, I was able to help thanks to versatility of my services). Does it make any sense for anybody except Thumbtack?

2) Quality of leads. How many times I have tried to address that! The customers’ specific requests vs. the pros’ terms have been largely ignored like the drastic differences between jobs have been. Just a lead, to be paid for! In a number of cases such leads had nothing to do with a pros’ ability to help or a customer was not ready to do any business at all (typical reasons: my paperwork is not ready yet, it should be ready in a month, or I need to have your service to be done in my state only —despite the terms clearly advertised by a pro according to which all services are provided remotely throughout the US). Yet, each “lead” like this is to be paid.

3) Thumbtack customer service. Each dispute results in a standard bureaucratic denial, obviously without an attempt at getting in the issue. The typical Thumbtack’s answer to above problems is “no”.

Therefore, my impression is that the only thing which is of interest to Thumbtack is collection of money for leads, no matter of their quality. To my opinion, the company’s business model could and should be different. For example, Thumbtack should charge its pros a % of the real project’s cost (to be verified within the platform) but not for any poorly substantiated “leads”. Otherwise, more and more pros would halt their business at Thumbtack because nobody would like the idea of paying for nothing.

Apology for a lengthy response.

A single lead for 3-4-5 pros… Sounds good provided that each pro pays. Why not, indeed? One of the pros will supposedly earn some business. The rest would just pay for a “lead”. Isn’t it a nice, win-win situation for Thumbtack? Any opinions?

I’ve been with Thumbtack for about six years. My expenses related to leads take about 70-80% of the entire profit (as I said, the average cost of a project in my case is about $50). Unfortunately, if these practices continue (and I don’t see any signs of positive changes), I would have to quit despite my excellent reputation, great feedback built over all these years, etc. No reason to expand my budget - just to pay more for leads? No reason to keep it this way either…

I'm in the graphic design field and have been on Thumbtack for about 2 1/2 years. The issues I have are with lack of filtering of customers. To illustrate my point: I design websites and I select the programs that I use clearly in my services (Wix, Squarespace). Yet I get requests for sites to be built in Wordpress only! Website design leads can cost about $120.00 each. I've also gotten requests for sites to built with ADA compliance -- I have no experience with that. So why doesn't Thumbtack filter for designers that are certified with ADA compliance? I've also gotten requests to design websites from sex workers and adult video shops. Why aren't we allowed to reject leads on those grounds and not get charged. The refund policy so far has been fairly lenient so that helps. But I don't want to feel like Thumbtack is doing me a favor "out of courtesy" when I turn down a job for the reasons I've stated here.

@Studio513 Yep, piggy back on this. I have only been on TT for a month or so, and my experience has been far from great. I am ok with a service like this making money, however they WAY they go about doing it feels like they don't have the Pro's best interest. It is ONLY the interest in making money, and not caring about the Pro's experience on the platform, only that they get to charge for any lead, regardless of how quality it is. Somehow, I have hit $400 in leads, with most of them being ghosts, got one job that paid $850, so my profit continues to go down as "leads" decide they reach out to me.