Customers Can’t See Our Rates Before Contacting Us — This Is Costing Pros Money

ArthurHandyman
ArthurHandyman Posts: 4 ✭
in Thumbtack Resources

I’d like to share some important feedback about the way pricing is currently displayed to customers.

Previously, customers could see a Pro’s hourly rate before contacting them. This was extremely helpful because customers could immediately determine whether a Pro’s pricing fit their budget before reaching out.

Now, customers appear to be contacting Pros without seeing the hourly rate upfront. This creates a serious problem for those of us who pay for leads.

Customers contact me, I pay for the lead, we start discussing the project, and only then do they ask about the price. Once I tell them my rate or provide an estimate, some stop responding or say that the price is outside their budget. If they had been able to see my rate before contacting me, many of these unnecessary leads could have been avoided.

This has had a real financial impact on me. Recently, I spent approximately $150 on Thumbtack leads and only completed one $120 job from that spending. I understand that not every lead will turn into a job — that is a normal part of doing business. But there is a big difference between a customer choosing not to hire you and a customer contacting you without knowing your basic pricing in the first place.

If Pros are required to pay for these leads, I believe customers should be shown our hourly rates before they contact us. This would help customers choose Pros who actually fit their budget, improve lead quality, save everyone time, and reduce unnecessary costs for Pros.

I would really like Thumbtack to consider bringing back visible hourly rates in customer search results and Pro profiles before a customer initiates contact.

I’d also appreciate it if this feedback could be shared with the product team. I’d be interested to hear whether other Pros have experienced the same issue.

Comments

  • ArvinC
    ArvinC Administrator, Moderator Posts: 474 admin

    Hi @ArthurHandyman , thanks for taking the time to share this and for including a specific example of what you've been experiencing. I can understand why you'd be concerned when you're investing in leads and then finding that pricing becomes a deciding factor after the customer has already reached out.

    There have been some recent updates to how and when pricing appears throughout the customer experience. The intent is to give customers an opportunity to consider the overall fit of a Pro, including their experience, reviews, availability, and expertise, since the final cost of a project can depend on details that aren't always known while a customer is initially browsing.

    At the same time, I hear the point you're making about wanting customers to have enough information to determine whether a Pro is within their budget before making contact. I appreciate you sharing the impact you're seeing with your own leads and spend, and I'll include that context when we're surfacing Community feedback around the pricing experience.

    In the meantime, one option is to include general pricing information or a starting rate in the Business FAQs section of your profile, which customers can still see when viewing your profile.

    Thanks again for laying out your perspective so clearly.

  • NewPathJunkRemoval
    NewPathJunkRemoval Posts: 7 ✭✭
    edited September 11

    @ArvinC Thanks for the explanation. I understand the stated goal of having customers consider overall fit, but removing the option to show a starting price or minimum also removes an important screening tool. Customers can select up to three Pros without opening every profile, so pricing in Business FAQs is not an equivalent substitute. When a customer contacts a Pro whose minimum is outside their budget, both sides lose time, the Pro is charged, and a refund is generally unavailable because the request was technically in the correct category. Thumbtack therefore benefits financially from contacts that visible pricing might have filtered. Please restore the Pro’s option to display pricing in search results.

  • ArvinC
    ArvinC Administrator, Moderator Posts: 474 admin

    Thanks for adding this context, @NewPathJunkRemoval . I appreciate you sharing your perspective on how having pricing visible in search results can help customers make a more informed decision before reaching out. I’ll make sure to echo this feedback to the appropriate team as well. Thanks again for taking the time to share it!

  • adirondak135
    adirondak135 Posts: 2 ✭

    This happens to me all the time. Please let us know what the appropriate team is doing about it. There is no reason not to show customers pricing up front, other than to milk billing for leads.

  • adirondak135
    adirondak135 Posts: 2 ✭

    Further, it wastes both the customer and provider’s time.

  • MyCleanCharlotteMaid
    MyCleanCharlotteMaid Posts: 113 ✭✭✭

    I think pricing visibility would help both customers and pros.

    For cleaning services, customers often ask for a price before they fully understand the scope. A standard cleaning, deep cleaning, move-out cleaning, post-construction cleaning, and recurring cleaning can all be priced very differently.

    If customers could see a starting price or general price range before contacting a pro, it may help them decide whether the service fits their budget before creating a lead.

    That would save customers time, and it would also help pros avoid paying for leads where the customer disappears after seeing the estimate.

    I still think final pricing should depend on the details, but clearer pricing expectations upfront would make the process smoother for everyone.

  • korss0707
    korss0707 Posts: 13 ✭

    Thank you for raising this. We are seeing the same problem, and I believe the “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” button is a major contributor to declining lead quality.

    For us, the issue goes beyond customers simply not seeing pricing. The bigger problem is pre-qualification. Customers can send a request to three Pros before meaningfully reviewing their profiles and deciding whether those businesses are actually a good match.

    For example, a customer looking for a $100 individual cleaner can generate a paid lead for our established, fully insured cleaning company even though our profile clearly states that our pricing starts around $180. The reverse can happen too: a customer specifically requiring an established fully insured company may generate a paid lead for an individual cleaner who cannot meet those requirements.

    In both cases, the Pro can be charged for a customer who likely would never have intentionally contacted them after reviewing the profile.

    We have also seen a gradual decline in our conversion rate since this feature was introduced.

    I just created a separate discussion specifically about the “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” button and its effect on conversion and lead quality:
    https://community.thumbtack.com/discussion/2582/get-quotes-from-top-3-pros-button-damaging-conversion-and-lead-quality/p1?new=1

    I’d be very interested to hear whether you and other Pros have noticed the same pattern.

  • ArvinC
    ArvinC Administrator, Moderator Posts: 474 admin

    Thanks for adding this perspective here too, @korss0707 . I can see how the concern you're raising around pre-qualification connects with the broader conversation happening in this thread about pricing visibility.

    I just responded to your separate post as well, where you went into more detail about the “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” experience and the changes you've observed with lead quality and conversion. I appreciate you creating a dedicated discussion for that feedback and providing specific examples of how you're experiencing it in your business.

  • ella067
    ella067 Posts: 1 ✭

    @ArvinC The solution to add pricing to Business FAQ doesn’t show knowledge of how the platform works. Business FAQs are pre-set. There is not one about pricing pre-loaded (at least for my service), and I cannot add a new one. A Band-Aid fix would be to add a pricing question to the FAQ for every service, but even that falls so far short. Both for basic UI principles and common decency.

    The intent here is crystal clear, as this change was made after the refund policy was updated in Pros favor to refund if a Lead doesn’t engage. So by withholding basic information, Thumbtack incentivizes the Lead to engage at least once to determine if they can even afford the service, and that way you all owe less refunds.

    The alternative reasoning where we all pretend to live in a perfect world where budget does not matter for elective services, simply does not align with reality. That it’s somehow more helpful to show nothing than show an estimate or a range that can be discussed later, which the platform did until very recently.

    This is all unbelievably disappointing and needs to be corrected.

  • ArvinC
    ArvinC Administrator, Moderator Posts: 474 admin

    Hi @ella067 , thanks for calling that out. You're right that the available Business FAQ questions can vary by service, so if there isn't a pricing question available for your category, my earlier suggestion isn't a workable option for you. I appreciate you correcting that and sharing what you're actually seeing on your profile.

    I also hear the broader concern you're raising about customers having enough pricing information to determine whether a Pro may fit their budget before they reach out. I can't speak to or speculate on the motivations behind the change or connect it to the refund policy, but I can make sure the specific concerns you've shared here are included with the broader pricing visibility feedback we're surfacing to the appropriate team.

    There has been quite a bit of thoughtful feedback added to this thread from multiple Pros, and I appreciate you adding your experience to it as well.

  • EricGilletteDOTcom
    EricGilletteDOTcom Posts: 12 ✭

    I mirror the sentiments of what's been said here. What's the point if a customer "contacts 3 pros" when they can't efficiently evaluate whether the Pros they've chosen are even within their budget? Someone said they gave a lead a price, and the lead disappeared - I've had it even WORSE. I've had leads flat out tell me: "Oh, that's not within my budget, but thanks for calling", as soon as I mention my hourly rate, which USED to be a qualifier (those leads would not contact me unless I was within their budget).

  • NewPathJunkRemoval
    NewPathJunkRemoval Posts: 7 ✭✭

    I have not been able to get a consistent flow of decent, relevant leads since these changes were made. Too many leads are poor matches for the requested service or the customer’s budget, and the resulting bookings have not justified the lead costs.

    Because of the decline in lead quality, I decided to reduce my weekly Thumbtack budget. These changes have not benefited Pros—they have made it harder for customers to evaluate fit before contacting us and have increased what Pros spend on leads that were unlikely to become viable jobs.

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  • ntorrelles
    ntorrelles Posts: 8 ✭

    I’m a photographer, and I wanted to add the photography perspective because I’m seeing the same issue reflected very clearly in my recent leads.

    Until recently, I was consistently booking at least one Thumbtack lead per week, which generally allowed me to recover my investment in the platform. I’m now going into my third week without converting a single Thumbtack lead, which is very unusual for my business.

    What I’m noticing in my area is a significant mismatch between the number of hours requested and the customer’s selected budget. I’m receiving multiple event photography requests for 3, 4, or more hours of coverage where the customer has selected that they are willing to spend up to $500.

    I went through the process from the customer side to better understand what they are seeing, and that’s where the problem became much clearer to me. As a customer in my area, I can select photographers to contact without seeing any of their starting prices. So a customer can select a budget of up to $500, request several hours of photography coverage, and contact photographers without having any idea whether their rates are within that budget.

    From a photography perspective, this creates a significant pre-qualification issue. The requested number of hours and the customer’s selected budget are already known before the lead is generated. If a customer is requesting 3, 4, or more hours and has indicated that they are willing to spend up to $500, while a photographer’s pricing for that amount of coverage is above $500, there is already a potential pricing mismatch before contact is ever made.

    The customer may then receive my quote and understandably decide that I’m outside their budget, but I have already paid for the lead.

    Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed not only a decline in conversions but also what feels like a change in the type of leads reaching me. I’m receiving more inquiries where the selected budget simply doesn’t align with the amount of coverage being requested.

    I completely understand that not every lead will convert, and that is part of advertising and doing business. My concern is paying for leads where having basic pricing information available beforehand could have helped the customer determine whether a photographer was realistically within their budget before making contact.

    At this point, I’m considering reducing my Thumbtack budget or adjusting my targeting because almost three weeks of paid leads without a booking is becoming difficult to justify.

    I’d be very interested to know if other photographers specifically have noticed a similar change in lead quality and conversion rates since pricing stopped being displayed upfront.

  • EricGilletteDOTcom
    EricGilletteDOTcom Posts: 12 ✭

    @ntorrelles It's not just the photog industry. It's EVERY industry on the Thumbtack platform. I've hidden my business until further notice, since it seems Thumbtack has no intention on changing this one-sided policy that only benefits them, anytime soon. My rate is $150 for network services (network support, running ethernet cables, etc) - the same has happened in my industry. Customers go with the "get quotes from the top 3 pros" and as a result, they no longer evaluate your business based on pricing. They blindly contact you, so that Thumbtack gets more lead fees from 3 pros instead of 1 or 2 the customer might have otherwise contacted. Thumbtack earns more revenue, and our lead quality intrinsically depreciates in value. Result is you contact the client or they contact you and once you mention your price, and they hear that it's outside of their budget, they tell you: "No thanks". Something that they could have used to evaluate you at the outset had Thumbtack not chosen to skip allowing the customer to evaluate each Pro based on profile info, price, etc. They may have never contacted you in the first place, and thereby wouldn't have cost you a dime, because they would've contacted a Pro who was in their expected budget range. It's definitely an ongoing problem.

  • Kris
    Kris Posts: 8 ✭
    edited October 3

    This change not showing the pricing is very upsetting to me. I feel like Thumbtack is being greedy and only in it for the money. You already make it so difficult with sending the lead to 3 to 5 people when obviously they’re only going to hire one, but then to not even allow the customer to have an idea of what the job would cost them before they reach out to someone is unacceptable to me. I know when I look for a handyman or a house cleaner, I want to know the rate first. As a Pro in Home Organizing this really makes me lose money. If I keep eating up my budget and not getting a client, then obviously I’m not gonna stay on the platform. My money would be better spent on Google or at that point. This just doesn’t make sense to a business owner. So please at least put that feature back. This helps the pro, the customer, and Thumbtack in the long run.

  • ntorrelles
    ntorrelles Posts: 8 ✭

    @EricGilletteDOTcom Yes, I know it’s happening across all industries. I was just speaking from my perspective as a photographer, since I haven’t seen many photographers commenting in this thread. I’m already making changes to how I invest my marketing budget because relying too heavily on platforms where we have very little control over these changes is simply not sustainable for my business. When changes like this negatively affect lead quality and how our budget is spent, we have to look for other ways to invest our marketing dollars.

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  • Masha_Liokumovich
    Masha_Liokumovich Posts: 1 ✭

    I agree!

    I own Vibrant Yoga, a premium, highly personalized yoga and wellness business. We provide private, in home sessions tailored to each client's individual needs, with experienced instructors and a high level of personal attention.

    Our services are priced accordingly, and we recognize that we're not the right fit for everyone's budget. That's perfectly fine. But that's exactly why pricing transparency is so important.

    Since Thumbtack stopped displaying our prices upfront, we've been receiving more inquiries from people who are expecting significantly lower rates than what we charge.

    These aren't qualified leads for our business, yet we're being charged $15 to $20 every time someone contacts us, only to discover our services are outside their budget.

    This is incredibly frustrating and financially detrimental to small businesses like ours.

    We're happy to invest in quality leads from customers who understand the value of personalized services and are comfortable with our pricing. But we shouldn't have to pay for inquiries that could have been avoided simply by allowing customers to see our rates before contacting us.

    Hiding prices doesn't make our services more affordable. It just shifts the cost of the mismatch onto the business owner.

    I'm asking Thumbtack to reconsider this change and restore upfront pricing visibility. Customers deserve transparency, and professionals deserve leads that are genuinely aligned with their services and pricing.

    I'd also appreciate consideration for credits on leads that were clearly not a financial fit because our pricing wasn't visible.

    Thank you for taking this feedback seriously.

    Masha
    Founder, Vibrant Yoga

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