You need to bring back the pricing and put it on the quote info.
I haven't responded to any leads for the last 3 months because you charged me $24 fr a $50 quote.
Your customer service is not dependable and it took you 5 days to respond.
Put the pice to quote with the quote request so we all know how much quotes cost.
Fake customers need to be weeded out and reimburse the contractor.
The new pricing system, which Thumbtack rolled out and refuses to revert back, is a money-maker for Thumbtack, but a ruined system for Pros trying to use it to run their small businesses and be profitable.
Prices have jumped from the $3 range to 3 times that price. The price paid is unknown when bidding. This seems illegal to me! I don't know any other company that can charge it's customers a price that is unknown.
Instead of bidding against 5 other people, we now bid up to nearly 20.
With the old system, we could ask questions of the customer. Now, that costs 3x more.
The automated responses from customers cost the pros.
Thumbtack needs to listen to their customers and go back to the old system. What Thumbtack will lose in the 3x pricing, they can make up in volume. Customer satisfaction is important. Lose your Pros and you lose your business.
Just because the customer answers/replies to your quote, doesn't mean you are getting hired.
So in reality we are paying Thumbtack for nothing but wasting our time.
Is this even lawful? Shouldn't be.
Most people are too vague about what they need, so you have to take a chance and ask more questions, then you are charged a fee, when customer responds with a clearer answer, then you find out that for some reason you are unable to help him/her further. You are still charged a fee by Thumbtack for basically communicating with an ignorant person.
That is Thumbtacks fault. They ask what are "too basic" questions of potential customers, and they are not getting the important details that are needed, Thumbtack needs to revise their "job" questions, and if customer is not supplying needed answers, the fill out form should stop, until they answer each detail question. Also give some thought to fairness of "fees", for example on sheetrock repair, sometimes all the customer needs is a small patch for a small hole and you cannot charge too much for that, so fee should reflect that.
I have been with Thumbtack exclusively since 2013. My first 3 years I was rated as top pro and had a 97.2% closing ratio. In the last year my closing ratio has dropped to a mere 5.0%. The price of the leads have changed so much that I cannot set my budget. I'm seeing duplicate leads all the time and the ones I do bid on you never here from them. They contact you for your availability and never hear from them again. The funny part is they all ask the same thing like its the same person or somebody from thumbtack making up leads to charge me money. I was told. That the price that we pay depends on how many pros apply for job. Last time I heard that is called price gouging and that's illegal. Thumbtack has really let down their long time pros in every way. Just because I don't want you guys to quote my customers now I don't get the lead until 5 minutes after the others. I have dropped off from using thumbtack pretty much completely. Which is a shame because I have spent thousands of dollars with thumbtack. I just cat support thumbtack anymore due to how shakey and expensive they have become.