Want to know more about Price Assurance?

[WillC]

@vivmaxphoto We don't want to get between you and potential jobs. While customers come to us in various places on their hiring journey we see routinely that pros are best suited to talk with them about their job and convince them to hire. Our approach is just to try to charge less for those leads when we see signs that a customer might not be ready. 

If you feel there’s another way to help improve this experience, please let us know!

[ChefOfAllSeason]

@WillC If a customer is not ready, then why charge for the lead?

[ldimkam]

We have different prices for difference services for example bookkeeping is much less than tax preparation.  Potential clients are upset that they are looking for tax preparation but it is lumped with accounting services.  Can you break down the "brackets" of a general service so we are more closely aligned with the potential clients?  Also, it's frustrating getting charged for potential tax returns when it is the day before or day of the tax deadline.  

[Meckell]

Thanks for sharing this with us @ldimkam, super helpful to know! Although I don't have an immediate fix for you, I will make sure that your feedback gets passed along to our product team. 

[Noeldnjuan]

Good morning, Thumbtack . . .

I received a service request from a Justice L for Saturday December 14. My posted total pricing for this type of event is $1,100 — yet their proposed budget is less than $300.

I have a question for you:

If you’re listing a Porsche at $110,000 and then someone walks onto the lot with $30,000, would you even consider that a serious offer?

Under current Thumbtack policy, I could:

A) Spend $24 to tell them the date is open, yet I’m not in the business of giving away my Porsche’s at 72% off!

B) Decline and be forced to declare myself unavailable for a highly desired date ...

C) Do nothing and watch my responsiveness rating take an undeserved hit (?!)

While I’m flattered that a potential client would make me their sole choice, it should not be the responsibility of us, the listed pros, to inform the entire customer base that expecting or hoping for discounts of 25%, or 50% — and let’s not even talk about 75% — is entirely irrational and completely unrealistic . . .

This is why Thumbtack has become less and less relevant for me and many other polished pros, as it seems more and more where people are under the impression that they can buy an iPhone 11 with a flip phone budget.

[WillC]

@Noeldnjuan Thank you for providing such great examples. We've taken a look at this and can see it’s a partial match, meaning the lead doesn’t completely match your preferences because you've chosen not to target customers with budgets like this. This is why you’re given the option to accept and pay or decline and not pay.

Speaking to the value of the services you provide is always helpful to give the customers the insight of the services they are requesting. Remember, you’re an expert in this field, some education into what you are able to provide may be required. In this scenario, if you were to accept the partial match, you could share what you’re able to provide with the $1,100 asking price, versus the $300 they have as their listed budget. This insight can help them expand their budget to amount both you and the customer can agree upon.

[J_DJ]

I understand that Thumbtack makes revenue based on the fact of business owners trying to win a lead. However, inquiring or answering a basic question such as availability should not cause us business owners to pay the full fee. Think about it, every lead I'm paying anywhere between $15 to $50 but I have to work 8 to 10 leads before landing a real opportunity. Where is the ROI for any of us. In reality, when you add up how much we are spending as a business, a myriad of our revenue is falling into the pockets of Thumbtack. I want Thumbtack to make money but charge a 25% or half the fee until the person says yes or clicks on the hire button. Overall, we all want to make the process feasible and correlate with the standards of the industry. However, the lead generation is insane for the price we have to pay.

[SamF]

@J_DJ We understand your concerns. I would like to encourage you to think about your ROI in a more aggregated manner. Sometimes we can get lost in the individual leads rather than looking at the bigger picture. I would recommend taking a look at your Insights Page to better judge your ROI on Thumbtack.

[J_DJ]

@SamFAs an employee, your not getting hit personally week after week with expenses that eventually pile higher than your ROI. In any business, you have to evaluate if the leads that you are paying make sense, and as a DJ, the jobs are a high value at times if you can land an opportunity. I have to work 9 or 10 leads to get one customer. However, I get charged every time for those leads, and they are not cheap. Don't tell me to look at my ROI in a more aggregated manner and look at the bigger picture.

I've been utilizing Thumbtack for several months now, and the prices are insane for a lead compared to receiving and completing the actual job. Overall, something needs to change at Thumbtack because a myriad of Pros correlate to my pain and will eventually seek leads with another program or company.

J.

[Millertrades]

Well to be honest, I don't really trust it. As top pro I find it wierd that people only pic me, it shows that it's read... but the customer never responds. I guess my question is, how do we know that someone is actually seeing it, and y'all aren't just clicking a button to cover your loses. I think it should be refunded if the customer doesn't respond.