It happens to me often. Most of the leads are worthless. Some want to spend $5 and meanwhile it costs me $13 to buy the lead. Overall, Thumbtack is an expensive system to get leads. ... View more

I provide tutoring and editing services. When a lead comes in, the price is about $13 and yet I have no clue what the potential client is willing to spend. Sometimes after I purchase the lead, they want to spend $15 and it takes one hour of time on the phone to figure out what they really need. Thus, I am working hard to make $2 for the hour. Why not make it a must that a client put in their maximum spending budget so we know if it is even worth buying the lead. Clients should also have to put more details into their messages. What good is a client saying I need help with a project. The clients must provide as much details as possible. I hardly use Thumbtack as I spend over $300 a month for leads and 100% of them are worthless, price shopping leads, as well as, phony leads where no one responds back to you after you purchased the leads. ... View more

For a customer using Thumbtack, it is a no lose situation since they are not paying to find a professional. Thus, no matter how bad Thumbtack is, the customer cannot lose any money, thus it is a great tool for the customer. On the other hand, the professional risks everything and in most cases, the information provided by the customer is almost worthless. For example, a customer needs writing and editing services and when you see the lead it says under 2000 words. The professional has to guess if the user wants 10 words or 1999 words but the professional pays the same for the lead. In another case, the customer says I need some help writing an article and wants to get more information from professionals. Thus, you end up paying $10 to $20 for a lead that is basically an information seeker who will not buy anything from you. In my opinion, since the user pays nothing to post his or her lead, most leads are worthless to a professional. I know, I have purchased many leads from thumbtack and most were worth zero. So as a customer, Thumbtack is great because I will get many responses from professionals even though I know in advance that I will not hire anyone from there, just want to get free information, but I know that I will find my professional from asking my neighbor who he used to fix his roof. The professionals, they all end up paying for leads that they can never get. ... View more