I've used it several times. I used to do photography for sessions out of tonwn and would use it a few times a season to find hair and makeup artists. Probably hired 7 different HMU. Mostly good experiences with one lady early on who was not as good of a fit. However, my budget may have been really off too. I still have pro relationships with a few of them and continue to hire them repeatedly. I have also hired within my profession for second shooters on events or for my own personal photos. Probably hired 12-15 times over the last 3 years. Recently I went on to look for newborn photogs in my area and price range. I'm due with twins in May and while I do speciallize in newborn and family, I am not deluding myself into thinking I can shoot my own babies post birth and I definitely can't shoot my own family pics. Also, I have a pretty specific price range that I wanted to stay in. So I went on thumbtack as a customer again. I live in a major city so there are a plethera of photogs and searching could be a full time job. I must say as a customer I hate the new format. If I wanted to look through 40+ profiles I would use google. Of the top 30 listed only 4 had photos of newborns (or even babies) in their portfolio. In all honesty, my own profile was number 25 on the list and was the only one that had multiple newborn shots. There were many who from the looks of it, solely do headshot, wedding, or fashion photography. There were photogs clearly just starting out charging $75 for the session with 2 photos of fashion shots on their portfolio, 2 hires, and a 5 star review that came up in the top 1-3 spots. To say the experience was frustrating is beyond an understatement. As a pro, who used to get hired regularly and with a pretty good precentage rate, I have my own issues with the new format. But speaking solely as a customer, I don't understand how this is an improvement. Everything I loved about the service and the experience that I would reccomend is gone. I used to be able to put my exact details, including date, time frame, and budget in under 5 minutes and then I would have pros contact me that I could sort through. I have now spent HOURS on here looking through profiles, forgetting who I kind of liked, but maybe not really, searching back through 5 different profiles, and ultimately ending up on google. If I can't navigate the system and find even 2 suitable options in a field I am familiar with, why would I have any trust that the experience would be better in other services? Back to google, yelp, and referals for me.
... View more
