ThumbtackReviews 1,535

They have recently switched their system - if you contact the pro they get charged highway robbery rates. I had one person contact me about one job (that they then flaked on) and I was charged $57+... $57 to waste my time with a poor customer and a refusal on Thumbtacks part to even consider a partial refund is garnering them a negative review everywhere I can put one. I've been screwed over by this company too many times to ever use it again.

Be careful of this site. They are purposely vague in their pricing explanations because they don't want you to know your costs. They are only interested in getting your referral money, even if it means charging you more than the contract worth. I quoted a client a very low fee for a quick question and Thumbtack charged me $46 over the quote... yes I just LOST $$ on a Thumbtack engagement. Also, their customer service is useless. They only send canned answers and really don't try and resolve anything. No customer focus at this organization. Businesses Beware!

Thumbtack is a terrible company to do business with. Do not sign up with them. Do not offer your services nor build a profile on their webpage, because you will only encounter terrible customer service and experience the bad business practices they follow once someone contacts you for a service. I'll share my experience:

Thumbtack knows my availability because I put it in my calendar. Someone messaged me for my service at a time I was available only to ask "are you available on my date" and Thumbtack charged my card. Because that client already sent out 4 similar messages to other pro members, we all got charged on our cards despite the lady getting the deal with another pro member. So basically... I got charged $13 just for a lady to ask me if "I was available" when clearly, I let Thumbtack know my availability through their system. This happened several times with other cleints that fell through as well. They would simply ask "Are you available?" and I would get charged $13 every time...

I called to complain and explain that Thumbtack KNEW my availability and explained to them that I shouldn't get charged for the lady asking me if I was available. Their customer service is the WORST. I spoke to a representative on the phone and she said I would get a refund. I told her I wanted to make sure it was a refund back to my credit card and not as "credits." She confirmed over the phone that I would be refunded to my card. Then... she emails me an hour later saying she cannot refund me to my card. Absolutely TERRIBLE customer service.

As a Top Pro for the last three years, I had many good clients with Thumbtack. Now TT has a quoting system that does not allow you to see what they are charging for the contact. I was billed $18 for a $150 dollar job! God forbid if someone ask a question like "What's next?"... boom! You get billed. I have had so many dead end leads and I have paid a ton of money for people who were fraudulent, just shopping or flakes. The words "I am being scammed" kept popping into my head as I responded to some of these queries. Many would ask one question and I would never hear from them again. But I got billed anyway by TT. Whatever Thumbtack was, they are no longer. Their reputation has gone down the toilet with this new "algorithm" that supposedly calculates prices. It is no longer a good deal for the pros and the TT management is not fixing it anytime soon. Quoter BEWARE!

I am one of the top pro on Thumbtack as heating and cooling specialist. I was not happy with their charges ( Contractors being charged extremely high each time they send a quote to a customer for any work) but I was kinda managing it and was able to establish good customer service and a review record. They made changes to charges and suppose to be better but oh my God! What a rubbery... They charged me 75$ for sending a quote to customer even though not certain that the customer is legend and customer never went beyond just sending me a text.( yes I have been charged 75$ because customer send me a message saying "he will call".)
I stopped sending quotes to customers pause all that hard work good service due charges extremely high. That also means contractors will increase their charges because Thumbtack charges more than they should.

I have told TT many times to allow homeowners the option to pay $1 to connect with a contractor. Contractors could then have the OPTION to only see the homeowners that have paid. It would screen out the unserious. Until then I am not buying more leads to nowhere.

Stop placing all the burden on the contractor to prove their worth and ask homeowners to prove their worth as well.

Until then the product is no good. I tried TT first in 2016 and found that most homeowners were unserious or had wild expectations of cost (quote: Sorry I'm looking for someone to remodel my kitchen for $500). I thought I might give it a go again in 2018 only to find that they now sell leads completely in the blind. In other words the contractor not only has no idea of the quality of the product before they buy, they now don't know what it costs. Crazy.

I wanted to warn you about a terrible experience I had with Thumbtack. Ive used them before and found a great moving company that moved us across the country. Therefore, when we were wanting a custom bookshelf made for our living room, I was excited because I thought I found a great carpenter on their site. He had almost perfect, verified reviews. He came to our house, created a prototype for our bookshelf, and we were excited to hear we would have a bookshelf made in 4 weeks. We signed a contract where we paid 70% upfront. After paying the carpenter, he stopped responding to our calls/texts/emails. We were really worried because we had paid close to $5000 and didnt know what was going on. We spoke to Thumbtack, and they told us not to worry and that 9/10 times they were able to resolve things. Thumbtack had his credit card on file and tried charging him for the full amount but could only get half of it cleared. They mailed us a check for around $2400. At this point, we heard back from the contractor and he apologized saying he had health issues. We went to his shop and saw the wood he had purchased. He assured us that it would take two weeks or so to finish it up. Afterwards we didnt hear from him again for a couple weeks and then we got a text from him saying he that he cant finish the project because his health is too bad and he would repay us the balance. After trying to get a hold of him again, we heard nothing. In the meantime, the contractor posted pictures on social media of him making a table with the wood that we presumed he purchased to make our shelves. We ceased contacting him further because he was tweeting messages that were satanic and made us feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, we saw online that he has a criminal background. We contacted Thumbtack again for their assistance, and after our case was escalated to a manager, they advised there was nothing else they could do to help. They said that its now between us and the contractor and they have no additional responsibility to us. When I asked Thumbtack does background checks, they say they ALLOW the vendor to complete one. This experience has been ridiculous and we feel beyond disappointed. We are out $2400 because we trusted Thumbtack to vet their vendors. Instead, they put a criminal on their platform and refused to take responsibility. STAY AWAY FROM THUMBTACK so you dont find yourself in a similar situation!

Today i joined a long list of longtime, high performing, legitimate, insured contractors to leave Thumbtack after multiple years. They have become a scam company... Not only have the increased bid pricing each year by almost 100%, in the last two years they have doubled the amount of contractors that can bid on a job. Therefore, to stay on as a Pro with Thumbtack, I have to pay much more for much less. Thumbtack you really disappoint me, it was once so good. Now only the dumbest and most desperate of people will bid on jobs... and thats really bad for the consumer.

I was charged $75 for quoting a $150 bid on a project with a $200 budget. They don't pre-screen these requests very well and the charge for the quote is not published anywhere, so you don't know the cost until they charge you. I was also charged $36 for a "thank you for your quote" response. Pre-screening templates need to be fixed. Not allow bogus requests. Require requestor to put up a deposit. Refund pro's contact fee if project is cancelled altogether.