ThumbtackReviews 1,534

In theory, their business model sounds good. You sign up your business. Clients looking for your service will put in a request for a bid. You receive that request and it's up to you if you want to bid on that job.

There are several big issues with Thumbtack's business model though. First, YOU have to pay THEM for the privilege of bidding. Well, it's a service, after all and they should get paid. My problem is that you are paying them whether you get the bid or not. Unfortunately all too often you just simply never hear back about your bid. No, "thank you very much but I chose someone else," message. Nothing. There is no flat bid rate either. I haven't figured their algorithm for pricing, but it's steep.

My biggest point of contention is that you are asked to bid on jobs with ridiculously vague and uninformative descriptions. "Client needs a [job] for [$XXX]" and a few generic lines half describing what they need. No business person in their right mind would ever quote a job without a full description outlining what they are required to do. And there is no way to get that information since everything is funneled through their idiotic system.

Word of mouth and pavement pounding are way more effective than this 'service'.

After long time working with THUMBTACK I can say this... this Website 3 years ago was very different and worked to help the pros and customers as well... now I feel like they are faking customers to get out or money, the prices for me was $3.33/$6.66 and now the minimum is $8.88. The customers could got 5 quotes, now looks like unlimited... I spend easier $50 being the best(lower) price, I have more reviews and 5 stars that everybody and I dont get a HI from the customers., is that strange? YES, fake customers maybe? YES... they are thinking about themselves and dont care if you are getting hired or not, the only thing that they want is your $... Now this WEBSITE doesnt work to you anymore!
I send a quote for $11, many of them, I look and I have the best price... nobody contact me!

I am precision paint and design in Massachusetts and a Sherwin Williams contractor of 30yrs with non stop consistent 5 star reviews... 2 months ago I notice the agreement I had with thumbtack and a 4 contractor bidding system was fine... now 6 contractors are paying for as low as a 1 bedroom lead for painting,,, 6? You kidding me? After 30yrs and my stats show people stop answering calls from contractors on these sites after 2-4 tops. No one speaks to 6... thumbtack has claimed customers want more contractors and blame them. However this is a straight lie on national stats in marketing for contractors across the board... my 5 star rating when I bid, and then appear for an appointment am usually the stopping point for customers. In other words if they have a couple more estimates set? Normally they say we want you and will cancel those appointments... so the customer is normally satisfied with us so 6 need not be in my universe of leads... none of these want 6 or most even 4 contractors calling or emailing, they get sick of it fast. Anyway I guess and know you don't care about me or any contractors and but for warning other contractors this review is futile to change a thing in the greed of selling the same lead multiple times... another home advisors and worse on 6,, they don't even go that far.

When I first started using thumbtack I would hear back from a customer for about every 5 leads I applied for. They have since went on to change from tokens to actual pricing and the quotes are sometimes $40. The customer doesn't get charged to write a quote so thumbtack is coming up with a random dollar amount just to take all the profit. If 5 designers are bidding on that same quote thats $200 that Thumbtacks profiting. After bidding you never hear back from the customer and its a dead lead. I've wasted thousand of dollars on this site, its a complete scam. Not to mention the customer service is horrible! Now they go on to ask for your personal information and want your social security number and date of birth. Why would I give my personal info to a scam site. Definitely stay clear from thumbtack, complete rip off!

First off the ghost request everyone talks about here is true. I spent over $400 a month with them had 60 5 star reviews in there site and had a 4.9 rating out of 5 which is the top pro status. Out of no where they cancelled my profile and refused to tell me why. They said it was against their policy and this came after I point out that they allow blatant lies on their pros profiles and after I pointed this out, my account was deactivated. My experience with support is laughable at best. There is no human contact numbers only text messages. No refunds on bids even if customer cancels job or never hires anyone. The cost is applied to the pros by a customer opening a quote... no contact has to be made only that the customer opens the quote and that's $6.68 out of your pocket. Now if 5 people which is usual bid on the request that's $33.40 they make per quote even if none of you get hired. The say they are only a introductory site and that happens when customer opens the quote. They REQUIRE YOUR DEBIT/CREDITCARD NUMBER AND DEDUCT EVERY TRANSACTION AND YOU HAVE NO PAPER TRAIL FOR WHO OR WHAT THE MONEY WAS REMOVED FOR CONCERNING THE CUSTOMERS NAME YOU QUOTED ON WHICH LEAVES THEM OPEN TO CHARGING YOU FOR QUOTES THAT NO P. O. Or memo was used to verify. Only charge charge charge... RACKET AT BEST

I have used Thumbtack as a pro and as a customer and have had terrible results. The leads they send to pros are either fake or from price shoppers. The pros they have sent to me as a customer are less than reputable. Their pricing model is constantly changing, as is the way they request quotes from their pros. They take customer information and sell it and then take any customer feedback or reviews and claim the content as their own, preventing the customer from modifying or deleting content.

I signed up for Thumbtack to get some suggestions for professionals to make a wedding cake. Everyone who contacted me seemed like they worked from home (which could be fine, but I wanted a list of bakeries--not risking my wedding cake on a quasibusiness.) Also, none of the people who contacted me gave me any idea on pricing. The bakery I hired did--they had set prices for their baseline cakes. The most irritating thing is, Thumbtack keeps emailing me to see if I hired anyone. I did, but their survey lets you only choose from the people they showed me. There's no "I picked a contractor outside of Thumbtack" option. Won't bother with this again.

Hi my name is Patrick Mock my company is PM Services llc I have been with thumbtack for 4yrs. At first it was awesome 3 to 5 tokens wich was like 9 dollars or so with only 5 contractors biding on those jobs. Wich interned was great thumbtack was helping the contractor. Then the quotes went to 20 dollars a quote wich I thought was high but fair seeing I was spending up too 100 dollars a day on quotes. But thumbtack was still a good partner as thumbtack was still looking after the contractor seeing how the contractors pays thumbtack, angies list, and home advisor. Now thumbtack is TAKING 45 dollars a quote with 10-15 people bidding on a job and if the home owner just reply with 1 question we are still charged 45 dollars or whatever the quote is priced for. Wich turns out to be more money for thumbtack and less jobs and money for the contractor. When I called thumbtack to talk about this SCAM OR PONZI SCAM! I was given the run around with more question the deeper I dug into this matter. When I called back today at 1oclock I was given an answer that as the market goes so doesn't the pricing. I don't understand how thumbtack gets richer in this Aconomy and the contractor spends more with no jobs in return and the broker we get. This is a scam from thumbtack who steps on the little people and forgets that the contractors pays they're pay checks. This has to stop and I will be contacting the news about all of this. If your a contractor please do you home work before signing up with them because you will be spending more and making less.

Hi I'm pro with thumbtack, I work with them around 3y.It was not bad to start with them compare to Very expensive Home advisor. Now! They make some changes with leads. Before we got more chances to get some job, the send 5 leads to 1 costumer around ($20) per leads, not bed to take the job for that money. Now they send 10 to 15 leads to 1 costumer,! I'm not was even review by costumer. So Im losing more money end more. Don't have any job anymore. Im in progress to find something different.