ThumbtackReviews 1,534

I used to work with Thumbtack frequently until I discovered there was a lot of fraudulent request from pretend customers. The problem is Thumbtack has no way to determine at this point if a customer is real or fake so as business owners we keep the site going because we pay and in turn we often pay for fake customers. Thumbtack also changes everything all of the time on its business owners and doesnt notify us outright but their very sneaky so you will keep spending your money. Their latest thing is allowing fifteen businesses to bid on one customer. They used to only let five on any given bid. One week I spent $200.00 on bidding and while I would usually get at least four customers out of this I got None. I kept callling them to see what was going on with their system. It was only after I discovered by seeing something about being eight out of fifteen. I was livid! There a greedy company. Then on top of that on my recent bidding which i dont really do but out. The eight bids I did five cancelled their project supposedly. Do you think Thumbtack gave me my money back. No, they keep your money even when the project you bid on has been cancelled by the customer which is wrong.

I have attempted to hire professionals for 2 separate projects and figured Id try Thumbtack. They claim you will get up to 5 quotes within 24 hours. The first time was within 24 hours, but it was one company contacting me. The second time, was 48 hours and again, only one company contacted me. And they clearly were not interested in helping anyway.
I recognize that technology and "advisor" sites are supposed to make it easier, but I have found the opposite to be true. Stick with research and talk to a couple companies and obtain quotes on your own. Thumbtack isn't getting it done.

I have been with them for over a year, spend money and got 2 leads and only because they knew of me anyway.
Thumbtack FABRICATE most of the requests and there is no way to verify the veridicity and seriousness of the people pretending to contact you. It is a well organized FRAUD. They read your quote and charge you $3,50
A multimillion dollar scam. Another PONZI scheme.
Look at the hundreds of complaints thumbtack has all over and you may realize they have set up a pretty good scheme.

Going against their own Terms of Service, Thumbtack allowed a racist consumer to submit a racist complaint against me without me even by hired by that person and the Terms of Services strictly states that persons must be hired before one can complain about them. I let them know the person was discriminating against me and degrading me via text and they did nothing but side with the person. This platform is no good especially if people see your picture and you just happen to be attractive and black. People are so jealous of black people that it's disgusting!

I have been with Thumbtack for a while now and I am finally giving up. They made it worse with showing us now how much each quote cost that we are sending in and yes they claim to only charge your card if the customer responds and that is not true. They still will charge you. To be honest spending over $15 to send a quote and not guaranteed of the customer will contact you or not is very frustrating. I wish Thumbtack would be shut down at times or they change their practices. We should not be paying to send quotes and then get no response at all. Just a email when they look at it and sometimes that is wrong. They will also say someone looked at your quote and they really didn't. I have caught this at least ten times already with customers who have told me they never looked at our quote. They just did a search on Google and found us anyways without the help of Thumbtack.

I wish people would see they are scamming a nation and taking from those who want to be private contractors. They need Jesus in their lives. That's how bad this company is. They never resolve any issues so you will get screwed whether you are a customer or a pro because I needed to hire someone to do some work for us and let me tell you if you get screwed call them to get your money back then that's it. You were flat out ROBBED in your own home. It is very frightening and scary that there is a system like this to steal from innocent people who have families to support. Oh and any updates they make they never tell you in their terms and conditions. They state they are required to tell us in email but for the past two years I have never seen a email with updated changes.

People stop being cheap and use Google instead of Thumbtack. You will be screwed both pros and customers. Look at all these reviews. They are clearly true and warning America of this scam Thumbtack has run and claiming they help change lives but they really don't. If you read this then that means you should take this warning seriously. I didn't and still decided to do business with them and look where it got us. On here leaving a review about the hell we went through and how it really took a toll on my family and our finances. Robbing us constantly and providing us with false hope.

This review is for Rudy Ruiz of Rudy's Painting in IL. I live near the Joliet IL area suburbs and please please don't ever hire this guy. When you give him 1/3 down, he doesn't start right away even though I told him I need this done within 10 days or so. This is a duplex for rental and I need it done within a reasonable period of time. He finally finished in just over 3 weeks which was way too long. Then when I found a few problems, he wanted his final payment right away before he would make any alterations. Then the check could not be made out in a business name of Rudy's Painting. It had to be made out in his name alone which is Rudy Ruiz. He wouldn't show me his insurance, wouldn't give me his business address, leaves his voice mail full so you can't even leave a message or get ahold of him until he decides to call back in about a week or so. Every question I had about the job he would become very upset. Now he won't redo some areas that have problems which are small until the check clears the bank. I'm afraid he'll never come back and do some touch up problems and some misc. Things that need to be concluded to completely finish the job properly. He is a Nightmare to deal with! Ginny in Plainfield IL

When Thumbtack was just becoming known a few years back there were approx 5 pros for every lead.
Because we hustled to be the best we received a fair share of business which made them a worthy investment at $3 per quote.
Fast forward two years and the leads have not increased yet the pro population has exploded to at last count 64 pros per lead in my area alone.

We stopped receiving even simple responses to quotes quite some time ago and found out it was because the few leads there are get inundated with quotes at lowball prices.

Thumbtack makes it's money from pros sending quotes out yet even the best qualified and lowest priced pros don't stand a chance against 63 other lowballing pros for the same lead.

TT claims they limit quotes to 5 per lead which I know is a flat out lie because my neighbor signed up as a customer and received over 40 bids within days on a job.

Even if I hadn't known this then simply do the math. 64+ pros in an area are paying $3 per quote to compete for the same lead yet TT supposedly only picks 5 out of the 64 to allow to send quotes?
Right!
How do they choose who gets to quote or who doesn't?
The claim is absurd. This would mean 59 pros who paid for block credits aren't even being exposed to what few leads come in. No matter how you slice it the math doesn't add up.

The worst part of all of this is TT promises the moon and deliberately does not let the new pros signing up know what they are up against because then obviously nobody in his right mind would sign up.

As Thumbtack income from pros increases the pros themselves make even less because the odds get even worse with every new pro joining.

They remind me of a multi level marketing pyramid scam where you made money back when they first started but now nobody but the owners make $ as it's grown.

It's simple. A bigger Thumbtack equals more pro competition, more income from pros but a zero increase in leads.
If you are in an unusual high demand specialty type business with little competition then you can get some business from TT but otherwise you are simply throwing your time and money away just to make Thumbtack richer.

I'm writing this review after watching someone very dear to me lose everything he has due to non payment from several jobs he got off of using thumbtack this site will definitely bring you some business but most likely than not you will not get paid after your job is complete and there's nothing you can do about it. Unless you want to go to small claims court which will cost you more money and more time that you don't have. My best suggestion is to do it the right way stay off these sites they do not screen their customers to ensure that you will get payment for the job that you do. It might just cost you whatever you have left..

Ihave been with Thumbtack for several years (over 5). They always had a way of doing business. We were guaranteed that only 5 pros would be able to bid on a job and we could actually see how many bid for any one request. Unbeknown to us, the pros, they changed the way they do business now and they will let extreme multiple people bid for the information. I just spoke with a woman who said she has received too many calls to keep. The only people making money is Thumbtack. If you change the way you do business, then we should be notified. I just canceled.
Despicable!

Right for people crappy for contractors they charge $300 deposit plus they charge you to bid plus they want a percentage of the job by the time it's all done I have to charge the customer eight times what I usually charge than if they just called me on my cell phone for a job because I have to pay them to get it it's not worth it and if you don't get the job you still have to pay them I hope they go under and never open another page it's not worth my time

When I first started using Thumbtack 2 years ago I did well having twenty 5 star reviews, tons of testimonial videos/pics, faster response time, longest in business etc.

The service more than paid for itself and I recommended them to every business owner I knew.
As the amount of pros has dramatically increased the lead base has not. Even though my stats out shined the competition in all depts. The lead response came to a complete halt over a year ago.
Thumbtack keeps saying lower the price even more which I did and still no response. If everyone has to drop prices to a ridiculous level to compete than it's better to go with Groupon at no up front cost.
The problem is the core structure of the company itself. It makes it's money only from the pros. There are 56 pros in my area doing what I do now and only a one lead average per day. Do the math.
Thumbtack benefits every time a pro sends a $3 quote. Of course they want more pros to sign up. Each potential client gets to benefit from a myriad of rock bottom prices but the pros who actually support the company have an even lower likelihood of getting a legit lead with every new pro who signs up.
I came to realize the problem is not prices but a lack of leads for the amount of ever increasing pros. In other words the more money Thumbtack makes the less money the paying pro makes. Their success guarantees your failure.

A once legit service has become a scam. Imagine paying for a dating site that has 50 men for every woman. The men don't know signing on that there is only one woman. What's worse is the men pay for the service while the woman pays nothing. In my book this qualifies as a scam.