ThumbtackReviews 1,534

The idea of a centralized site providing job leads is fantastic. The problem is actually trying to land a lead since you are racing against the competitor clock, trying to be one of the first five quotes before being locked out, frantically trying to send your quote out and not always quite sure what you are quoting on because the job descriptions can be so vague.

The major problem with Thumbtack is that you pay per quote, not per client contact. In an ideal world, Thumbtack would only charge you to quote if the client actually reached out to you to inquire about your bid. Seems pointless to quote on all these jobs and pay to quote if there is no client interaction - which raises the question about how legitimate a client referral service this is.

I have my own company and my consultants on Thumbtack as Pros
One thing I have learned Thumbtack DOES NOT PROTECT THE PROS
In a few short months this is what happened to us on Thumbtack
1.6 Bad Checks
2. One person wanted to print checks
3.2 men tried to get us in a wire fraud in the amount of $150,000.00
Which we are working with the FBI on that one

Thumbtack protect the clients but does nothing to protect the Pros after they background check me, my girls and my company
Why dont they conduct this on their clients?

You Thumbtack people are unbelievable. You are NOT here to help. Not only have you allowed someone I have never had dealings with on any level to attack me and spew lies on a review page, but you have approved of it! I didn't join Thumbtack to have my proposals, no not jobs, PROPOSALS, savagely and maliciously critiqued by lying complete strangers in a public manner. You did read, correct, how he said that my video sample was grainy and choppy? You do read, correct? You do have ears and eyes, right? That would allow you to verify that such a defamation is utter and complete nonsense? And yet you are more than happy to allow it to stay, and what is really beyond the pale, defend this idiot's right to lay those unfounded and totally alternate facts at my professional doorstep. I'm going to set up a website and FB page to tell the world what a nefarious organization Thumbtack is to allow lies, oh, I'm sorry, alternate facts to be slapped on someone just for proposing work. Once more, just to see if there is ANYONE in your organization who can distinguish lies like "grainy and choppy", or ANYONE who give a damn about truth and honesty... actually never mind. You have shown who you are by allowing obvious lies (you did look at the video in question, correct?) to be slung at me by someone I don't know on any level. I gladly and happily will cease any dealings with your company in any form. May you be thrown piecemeal to the wolves as you have allowed me to be.

Thumbtack is a fairly big scam for contractors, for the simple reason that "clients" aren't required to make any financial commitment in order to post, so most requests are from people who never had any serious intention of hiring in the first place. They're "playing the field."

Yes, I have gained a couple of clients. Was it worth the money? Probably not, unless they really do remain very long-term clients. Here's what happens with Thumbtack:

1. You see a request and quote on it, which costs you.
2. Nothing happens. The client views your request, so you are out the cost. But they never act on it.
3. You are contacted by a scammer who claims all the other contractors are offering half the price (why don't you just take that offer, you think to yourself). When you contact Thumbtack, they claim you don't really know it's a scam.
4. If you're in the massage business, you get lots of explicit requests for sex. Thumbtack refuses to handle this one, and doesn't allow you to report them for what they are unless to you pay Thumbtack to send a quote, then report it as a scam.

How do I know the vast majority of clients never hire? Thumbtack sends a report on how you compare to other pros each week. If I actually got hired, which is very rare, I always, without any exception, have a better hire rate than every other pro. Meaning, getting hired once is the exception, not the rule. Oddly, after I posted this review I never got another one.

If Thumbtack starts charging clients to post a request, then it might be worth the money. Until then, I'd say don't waste your money. The only real reason for using the site is their SEO - I had one client who searched for my service, and the Thumbtack site actually came up as one of the top pages. So she placed a request and is now a consistent client. But this was kind of a one-off.

We were looking at getting new hardwood floors and tried to use thumbtack to get quotes. The first contractor showed up, looked around and left stating he will send the quote. Never heard back from him.

The second one was more communicative, promised us the sun and moon and kept pushing us to sign the contract. We got suspicious and contacted the BBB. Turns out that he has had many businesses with different names before.He will get the advance from the customer and then vanish. His previous BBB rating was "F". I wonder how thumbtack that background checks all contractors missed on that.

Needless to say we went with a contractor who we knew even though he was a bit more expensive.

Consumers beware and do your homework before hiring someone off this site because thumbtack obviously doesn't.

Listen I've got one job only all the jobs they sent a fake. I've dropped my rate down I still got nothing and they refund the credit sometime. Their motto is we get you the clients to speak to you that's what you're paying for. If you use Company call Smith if you don't get hired they don't take your credit and they'll give you back your credits although that site is a scam as well just watching my money go back-and-forth with no results stay away from thumbtack put them out of business actually they are ripping us off and it's illegal to steal our money so hey thumbtack why don't you treat people better and stop stealing our money! I don't know who you think you are but I've contacted the Better Business Bureau about you and I will have you shut down if possible even if we have to have a petition going around in an investigation it will be underway and that will result in you closing your doors to stealing contractors money you're a bunch of shysters sitting on your couch in your underwear you're no better than a telemarketer losers. Of course you text me back saying we give you the leads and it's your job to contact the customer resend the quote send him an email why don't the customers have to put a phone number down because they're fake people and you are a fake company you should be ashamed of yourselves

I joined Thumbtack as a contractor in the early stages and they actually did a good job at first. I spent thousands of dollars on quotes and made my money back the first year. I then noticed the second year there was a dramatic drop on results and quickly discovered a ton of fake job requests coming up. I can't help but to think these were generated by Thumbtack because they continued to happen over and over again.
I would call and get the credits I spent refunded but what about all of the people that didn't realize that a large amount of the requests were fake? I also noticed an increase in the number of people that would request service and then look at the quote and never respond (by looking at the quote that qualified it as a good request and you were billed). Why would somebody interested in having work done never reply back to the contractors? I actually called, when they had support you could call into, and the Thumbtack customer support people would tell me that these people requesting a quote didn't respond to anybody, hmm.
Needless to say I stopped while I was ahead, luckily I had a good run while they were legit.
I feel bad for the contractors that get into it now, odds are against them making money from it.
Note, I did very well with reviews that first year and made money from it, all of my reviews were 5 star reviews and things were good at first.
I think most of the reviews I see on sitejabber that are good are from consumers and not contractors, seems like the contractor reviews are mostly bad.
You would think that Thumbtack would make it so contractors and consumers are happy with the website, that is why I think that they are actually allowing this to happen on purpose because that is how they make money or they are actually doing it to make money.
Sad, this could have been a really good setup for everybody.
If you are a contractor stay away from Thumbtack or you will get stuck.

My company joined thumbtack before they were very popular about three years ago. At first it seemed that the leads were not working out but it was not to expensive so we stuck with it because we were farely new to it. After about a couple of months we had already started to get work from it. Ever since it has helped us generate tons of great new clients and tons of new projects. I strongly recommend them to professionals and the key is to work on your profile post pictures and ask for reviews. We couldn't be happier with thumbtack. Our company is Brothers Painting & Tile LLC out of Indiana. It's not an overnight fit you have to give stuff alittle time but it does work. We have tried several other lead generators and it was a financial drain home advisor which used to be service magic were and still are a bunch of thieves and network is terrible. So if your thinking about giving thumbtack a try I strongly recommend trying it there customer service has always been great I hope this helps on your decision

I have been around the horn trying to get my website where I wanted it, spent a lot of money and finally found someone who really gets the job done at a reasonable price and quickly. Dave has a deep computer background and it shows. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, look no further!

I do not recommend using this Thumbtack service at all! Stay away from it, it is completely unreliable; Several of the companies are the same people with different names. They are unreliable, not dependable; and a complete waste of my time! The first company I hired to clean my house did not show up 4 times. I fired them after giving them so many chances, they would send a message one minute prior telling me they could not come to clean and had to keep rescheduling. Then recently I hired another company. The first day they were 6 and half hours late! You would think I would not use them again. They did not do a bad job, and believe in giving second chances. I tried again, and they were scheduled to come for the 2nd cleaning. I confirmed the date and time 4 days in advance via phone call and text. They did NOT SHOW, they apologized and offered another time, Again they simply did not call, did not message and did not come! I will never ever use THUMBTACK FOR ANY SERVICE EVER AGAIN, furthermore there is no where on the site to write a review, there is no phone number to call! They are the worst company and they have the worst company's listed, they have no screening process at all- Horrible!