Thumbtack

After over a year as a Thumbtack Pro I had 46 customers and was still at 5 stars because I take pride in my work... I had 3 customers in one month that left me bad reviews, they all had striking similarities: the customers tried to renegotiate my hourly mid project, when unable to lower my rate, they all rushed the job, they all were from Iran or India and they all later left me bad reviews, and these were all honest similarities... the last customer got frustrated and claimed water damage from a baseboard install 2.5 weeks earlier... she filed a claim with thumbtack with zero evidence of water damage and then left me a bad review threatened to sue me... nobody called me on thumbtack... but they deactivated my account... later I spoke with Ashley in some marketplace integrity department, she treated me as a number... not a person, she admitted to me as we talked that she had zero evidence of water damage... she and I reviewed the entire text chain showing my professionalism from start to finish. But my account was still deactivated because I was "unprofessional" and would not work with the customer even though I had nothing to work with, she offered nobody any proof of any damage, so how am I to rectify this?... later Ashley said I was a racist because I used the words India and Iran... so if I had 3 customers from Kansas who left me a bad review under other similar conditions, would I be racist against people from Kansas?... so as of now I cannot reach anyone at thumbtack to re open my account and I have several paid for quotes I am trying to follow up on... while my account is deactivated for no real tangible reason other than I used two adjectives that someone did not like... and after 300 hours in the field, with perfect customer responses, and after paying over $400 for all the quotes to get any business I find I am banished as a low life I am thumbtack's customer here and I needed help. Nobody called me, but one customer with a fake damage claim got me booted from Thumbtack...

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 first used Thumbtack several years ago. At that time, to send a quote to a customer you had to purchase credits, typically cost anywhere from 3-7 credits (which were around $1.67 each) to quote jobs in my industry (cleaning). Each quote was sent to the customer's provided email address & I (the pro) would get an email notifying me when they viewed the quote. I got many customers & pretty much was able to grow my business using this site.

I didn't useThumbtack for a long time until recently. I sent 32 quotes in the last month. NOT ONE response from potential customers. So I wanted to see what was going on. Long story short... I'm quite sure none of those 32 people ever even knew I sent them a quote. You see, the only time the customer gets anything from Thumbtack in their email is if it's from "pros they've reached out to." People will normally reach out to the companies that are featured at the very top of the List of Pros. Because really, who is going to scroll through pages & pages of companies? No one. The way you get your company listed at the top? PAY THEM.

I challenge you to make another profile, use a different email address & make a request. Then quote the job like you normally would. (Make sure you don't click on your company's "reach out to this company") After you've sent the quote like you always do, try to find that quote. As if you're just a regular customer who wants to find a professional, find the quote. Spoiler alert, it's at least 5 clicks & you have to know exactly what you're looking for. The average user is not going to have a clue.

Thumbtack makes it PURPOSELY difficult for any customer to even realize they've been quoted on these jobs. The way to get the customer to know you is to "promote" your business, ie PAY them money to get to the top of the list so they will email the customer directly on your behalf. And if you don't? The customer NEVER sees your quote.

SCREW Thumbtack.

I'm a contractor with impeccable reviews and Thumbtack single-handedly ruined my business. Now I'm suing them.

I will never use Thumbtack for anything ever again and I hope none of its current users have to go through what we did. I assumed that Thumbtack. Com only posted reputable contractors so I hired one ( TnJ Home Improvements -JACOB L. DOSHER) that had glowing references posted by Thumbtack to do some miscellaneous home jobs. I later found out that not only was the supposed "contractor" not reputable, he did not have a contractors license and he also had a criminal record. When I complained to the Thumbtack Customer Service Department, they actually protected the Company rather than myself and refused to release his address to me after he completely abandoned the job at our home. We currently have filed a case against this company with Magistrates court, LLR Board of Residential Contractors and and are in the process of filing a fraud case. This company was complete fraud and the owner was a conn man. I don't wish this experience on anyone. If Thumbtack had any accountability in checking the contractors that they post, this entire scenario could have been prevented. I have also since found out that JACOB L DOSHER has been all over South Carolina & North Carolina with his scams. Currently he is around the gulf coast of Florida area, near St Petersburg. I hope this information will help someone else.

I hired Valerie and Jerry from Tender Deep Cleaning Service to clean my apartment a couple of days ago. I am glad to say that they did a wonderful job cleaning my medium sized apartment! First off, my carpet was horrendous before they came to clean it. I knew that it was filthy before I even moved into the place however, I didn't know it doesn't look so bad until I saw how fresh/new it looked after they cleaned it. I don't know what they did but honestly they worked a miracle on my grey carpet. I was finally able to see that my carpet actually has a nice shade to it. It's just been dirty this whole time. I also had bedbugs in my master bedroom, however after they steamed the carpet in there I have not had one single bedbug bite. The second area they cleaned was my bathroom and I wanted special emphasis placed on the tile in my tub and the floor due to the mold and mildew on both areas. After they finished doing whatever it is they do, my tub tile no longer had that mildew in the cracks. Also I found out that my tub tile is actually a pretty pink color and not a rusty red. Also, the floor no longer looked muddy and the whole bathroom smelled way better than when I first moved into my apartment. They also cleaned the walls above my tub area which had some kind of green fungus on them and that disappeared as well after they were done. I really just want to compliment them on the quality of their work and the kindness they exhibit in their attitudes. I live in a poor area and no one else would come clean for me, however Mrs. Valerie and her husband were willing to come clean my apartment and I thank them very much! Thank you again and when I can afford their service again I will be hiring them to come clean.

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.

Thumbtack will charge your quotes from unverified customers. Save your time and money from using Thumbtack.

I have never been treated so poorly as a contractor in 20 yrs of my work! I had a 5 star profile with 12 reviews total! Thumbtack also explained that I'd have their top support staff helping me along the way to better assist me! I had a nonnegative comments! All were 5 star but 3 of them were 4, all were very good reviews and this is from my heart! I put my heart in my business and my work! It show's! I had a nasty homeowner rip me off and gave me a 1 star and said things thst i would never do in a million yrs and if I did, I'd have a history of it! But I don't have a history of it and thumbtack thought it would professional to allow this review to stay on my profile while it was a flat out lie and even makes thumbtack look bad! But, their support team is uneducated in marketing and customer relations! They said it will show my professionalism to allow me to show how I handle the situation! But this is nothing anybody wants, is a person lying and staying these horrific things and to just treat me like I'm some sign at run down gas station with graffiti on it! This is not professional support! They can't even explain in detail how they make their decision because I believe the support staff is ran by the owner and he is nothing close to professional, whom ever this person or people may be! I got hired every 3 out of 5 jobs and this is the review I have for them! This is very telling for anybody who cares about their reputation! Thumbtack will try to destroy it! They also sold me $50 pack of leads worth $300 but they were old leads and I'm not the only contractor with this type of story about thumbtack! I gave their support team criticism and got kicked off site! So this tells me they can't deal with being treated the same way, they treat others! Pathetic!

After several years of being a contractor listed on thumbtack. This is my opinion!
Their pricing schedule is all screwed up! They charge 4 credits or roughly 10.00 for a sub premium lead. By that i mean you pay 10.00 for a lead that does not include any contact info for the potential customer... No email, no phone number. Just a name and a genral area. Also the cost of the lead is not in anyway equal to the amount you could hope to make on the job. For example they charge 4 credits(approx 10.00) for a lead ( installing a tv on wall with no inwall wire concealment) that at best is going to pay 55 to 79.00 but then the charge 2 credits for a lead (complete electrical rewire) that has the potential to pay thousands of dollars.
I will also add that i get replies to only about 1 in ten leads purchased.
At one time thumbtack was a usefull tool in your tool box. That no longer is true. There price increase is designed to get the most out of the most popular services. Instead of being designed to get the most out of the most costly services.
If i could give advice to those in charge at thumbtack... It would be... to take some time a actually make some phone calls to your contractors and ask ( personaly) what they think about " cost of lead vs price quoted". I think they would be surprized.
To sum it up... Thumbtack is trying to get premium lead prices for refferal leads (leads where you pay. And they pass on your info). It is for that reason than i have greatly reduced the number of leads i bid on.
If i could give advice to contractors thinking about using thumbtack. It would be. Don't waste your money.

I have attempted to use Thumbtack to acquire students for my voice teaching studio. Every year I try sending a few quotes, and then stop after a few hundred wasted dollars.

Here's the crux of the issue; the leads are very low quality. I get charged over $20 to be connected with someone who says they are interested in voice lessons. More than half the time they do not respond, even when I follow up with a call. Often, the person is merely tire-kicking, or has some other agenda. Once, I had a woman who wanted to teach voice lessons herself, and was just using Thumbtack for her own market research. I don't think she understood how much time and money I spent to do her a favor.

They sometimes refund these poor quality leads, but admonish you, stating that you are paying for the *opportunity* to match up with new clients.

Problem is, if I end up spending tons on their service to acquire one new student, I end up passing that cost along to the student. Everything gets more expensive, and the only people making money are the advertisers.

Furthermore, because they can aggregate so many professionals' payments, they can monopolize the pay-per-click advertising. Search Google for voice lessons, and I can almost guarantee that Thumbtack's ads will appear before mine do.

Most recently, they made a few updates to their policies. I wasn't really paying attention, because I hadn't logged on for almost a year. Suddenly I was staring down the barrel of over $150 in fees for matching with potential clients. Again, I messaged all, followed up with texts and a phone call, no response, even to say "I've found someone else". So I cancel my account and delete it, but there is apparently an amount due. Ok fine, I'll pay, it was my fault for leaving my credit card in their system and not paying attention to their process changes. But I refuse to log in ever again. You can't reply to the automated emails, they get bounced back. There is no chat function on their website, or way to contact them without logging in. It wasn't much better as a user, either.

This company grossly overcharges and under-delivers

Don't give them your credit card! I feel like this user unfriendly site that supposedly links services with clients is a ripoff. Charges are unclear and links are illogical causing you confusion about what youre signing up for. Charges are insane. You get charge in some cases for simply emailing someone back that has no interest in your service because the categories are inaccurate. I sent them 6 emails asking them to put a category for concrete floors / concrete polishing. Instead i got all these epoxy requests/messages on thie site that were a waste of money. Leads are insanely expensive and a lead is considered a charge if you simply send the vague inquiry a message. Clients are grouped into categories that are not viable clients and most leads are vague, like, "I want my floor painted". Never enough data to decide if it is wirth the $30 bucks just to ask them what theyre looking for. And, I swear they deliberately autocharged me. No way to contact them and these Millenials never email you back. It is very amateurish. I get more quality business leads from Craigslist than I ever did here. The other lead sites are just as cumbersome too. Summary: 1. Expect confusion with charges (rigged to be confusing?). 2. Expect that leads are vague. 3. Leads are outrageously expensive and most are not quality leads. 4. Categories are not specific enough for niche high-end professionals. Thumbs down. Especially for the mysteriousness to reach a human and the unrealistic charges. For $5 per month use Craigslist!

Again they raise there quote prices on the contractor. I now pay 6 credits for a 499 sq. Ft job, if I'm lucky enough to get it in 1out of 10 tries. I'm also now paying 6 credits foe painting a nook above a stair case which is about 20 sq. Ft. Where does this even sound fair to me. I call and have complained for a out 3 years and even though I'm told tO'Day for the first time ever they call their professionals back for feed back but funny. I have always been told they don't. Well if they do, where's this top rated painting contractors call back... it's a line of BULL $#*!... They have people come up with prices per job scope who have probably never even had a paint brush in their hand or can't picture the normal size sq. Footage of a nooke above a staircase to know it's only really worth about a half (. 5) credit. They say it's still cheap but only one guy gets a job out of 5 so when 5 guys spend $18 00 or so on on bigger job, they make $90 00 while the 4 contractors have to go spend more money to not get more work.
I'm copying my Web page their and getting my own and will never spend another dime on a company that doesn't have the decency to call a top rated contractor up with as many amazing and awesome reviews as me. My advice to all you other contractors stop making these guys millionaires why you make pennies. Blow these guys off and do your own marketing like I'm going to do. Thumbtack. Com has turned into nothing more than another home advisor, another company just trying to make millions and rip you off... Thanks for getting back to me Thumbtack you show just how much you don't care about the contractors if you care only about yourselves...

Steven Paul
Paint works of Texas
Irving Texas