Thumbtack Reviews 

This site scammed my company kept charging me before even accepting a customer didn’t want to refund had to report to my bank this site is a fraud do not use if you are a small starting of company, if you don’t care about losing hard earned money go ahead by all means. SCAM

Before you waste a lot of time and energy -- like I did - STOP. It is not free as advertised and they should be held accountable for saying they are. The whole setup is an elaborate ruse to charge for "leads." And they say they do a background check, which I doubt they do. There is no proof they do it. Some oversight board should seriously look into this farce.

Even though the business did not happen, but you took immediate action to reimburse the fund. I appreciate that.
Thank you

You will immediately be contacted by many people when you make a request on Thumbtack. When people come to your house, tell them that you are just getting estimates. DO NOT LET ANYONE START WORK IN ADVANCE OF GETTING AN ESTIMATE. MANY PEOPLE WILL IMMEDIATELY START THE WORK AND THEN EXPECT THE FULL AMOUNT THAT THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE YOU.

Being charged unauthorized charges on my deactivated account. Very long hold times when trying to resolve on customer support. Impossible to resolve issues. Hoping they answer my hold call before battery runs out, over 1 hour so far, ridicules! Service and Refund Issues.

I want to say thank you to Anna who helped me through an issue with a company who used the Thumbtack platform to take advantage of their customers. She immediately helped me with a resolution .That company has been exposed for their fraudulent services and activities.

Anna went above and beyond to help us with our situation.

Thumbtack is hands down one of the most predatory platforms I have ever encountered as a service provider. I genuinely cannot say enough bad things about this company. Even their responses to negative reviews are filled with corporate talking points that completely miss the actual concerns being raised.
When you really look at their business model, it becomes pretty clear who their customer is: the service provider—not the customer. Yet the providers are the ones who seem to have the least protection. Their entire model depends on vendors paying for leads, and they have created a system where you can be charged repeatedly for customers who were never realistically going to hire you in the first place.
For starters, Thumbtack does not make it particularly obvious to customers that service providers can be charged simply for receiving a lead or message. Their platform also encourages customers to automatically “reach out to the top 3 pros in your area.” So with one click, Thumbtack charges three different businesses for the exact same customer inquiry. They also conveniently recently removed the ability for customers to see your actual pricing when submitting inquires to service providers upfront unless they read your profile. But with the feature to “message the top three pros” they simply do not. This means customers with budgets far below your minimum pricing can contact you anyway. They obviously aren't going to book you, but you are still be charged for the lead.
I've also had customers contact me about jobs that required special licenses or qualifications that I do not have. Thumbtack still charges for those leads and provides no meaningful protection or refund for situations like this.
Recently, Thumbtack changed its refund policy so that if a customer doesn't respond to any pros within 72 hours, you may receive a refund. Sounds great, right? Not really. The customer only has to respond once—even if they don't book anyone—and you no longer qualify for a refund. So if a customer responds to you with a simple “thanks” and never hires anyone, you've still paid for that lead.
At the same time, Thumbtack significantly increased lead prices. They tell providers that they can “choose lead prices that fit within their budget,” but there is an obvious catch: if your lead prices are too low, you receive little to no leads. I recently increased my lead prices significantly, yet my leads still decreased, and I'm still being flagged as “less competitive” even with the slider set roughly three-quarters of the way toward the maximum lead price selector.
And then there is the issue of fake or bad-faith leads. What's stopping a competitor from creating a fake profile and contacting multiple competing businesses simply to make them spend money on leads? What meaningful oversight is in place to prevent this? If businesses are being charged simply because someone sends them a message, there needs to be serious fraud protection and accountability. Instead, providers are essentially told: you pay us because someone clicked a button. That is not a sustainable or fair business model for service providers.
I understand that Thumbtack is a business and needs to make money. But there is a huge difference between charging for a legitimate customer acquisition opportunity and charging businesses for inquiries that were never viable customers to begin with.
If you're a service provider considering Thumbtack, I strongly recommend doing your research first. Read the reviews across multiple platforms, understand exactly how their lead charges work, and think carefully about whether the potential return is worth the cost.
As for me, I've had enough. I genuinely hope service providers eventually have better alternatives and stop supporting a platform that, in my experience, takes far more from vendors than it gives back.

So far the experience has been mostly good, but the one time it wasn't it was like pulling teeth to get even a partial refund from a vendor who screwed up a project so badly I had to have it ripped out and done over...

The pictures said it all, but it still took months to get fixed..

If you are reading this listen carefully the entire site is a SCAM. DO NOT ENGAGE ON THIS SITE.
You have been forewarned.
NEGATIVE ZERO STARS. FAKE COMPANIES AND NO RECOURSE OR POTENTIAL FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT OR
COMMUNICATION.

Gets worse with age 3rd year on thumbtack back as a pro and what a waste of time and money! they sell leads to 4 professionals for one lead and charge 80+ dollars to each of them then the homeowner pays nothing and doesn't know the pros are charged. Worse predatory model ever and most people are shopping leads. you end up paying hundreds for work that never happens. This was good the first year. Go look for a reputable company first before you hire thumbtack.

Not all Contractors have the skill and expertise stated and when things go badly Thumbtack does not have folks on their team that have the expertise to properly evaluate botched work. The customer has to spend countless hours investigating, researching and providing to an admin person with no knowledge of the subject matter beyond Google that the job was botched. Even when you have the evidence they repeatedly state that they have no authority to make a determination, but they want the evidence to evaluate….what are they evaluating if they have no knowledge and cannot bring anyone on that is a third party that is unbiased. The contractors that botch the work continuously lie to these Admin folks that don’t know any better, so nothing is ever done about getting restitution for botched work. It’s a waste of time. You’re better off getting an Attorney to fight the contractor for restitution.

Update: Mediation with the Thumbtack team resulted in a he said she said back and forth. No real mediation. The contractor insisted that the rollercoaster pavers that were installed meets the scope. There is nothing in the scope that explicitly states the pavers will be level, thus, per Thumbtack, scope is met unless I prove it’s not, even though pictures with their level show it’s not and several Thumbtack contracts confirmed the same. But again, he said she said, so Thumbtack does nothing.

I had an exposed aggregate section of a pathway around my lawn that had raised due to a tree root, making it unsafe. I hired Eli Kendall who owns Eli Built Concrete Repair to make the repairs, cut out the tree roots that were interfering with the cement, and pour new concrete. Eli worked 3 days and made the area look beautiful again! I am so glad I found Eli because he is a steady, strong worker who knows exactly what to do to make things look like they should. And as a tip, he killed two huge spiders that were living under and around the concrete at no extra charge! Like most every woman I know would agree, that was worth the price in gold!

Thumbtack has stolen thousands of dollars from me with no valid leads and successful leads. They have the nerve to increase their pricing on the lead based on the potential dollar value of a property. They are nothing but a big scam … do not use this company

The customer service agent I was working with (Jenny) for my refund was incredible. Her communication was impeccable. She made a frustrating situation a lot better. Thanks, Jenny!

It’s honestly a really bad platform for professionals. You have to pay for leads whether they end up hiring you or not, and leads cost a minimum of around $35 - often much more. Even then, a large percentage of the leads I’ve received have been unresponsive, low-quality, or seemingly fake.

After six years on Thumbtack and thousands of dollars spent on leads, I’ve only gained two long-term clients from the platform. In my experience, the return simply doesn’t justify the cost. Professionals are taking on all the financial risk while paying significant amounts for leads that very often go nowhere.

This is a waste of time and money. Who is coming up with how much a lead costs to what the job is worth? How is it fair to charge me for a lead when I am the first pro to reply and the customer replies to a different pro? I am being charged for a lead when I haven't even spoken to the person. The jobs that we were hired on is only enough to pay for the leads. Tell me how do you charge $55 on a palm tree lead when palm tree trimmings start at $50. I would have to charge $150+ to charge for the palm tree trim to cover the $55 lead cost and make maybe $15 after expenses. Is a tree service coming up with the lead prices or someone who has no idea what to charge for tree work? This was beyond stressful and not at all what I had expected. Makes sense how you are able to get rich off of this. It took me about 3 weeks to figure that out what a scam this is.

My experience with Thumbtack

I decided to deactivate my Thumbtack account after realizing that the platform’s lead pricing model simply doesn’t work for my business.

Professionals are automatically charged for leads, even when the customer doesn’t become a client. Customers can communicate initially and then disappear, yet the professional is still responsible for the lead charge.

I also found the service categories too limited. For example, one lead contacted me specifically for state tax preparation. My business only prepares state returns when they are filed with a federal return, but Thumbtack doesn’t give professionals enough options to clearly define those service limitations.

I’ve requested two lead refunds based on situations where the leads did not result in a viable client opportunity, and both requests were denied.

As a small business owner, I have to be able to see a reasonable return on every marketing dollar I spend. At this point, Thumbtack feels more like I’m paying for access to customer inquiries rather than paying for legitimate opportunities to acquire clients.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend the platform based on my experience. I’m deactivating my account and will be investing my marketing budget elsewhere.

Thumbtack is a borderline scam. Over priced leads and an unhelpful support team that doesn't follow their own refund policies.

I am extremely dissatisfied with how Thumbtack handled this situation. I have been using Thumbtack for years to generate business, and my ability to receive new leads was suddenly restricted because Thumbtack required another background check.

I immediately complied with every request. The SSN verification failed twice despite my providing the requested information and my Social Security card. I then had to submit an alternative SSN-less background check using my government-issued ID.

My biggest concern is Thumbtack’s policy of restricting an established professional from receiving new leads while a re-verification initiated by Thumbtack is still being processed. I did nothing wrong and complied with every requirement, yet I temporarily lost access to an important source of business income because of a verification process that was outside of my control.

If Thumbtack requires existing professionals to undergo additional or repeated verification, they should be allowed to continue working and receiving leads while that verification is pending, unless there is an actual safety or compliance concern. A verification initiated by Thumbtack should not automatically prevent a professional with an established history on the platform from continuing to operate their business.

The support representative I spoke with was helpful and respectful, and my complaint is not directed at them personally. My dissatisfaction is with Thumbtack’s policies and the way this process affects professionals who rely on the platform to earn a living.

This experience has significantly reduced my trust in Thumbtack. I will now seriously consider reducing the amount of business I do through Thumbtack and shifting toward more reliable sources of leads and other platforms where my ability to operate my business cannot be suddenly disrupted by a verification process that I did not initiate.