Thumbtack Review

About Thumbtack

Thumbtack is a local services marketplace where homeowners find and contact pros for about 500 kinds of jobs. It was founded in 2008 in San Francisco and is led by CEO and co-founder Marco Zappacosta. Its 2024 fact sheet says customers have started 80 million projects and that Thumbtack has raised more than $500 million from investors including Sequoia, Baillie Gifford, Blackstone and CapitalG. The top projects it lists are house cleaning, handyman work, appliance repair, local moving and lawn mowing.

Pros pay for leads, not for sending quotes. You set a lead price for each service you offer, and Thumbtack says that price is the exact amount you pay per lead; you can change it anytime. A weekly budget caps total spending, and once you reach it you stop getting leads until the next week. Thumbtack publishes no rate card and says what a lead is worth varies with the type and size of the job, how many pros are available and your market.

There are two ways to get work. With a direct lead, the customer finds your profile and reaches out, and you are charged at that point. With Opportunities, you see a job and its price upfront, reach out first, and pay only if the customer responds. A Thumbtack moderator has explained that some customers contact only one pro while others want more than one bid, so a paid lead is not a guaranteed job.

Thumbtack's own advice to pros is practical: tune your job preferences and budget so you only get leads you want, send a strong first message that shows your experience and reviews, and fill in your profile FAQs so customers have answers upfront.

The trade-off: you control your price per lead and your weekly spend, and Opportunities cost nothing unless the customer replies, but direct leads are charged even if the customer hires someone else or goes quiet, and some customers compare several pros.