Was looking into getting thumbtack who uses it and does it help
What is thumbtacks???
Thumbtack is a company who works diligently to displace you from google results and instead place themselves in first page position. Then, people enter their info on thumtack so “Contractors can compete for their business”. Thumbtack sends the lead to five contractors and they beat themselves up until they become the lowest bidder.
Avoid thumbtack. Get a website that performs.
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Thumbtack is awful!!! It’s far cheaper than HomeAdvisor, but at least with HomeAdvisor you can schedule an actual estimate. With thumbtack you’re competing with some uninsured, underperforming, unprofessional, and often, unscrupulous guy with a electric ryobi pressure washer. When I tried thumbtack I was undercut by up to 4 times my cost. Thumbtack users are usually looking for the cheapest, not the best value for the money. HomeAdvisor is awesome. My first job with HA paid back my annual fee and then some. Also, I get a lead a day from HA and close out about 70% of them if I call the lead right away. The leads cost $15 to $25, but I price it in. Most people don’t bat an eye at the price when you show up in a professional, clean outfit with a clean and professional vehicle. If you do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it, and you’re honest with your customers you’ll get referred even if you charge a little more than the next guy.
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Even Homeadvisor can be rough. You pay $15ish for a lead that you have to compete with 2 other guys. I recently switched to Ewebify. It seems to be working but I will have an update later on them. The advantage is they advertise your business in your area and you pay per call but they are your calls only with no other competition. Kind of a cool idea. You may want to check them out.
Thank you I’ve heard some bad comments about it thanks for the heads up. Also homeadvisor sounds intresting
Thumbtack is so horrible. Tim is on the money get or make a website that works.
I’ve had decent results with TT. I haven’t pursued any of the leads I’ve gotten in the last several months, though.
Right now, I’m happy that my TT page is one more spot taking up space on the first page of google. And it shows a 5 star rating.
When I first got on TT, I took the time to fill out the profile as completely as possible. Even paid the $7 or whatever for their “background check”.
I got some good jobs from it, but lately it seems the leads are really low quality or far away. At this point I don’t need to be paying for leads.
I also turned off my leads on HomeAdvisor. But I still have the page, and again, it’s taking up a spot on the first page of Google, with a nice 4.9 stars next to the listing.
But I also make sure that my site outranks these others. When you sign up with either HA or TT, you’re essentially paying them to compete with your own site and try and steal your leads and sell them back to you… and your competitors. So go into it with both eyes open 
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Alex, this has been our experience too (though with less than decent results on TT). I wish there was a way to get google to penalize these nationwide companies for posing as local business, but until that happens it seems like a necessary evil to play the game. Sometimes I feel like I’m personally funding Home advisors local adwords budget for my industry, but the roi isn’t bad.
For us it works! Yes it has its ups and downs, but I have closed almost 100k with them this year including a 15k condo edition. What if the big jobs don’t look at your website and you miss out? For us, we bid mostly big jobs that havnt filtered into our website. It cost me $3.33 for that $15k job I will take it! Also, the repeat business after is free, and word of mouth from them as well.
I find the same issues but rotate between Adwords, Thumbtack and Home advisor depending on home many leads I need to stay busy. The key is to have good reviews that customers looking at google plus, or profile page on one the lead gen site pre-sells the quality of your work
I used thumbtack a few times. I always have my phone on me, so when I would get a request, I could give them a quote in second, and go out to bid the next day. But some scum would always under bid me, as people on thumbtack are not professionals, and do not have expenses like real business men do. I doubt many even have an LLC. I think People who use this service just want to save every dime.
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Did you like home advisor ??[quote=“Infinity, post:8, topic:6812, full:true”]
I’ve had decent results with TT. I haven’t pursued any of the leads I’ve gotten in the last several months, though.
Right now, I’m happy that my TT page is one more spot taking up space on the first page of google. And it shows a 5 star rating.
When I first got on TT, I took the time to fill out the profile as completely as possible. Even paid the $7 or whatever for their “background check”.
I got some good jobs from it, but lately it seems the leads are really low quality or far away. At this point I don’t need to be paying for leads.
I also turned off my leads on HomeAdvisor. But I still have the page, and again, it’s taking up a spot on the first page of Google, with a nice 4.9 stars next to the listing.
But I also make sure that my site outranks these others. When you sign up with either HA or TT, you’re essentially paying them to compete with your own site and try and steal your leads and sell them back to you… and your competitors. So go into it with both eyes open 
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Overall? Not really. I wouldn’t recommend signing up with them, if you can at all help it. Lotta complaints against them if you search.
They used to be called ServiceMagic, but changed their name due to people’s poor opinions of them.
I’ve managed to make the best from my membership with them. I don’t pay a monthly fee, and I have all leads turned off until december.
@Infinity this is off topic …sorry if this is the wrong way to get a hold of someone I’m new haha…I saw a post from last month I think of a buffer tank you made from a plastic 55 Gallon Drum ? Do you have a few pics of you rig I have a 2 55 gallon and on 35 gallon I thought could be a chem tank even though that’s probably to big for me
Here are a couple I had on my phone:
Sorry I don’t have more. The thing with the wires is a reed float switch. It’s wired into my machine to shut it down if the water level drops below the switch.
I have a hudson float valve in the top of the drum. I got an open top drum with the clamping lid, so installing the fittings was really easy.
I used banjo cam-lock fittings so I can take everything off very easily.
I plan on adding a second hudson valve, mounted to a down-tube about halfway up the tank, so I only have to fill the tank partially when the customer’s water flow is really good. That has the camlock, as well, so it will be a 5 second process of disconnecting the incoming line from one valve and clamping it to the other.
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I use thumbtack and home Advisor. I got a lead off thumbtack about a month ago and it ended being 2 houses. The neighbor next door wanted their house cleaned, so I did both houses instead just one. I’ve been with Home Advisor for 8 years and I’m happy with them.
I signed up for thumb tack over 2 years ago when they were offering free credits. Never got a job, just tie kickers. Still get the emails. As of today I think they totally make up the jobs. Each of the last three days each morning there is a new job in my inbox. Wednesday it was for roof washing. Thursday it was for siding washing and another one today it was for siding washing for paint prep. All are within 20 minutes from me and all need it immediately or within the next week. We currently have 3" of snow on the ground and most roofs. Yesterday and today’s high are in the low 20’s with 10" of snow coming tomorrow and then we plunge to highs of 2 for next week. Our phone stopped ringing on Monday and all of a sudden thumbtack starts blowing up with warm weather work. I call B.S.
Being our first year in business we did use TT to get the ball rolling. We closed nearly $15k just from it alone.
I signed up for thumbtack a few days ago just to see what’s up. I got 2 leads so far. How can ANYBODY possibly provide any kind of meaningful quote with the amount of info they give?
“Objects to be pressure washed
Siding of building, Deck or patio / porch”
Ummmm… Is that a little concrete pad that I can hose off in 5 minutes or a moss-covered second story wood deck with spindles and lattice and 2 staircases…
I dunno.
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