Thumbtack Review: Thumbs-Up With an Asterisk

Thumbtack is one of the nation’s largest online portals connecting consumers to professional service providers, but is bigger also better? Our Thumbtack review looks at the company’s history, services offered, prices, and consumer reviews.

We dove into Thumbtack’s offerings, tested their booking processes and scoured what users are saying to see how well the company lives up to its tagline: “Caring for your home, made easy.”

What We Liked: Thumbtack offers a ton of services – plumbers, painters, cleaners, roofers, handymen (and handywomen), personal trainers, and many other professionals. The booking process is fairly simple, and Thumbtack offers a money-back guarantees if work isn’t done correctly.

What We Didn’t Like: Some Thumbtack users complain about being inundated with emails after using the website, and some professionals say they received bad leads for work from Thumbtack. Thumbtack’s customer reviews vary pretty widely, from a low of 2.23 on one consumer ratings website to a meaty 4.3 on another.

Note: LawnStarter sends some leads to Thumbtack for services that we don’t offer, but not for yard care and other outdoor services. That’s our bread and butter, and no one does it better than LawnStarter. We also have gone to great pains to ensure our Thumbtack review is fair and balanced.

Table of Contents

• Thumbtack at a Glance
• Thumbtack’s Services
• How Does Thumbtack Work?
• Thumbtack Prices
• Customer Reviews
• Pros and Cons
• FAQ About Thumbtack
• Our Verdict

Thumbtack at a Glance

Thumbtack’s Services

Thumbtack works similarly to Fiverr or Taskrabbit, but with professional companies instead of individuals. What kind of services you can find on Thumbtack or the app?

This is just a partial list:

• Electrical work
• Roofing
• House cleaning
• Landscaping
• Packing and moving 
• TV mount installation
• General contractors and handyman services
• Wedding planning
• Personal training
• Attorneys
• Web design
• Pet sitting
• Resume writing

How Does Thumbtack Work?

Thumbtack’s website and mobile app allow you to find, hire, and review thousands of service professionals in areas throughout the U.S. The process is easy:

Step 1: Plug in your info

When you visit Thumbtack.com, you can input your ZIP code along with details of the home project you’re looking to complete.

Once you do, you’ll be taken to a list of companies with profiles on the site. 

Step 2: Pick your pro

By clicking on each listing, you can see the company’s rating, how long it has been in business, the estimated starting cost of their services, photos of their work, detailed reviews, and even frequently asked questions about the company.

A couple of things to look for:

• License Badge: Thumbtack posts a “license badge” next to listings for professionals whose licenses has been verified through a public database.
  
• Background Check Badge: A “background check badge” appears next to professionals who have submitted to and passed background checks. That doesn’t mean every employee of the company has been screened, however.
  
• Top Pro Status: This badge is given to companies that prove to be responsive and experienced. To receive Top Pro status, a professional must complete a background check, reply to customer requests and inquiries within four business hours 75% of the time, receive at least five verified reviews within a year, and maintain a user rating of at least 4.8 based on verified reviews
  
  Thumbtack Pros are reevaluated twice a year, typically in January and July, to see if they continue to meet the qualifications for Top Pro status.

What’s next? Pick your pro. You can check Thumbtack’s availability to do the job, or even contact the company to ask questions and receive quotes. Thumbtack essentially gives users access to a database of local professionals. 

Peace of Mind: For customers who are not satisfied with the service, the basic account comes with a money-back guarantee. Thumbtack offers coverage up to $1,000 if your project is not completed to your satisfaction. 

Thumbtack’s Ease of Use: We took Thumbtack for a test drive and found the website and app are simple to use. All you need to do is search for professionals for your particular project within your zip code. There are also filters that allow you to narrow your search, but not every result can be filtered. 

Thumbtack Prices

$0: There is no cost to use Thumbtack to find a pro to do nearly any job around your home, apartment, or business. Just log on, search for your pro, then book service with him or her. This works great for one-off jobs or connecting to pros for infrequent work.

$49 annually: For homeowners who have more frequent needs for pros or for everyday, regularly scheduled service, you can sign up for the Thumbtack Plus membership program.

For your annual fee, you get access to exclusive discounts with certain companies, 20% off on-demand bookings, support from home services experts, and the Thumbtack Plus $10,000 money-back guarantee. Thumbtack will also cover any accidental damage done to your property.

Benefits of Creating a Free Account: You can keep track of professionals you’ve hired in the past, save important information about any of your projects, and correspond with any professionals you plan to hire.   

Customer Reviews

Thumbtack is listed on several review websites, including Sitejabber, Trustpilot and ConsumerAffairs. Thumbtack also is accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) with an A+ rating.

Trustpilot reviewers were the most impressed with Thumbtack, giving the company 4.4 stars out of 5 (4,485 reviews as of this writing), while Sitejabber reviewers gave the company 2.23 stars out of 5 (1,368 reviews), and Consumer Affairs gave them 3.6 out of 5 (702 reviews). 

Here is a sampling of reviews from the review sites:

• Multiple quotes in short amount of time: “App is easy to use. I’m able to arrange for multiple quotes for projects in a short amount of time. Contractors have been responsive and professional. This has been a great method to find qualified contractors to help me with needed maintenance at our apartment building.”
  – Charles

• Easy to use: “Easy to connect with the right pro for the job. Communicating within the app is easy.”
  – Amber

• Contractor not happy with quality of leads: “Terrible experience with this app. We have gotten a couple of legitimate leads, but mostly we are paying exorbitant fees for “leads” where potential customers don’t even respond to our initial message, and haven’t even viewed our business profile. When we go to dispute these charges, we are instantly met with an automated response telling us our claim isn’t eligible for a refund. The “start a chat” feature on their website isn’t functional, and customer service is basically powerless to distribute refunds unless you can verify that it was fraudulent.”
  – David D.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Thumbtack received an overall user rating of 4.3 across 4,000 reviews on Trustpilot

• Customers rave about how easy it is to use the website and mobile app, as well as the convenience of the service. 

• Just as the companies have to verify their own leads, customers must do their own research before deciding whether to hire them.

Cons

• Thumbtack received an average rating of 2.23 across 1,300 reviews on Sitejabber, and 1.13 across 340 reviews with the BBB (the BBB’s given rating of A+ does not account for customer reviews and ratings). Many of the negative reviews came from professionals with listings on the site and mobile app. 

• The common theme among the complaints from professionals is that Thumbtack doesn’t verify listings, leading to a bevy of fake leads. Some claim that listed phone numbers are unreachable, interested new customers suddenly disappear, and that Thumbtack’s customer support is unhelpful. 

• Professionals on Thumbtack have to verify their own leads and mediate issues with customers.

FAQ About Thumbtack

Our Verdict

Thumbtack gets a thumbs-up from us. Thumbtack’s website and app make it easy to find professional help with all sorts of projects around your home or business, and signing up for a basic account is free for customers. 

Thumbtack has a handful of competitors, namely Angi/HomeAdvisor and Taskrabbit, so if you don’t like what you see on Thumbtack, you have other options.

And LawnStarter is a Thumbtack competitor too, when it comes to lawn care and other outdoor services.

You see, lawn care is our specialty. Mowing, trimming, and edging — all of that is our jam. Thumbtack, on the other hand, connects you to all sorts of services, and you know what they say about how impossible it is to do everything well.

We’re focused on lawn care, so you can count on our pros (who get a payout from us instead of paying for customer leads) to keep your grass looking trim, green, trim, and healthy. For everything else, Thumbtack gets our thumbs-up.

Main Photo by: Canva Pro