Thmubtack -experience / review

Few months ago I asked on this forum about Thumbtack service and if it’s worthy your money and time.
After few months I can post here my little review of the service and the leads they provide.
After paying for few months, and checking how the Thumbtack service can help my photography wedding business I have an answer
Thumbtack is nothing but scam, first of all, they changing the policy every once in the while and you better ready careful. First they charged subscription fee and all leads you getting are free, then they figured that people complaining because nobody is booking any weddings. Believe it or not you receiving sometimes 10-15 leads per week. I live in the very small area and after changing my “area of operation” to the smaller I was receiving about 20 leads per month. Which is a lot, and my concern was how come? Here is not that many people around to get married like crazy I’m guessing many of those leads were: faked by service or simply people just messing around checking prices. However, question is why other good, well known services are not sending that many leads even with better advertising and search engine positioning. After couple months they changed the “system of payments” to you pay for lead and if person will not respond to you in 7 days you can request your money back. It was fair, but first lead I purchased was not expensive then price jumped like 200% up and I stopped buying any leads, I was more picking the leads now. During this time I requested money back hmmm many times After another couple months they changed policy and payment system again. Now you buying credits and some lead cost 3 some 6 credits etc. Credits are expensive and now you can request money back only if person cancel the lead or not open the lead at all. Now if person sees the lead your money are gone, person doesn’t have to respond or anything, simply open the page…
After receiving about 150 leads only 1 person responded to me and here is the copy of the message:

Mary J.
6 months ago
Well this is very frustrating. Why did "Thumbtack" take the information that I only wanted a videographer? Very much a waste of time. You may want to tell this to Thumbtack so that others do not think it is you that is playing games. Sorry to have taken up both of our time.

Best of luck to you.
Mary

I was submitting my offers, trying to give some deals etc, and nothing… I’m thinking damn, I’m not best wedding photographer because I’m aviation photographer what did I expected. However during this time (me as a member of thumbtack) I did 15 weddings which is not bad for the average wedding photographer, most are 1,2 or 3 hours sessions so nothing crazy but… I called my buddy who also started the thumbtack journey, he is very good and well known photographer in the area. He had exactly the same story, after few months not even one book wedding
Summary : in scale 1-10 I rate thumbtack negative 3 I spent few hundred bucks on fake leads, and service that really doesn’t give a damn about you after you paid. I could spend those money better way. Learn on your own mistakes, in this situation you can learn on my mistake. Not worth your money and time!
Good luck in new season, Blue Skies !

Thank you for your post! I have been a member of Thumbtack for the last few years and have noticed the changing policies\price structure. While I cannot comment to the effectiveness of the leads, here is my 2 cents:

When I joined TT the cost per lead was $5. That was for any and all leads. I think I paid for 1-3 leads at that rate. I did reach out and call one of the leads via the phone. She seemed like a genuine bride and I asked her if she had a chance to review my submission. She had read it but commented that she was most interested in the TT service for price shopping. With this previous version of TT I was lucky to receive 1 lead every few weeks.

Just recently TT has gone to a "pay for credit" system. The average wedding photography inquiry costs 9 credits or roughly $15. (Credits get cheaper the more you buy). I am not willing to pay $15 to compete with a dozen other photographers just to have the chance at earning some business. I found it very strange that I suddenly now receive a huge volume of inquiries. (I got 3 last night alone!) Were talking 50+ per month.

Now, I have spent quite a bit of time improving my TT page listing, and I am not listed in the "Gold" section for my area. In most cities I am the very first place of business shown. My question is, why have I never received any calls or click-throughs to my website via the TT site? If there are that many brides looking for photographers, shouldn't a few of them be clicking through? I get more true valid leads through my FREE Craigs list advertizing than TT. I won't be flushing my money away there any time soon, but I will keep up my listing in the off chance that I get a webpage click!

Thank you for you input

Thumbtack is nothing but scam in my opinion, I spent money and the same, never had one customer contacted me or even clicked on link to my website. Reminder I received about 150 leads

My profile was in gold section, top of the search results, I had pictures, promo video, bunch of information....

one more time: Thumbtack is a waste of your money.