Thumbtack: A Photographer’s Business Partner or Something Else?
By Brad Husick
I met a photographer last week who mentioned a web service to me that offers professionals a way to find new customers. The site is called “Thumbtack” (www.thumbtack.com) and it allows you to build a profile and specify the type of work you offer in your area, then matches this to requests from consumers.
The business model is that consumers pay nothing and professionals buy sets of credits they can use to bid on the work. Initially, a set of 24 credits cost $34.99. Different job quotes require different numbers of credits, but for example a corporate headshot quote costs 2 credits and a commercial photo shoot costs 4 credits.
The consumer receives up to 5 quotes and can decide among them or to hire outside the system or not at all. There is a notification to the professional when the quote is read, and if the quote is not read within 48 hours the site refunds the credit to the account. The consumer can click to contact the professional with questions before deciding on one.
It all sounds easy, so I signed up to give it a try. I created a professional profile with gallery photos and a detailed biography and description of my available services as a photographer. I have been a life-long photographer with several photos published in magazines and the New York Times, so I thought I’d have a fairly good chance of landing some business through the Thumbtack service.
In the past week I have received roughly a dozen requests for photo work. I have replied with quotes to 9 of these requests with reasonable prices within the ranges asked for by the consumers. In one case I quoted significantly under the range to see if I could get a reply. Some of the requests filled up to 5 quotes quickly while others had only 2 quotes including mine. My quotes offered generous time and deliverables and highlighted my professional experience and dedication to quality and to creating images that would bring the customer joy.
In total, I have received zero replies from consumers and zero jobs. I have no idea if these consumers are real people or if the requests are genuine. Thumbtack lists some doublespeak about their quality control process of reducing spam requests, but there’s no way for the professional to tell if the requests are real. On one quote this is the automated email I got from Thumbtack: “We see that Janelle D. viewed your quote and your profile but may not have followed up with you. It looks like Janelle received 4 other quotes on this commercial photography request and has not hired another Thumbtack professional. Janelle viewed the quote of, profile of, and messaged other pros.”
To test the system, I signed in as a consumer and created a request for a web designer to create a simple web site for me. I left the budget flexible to be discussed. I live in the Seattle area, so I was expecting all 5 quotes to be filled almost instantly. After 48 hours, I got an automated email from Thumbtack saying, “We sent your request to web designers in your area, but unfortunately we couldn’t find anyone who was available, interested, and qualified to complete your project.” I find it impossible to believe that in Seattle there are no web designers looking for some simple extra side projects. According to Thumbtack there are hundreds of thousands of professionals across the country providing services in over 900 categories ready to help me, and yet not one web designer in the greater Seattle area.
As far as I can tell, Thumbtack is a complete scam. They collected $34.99 from me and I will not be buying any more of their useless credits. If Thumbtack charged the consumer even $1 per request, I might start to believe that the requests are from actual consumers, but they have stated that requests will always be free. If someone from Thumbtack reads this they are likely to reply with something like, “You have to create a lot of quotes before you get your first gig, and then you can build your list of feedback/reviews, and then you’ll get more gigs.” This is what they have said on some discussion boards I found online. It sounds fishy to me – just keep taking our diet pills because you won’t lose weight until you take lots of them.
I will use my few remaining credits to respond to requests with quotes at ridiculously low prices to complete my experiment. I doubt I will be contacted, but I am willing to try. Caveat Emptor.
I was thinking about signing up to Thumbtack a month ago, but before spending my hard-earned dollars, I decided to do some research and I ended up here. Reading this thread was super helpful. So first of all, a big thank you to Brad Husick for getting the conversation going. I also found Ryan Chai’s post incredibly valuable. I know that beforehand I would have just sent a straightforward quote, fairly priced, and some examples of my work. After reading Ryan’s comments, I decided to up my game and write very detailed and engaging quotes. So far I have landed three headshot jobs from Thumbtack. I don’t think I would have gotten those without first having read this post. If you decide to use Thumbtack, take advantage of the 30% discount that you get at the beginning. You will not get that discount again! And be selective about who you submit quotes to. Not because you have a quote in front of you, does it mean that you have to bid. I hope this helps…
It’s a scam. Follow the money. The only thing you know for sure is Thumbtack gets paid. You don’t know if solicitation was real.You don’t know if it was really opened. The more photographers that bid the more money they make. I have received 325 solicitations in 30 days. Honestly, I’ve never heard of Thumbtack prior to a month ago. None of my friends have either. But 325 people have solicited through them in my area? I doubt it. If it looks too good to be true….
Update: I provided all my improvement suggestions to the category manager for photography. As of this date I have seen none of these ideas implemented. Since Mid July I have posted several 5-star reviews of my work in my profile, received many requests for quotes, responded to some, and received no jobs. I have no more confidence today that the requests I have seen are from actual humans. As of now I am leaving Thumbtack, having received exactly zero jobs.
Update: I have been in contact with the CEO and photography segment manager for Thumbtack and they are quite open minded about making changes to the service that benefit professionals as well as consumers. I will keep you updated as things move forward. I may ask some of you who are willing to be a virtual focus group of professional photographers to help test out new ideas that Thumbtack may implement. Message me if you’d be interested in helping. It’s not a paid gig, but you’d be doing a good thing for a lot of folks.
Definitely interested in follow up with Thumbtack to track whether this will take off as a legit lead source or remain as is (and therefore not worth following/investing time in).
As far as I can tell they made no changes and never contacted me to follow up. I haven’t used them since I wrote this article.
Heads up! I’m not sure when Tt 1st launched but I started using it in 2013 when before they even had an app. It was riddled with bugs and interface quirks that dragged for sometime until it began working for me. They were more willing to refund credits back then knowing they were at fault for system flaws not to mention your $ would buy more credits then currently. It was in 2014 when I made $ thru their platform, but I can say it was expensive! How expensive well for me it calculated I spent over $5K that year to gross maybe 35K so was it worth it. Perhaps on the surface yes but I can now say that I’ve realized it isn’t worth the effort. For that kinda $ I could probably put towards more fruitful ways book clients. Also, you find yourself spending soooo much time checking your phone for notifications and worrying about when to bid it becomes too frenetic in my opinion. It’s a model I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze to invest too much time or $ into. Sure it may be ok sometimes to fill the gaps but not to put all your eggs in one basket like I did. Just my 2 cents!
Steve, if Thumbtack is a viable , legitimate website and not a scam then by posting one mans experience you have inadvertently created a lot of very bad press for the site through your readership. Personally I think this is irresponsible and the post should be removed.
It is basically telling the truth and facts about one mans experience with them. Take it as that, an experience from a paying customer (whom I trust BTW). If I had the same experience I would have said the same thing. So the article stays, as this was truth and fact of one man’s experience with Thumbtack. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes! Good call. As clearly several very useful insights and experiences have been shared. And rather well written I might add.
So thanks to the writers too.
Thank you. As Ryan has done here, I encourage all whom have had good experiences with Thumbtack to post them here and help us all improve our business. I told nothing but the plain truth in my article about my experience. I have several suggestions for improving Thumbtack and I have contacted them to see if they’re interested. I will try to update this article as I learn more. We’re all here to share both the good and the bad to help each other make good choices and avoid mistakes. That’s why I write almost exclusively for Steve Huff.
Great post Steve, thanks for this.
Hi Brad, I live in South Florida, and thank you too for this post. I have the exact same experience with Thumbtack. I have a great portfolio and decades of experience and live in a very populate area. Thumbtack is set up to benefit thumbtack, and/or the customers, but NOT the “professional.” I put quotes around professional, because this is not even close to a professional service…at least for photographers. The requests I saw were continually far, far under professional rates. I too never had one person respond. I did contact Thumbtack a few different times with suggestions, and they seemed helpful and seemed to listen, but of course, nothing changed. I too find it very hard to believe that I didn’t get one response or question. I’m not saying I should have been hired, but there should have at least been some questions as to whom they would possibly hiring. Again, the service is stacked against you as a photographer, and it’s guaranteed money for Thumbtack. It’s brilliant actually, because no matter what (whether you get a job or someone looking actually finds a photographer, Thumbtack gets paid. A scam? Possibly. My take: Stay away, run away, discourage anyone who is thinking about doing it. My advice to you Brad: Ask for a refund. I got one.
I have had great success with Thumbtack. When I got back into photography after a hiatus with HP (printing) I ramped up my customer base with TT. It was a supercharged shot in the arm of my business. Obviously it isn’t the only way I market myself but I have had several wedding jobs at good rates with good customers because of it. Not sure why others have a different experience but I would hang with it until you see some success. I definitely had to learn new techniques to sell via TT but nothing earth shattering and TT was the one to help me get to those proper techniques. Good luck!
Ryan, please share your new Thumbtack selling techniques with the rest of us here. We don’t compete because we all live in different places. Thank you.
Brad,
I totally understand that Thumbtack may not be for everyone. Honestly, I wouldn’t expect it to be that… the market it so diverse it would be challenging for them to do such a thing. A bride wanting a $13k wedding will probably never find a photographer on Thumbtack, this could change but I suspect the mid to low priced work will be mostly represented on Thumbtack for now. Having said this, I don’t believe that it proliferates more low end work (commoditization). I think this has already happened in our industry. I have found it a tremendous success in revitalizing my company. In about one month and $120 later I have had 6 wedding bookings from Thumbtack (just closed my 6th thirty minutes ago). All at prices at the requested amount (not less).
I had to learn how to speak to an invisible “lead”. I don’t know anything about the individual so how can I customize a message for them? Well, a lot of professionals just send a generic quote… I don’t do this. I am very personal, I try to ask questions that invite a response (this works so well) and I am detailed. I do wish Thumbtack allowed the initial quote message to be more than I believe 500 characters as this would facilitate my more custom approach to selling myself. Each quote has a blurb about who I am, calls to action, what they can expect for what I am quoting and my contact information. I have found that 9/10 when a potential lead responds to my questions I have them on the hook and I will win the business. I had to learn to ask relevant questions to my invisible lead.
Another thing I sometimes do, depending on the work, is I will make an offer to match my competition’s price. This is something I use as a lever if I want / need to get more competitive. Some may find serious issue with this but let’s be real, if your work is good and you find this offensive please by all means use a number of the other marketing techniques to grow your business. Just because Thumbtack is different for some does not invalidate it’s value to business owners like myself. Certainly I could not call it a scam, but I have seen success 🙂
Another thing I always try and do when I see I haven’t been hired, is I politely ask the customer if they would provide me feedback on how I could improve my business. This has been of tremendous value as I have tried to learn what goes through the customer’s head. The mindset they have, their priorities etc. This is direct interaction with the customer in a very non threatening way. I have been surprised at the number of people who freely and willingly will answer my honest inquires. I took the feedback, I improved my message and have won more business because of it.
I don’t think Thumbtack replaces 100% of my marketing, but for now it has consumed my bookings. As things mature I don’t know how it will play out but for now it has proven invaluable to me.
The ROI has been better than any other platform I have heretofore invested in. I budget about 8% of revenue for marketing and it has given me 90% of my business with about 4% of revenue! The fact is, I won’t double my Thumbtack spend because I am to busy because of that 4% spend!
I hope this has value, again, I completely respect everyone’s opinions. Business success is so dependent on the variables. I understand that this may not work for others… but sincerely it has been awesome for me. I hope that is also the case for others in our industry 🙂
Thanks for the heads-up on Thumbtack, and more importantly, how these two have sussed this out. Since it looks like this has been confirmed by someone else’s experience of them, people will steer clear of them – however, it’s not unknown for some businesses to use postings like this, to try and damage their competitors.
Really, how long have you been reading this site for? I think that anyone who has been reading for any amount of time would know that Steve is not about putting anyone down. I think you can be fairly safe in the knowledge that for Brad to take the time to write it and for Steve to post it, they are trying to save us, the readers, some time and stress.
Bernie, when I first read Sam’s comment I thought it might be directed at me, but re-reading it several times I have come to the conclusion that he might be saying that other companies might be creating these bogus requests for work to damage Thumbtack. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was happening so I don’t hold it against Sam.
So true.
To me its the worst business model ever. I am a designer as well and tried elance and a few others in in the past with the same results. Logo designs that I used to charge upwards of $500 (because I take my time, learn the business and their competition and even craft a starting brand book for my clients) were being bid on for $50. Its the worst. It completely diminishes the work and penalizes the extremely talented hard working professionals out there by turning a very wonderful industry into a flea market of cheap customers who understand very little into what it takes to actually create a beautiful piece of art. Its a bunch of bargain hunters who would be perfectly happy with their neighbors kid to shoot their headshot for them because he has a ‘real’ camera, whatever that means. I can’t say enough how much I hate these sites and what they stand for. Can you tell? 😛
Im glad you had the experience. All artists should boycott these types of services. It is ruining what little creative professionals have left to make a living in this world. [end rant]
Great article. I had the exact same experience here in Omaha, Nebraska. Didn’t get one reply from any bids that I submitted. Really didn’t feel like ‘spending’ money on something I couldn’t measure.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.These types of websites are built off the premise of creating instant professionals. Template websites have made everyone a web designer and digital cameras/Instagram have turned everyone into a professional photographer. It takes years for agencies to cultivate a roster of talent but this website and others like it throw out a thousand Hail Marys in hopes that one or two will be caught and then try to multiply that by a thousand more. It’s not just these sites that are the problem. So many publications, websites or businesses are getting free work from up and coming artists under the guise of portfolio building or “getting your name out there”. I had a well known magazine contact me to do a spread and when I quoted them my rate (even though they didn’t ask) the reply I got back was almost incredulous that I asked for money. They explained that the exposure was the payment in so many words. This magazine has tons of advertisers and a pretty good circulation but they market to young people and think they can exploit that with young artists (I’m on the dying edge of youth). It’s a tough racket out there right now so it’s not surprising professionals and hopeful professionals give this site a shot but I’m glad you informed us of what’s really going on.
Sad to say it seems the norm that the aspiring photographer is the cash cow these days 🙁
Nice test. I’ll certainly give you props for trying. None of these supposedly large widely distributed sites seem to have a very high ROI if you’re a “real” pro photographer. At least not in the decade or slightly more that they’ve come and gone. If Getty is on a downward slope where does that leave these much smaller fry? ASMP does offer a more legitimate search feature but you need to be a member.
Our studio3.com site and social media etc. always perform better and we certainly retain considerably more control.