How Thumbtack leads work for service pros

How does Thumbtack charge pros?

Thumbtack is mainly a pay-per-lead marketplace. Its help page on paying for leads puts it simply: you pay for leads, defined as new customers who reach out to you directly. For a lead, the charge happens at the moment of contact, before you know whether you will get the job.

Thumbtack's article on leads, preset jobs and Opportunities describes three ways to connect with customers, and each bills differently.

• Leads. A customer finds your profile in search results and contacts you directly. If the request fits your job preferences, the lead is charged automatically at your lead price and counted against your weekly budget. You don't get to look first and decide. Thumbtack also says its "smart matching" may send you leads outside your usual preferences when it predicts a strong fit.
• Opportunities. Thumbtack describes Opportunities as customers who have already contacted other pros but haven't hired anyone. Sending a quote is free, and Thumbtack says you only pay the price shown if the customer responds to you. Opportunities are priced separately, paid with your payment method instead of your weekly budget, and close after 48 hours or once five pros have expressed interest.
• Preset jobs. Pre-scheduled jobs the customer has already chosen a date and time for, open to pros who meet certain criteria (Thumbtack gives three or more reviews as an example). There is no upfront cost. Instead, Thumbtack keeps a percentage of the job price as a fee, and shows your take-home amount before you claim the job.

Lead prices are not fixed across the platform. Thumbtack says prices vary with the type and size of the job, how many pros are available, and your market. Within that, you set your own lead price for each service with a slider, and Thumbtack says that is the exact amount you will pay per lead unless a discount or promotion applies.

What does a Thumbtack lead cost?

Thumbtack publishes no price table for leads. Housecall Pro, a software vendor, reported in 2026 that pros describe costs from about $10 to over $100 per lead depending on trade, job size and market. Treat that as a reported range. Your real price shows up in your own account, and you can see what you paid for every past lead in your payment history. Thumbtack also notes that it may occasionally adjust its minimum lead prices, and that prices set at or near the minimum may go up automatically when the minimums change.

Because you pay at contact, your close rate decides what a Thumbtack job actually costs you. A $25 lead you close one time in eight costs you $200 for every job you win. To compare that with your other channels, see why cost per job beats cost per lead.

How many other pros get the same customer?

Thumbtack's Quality Commitment states the limit: it caps the number of pros a customer can contact at five in the first four hours of their search. After those four hours, the customer can contact more.

Thumbtack adds that customers usually reach out to fewer pros and that the limit exists for unusual circumstances, and each lead shows how many pros that customer has contacted. Still, a lead you pay for can be shared, and you may be one of several companies hearing from the same customer in the same afternoon. That does not make the lead worthless. It means your reply has to be fast and specific enough to stand out. For more on how that compares with other platforms, read shared leads versus exclusive leads.

What is a Fair Shot refund?

The same Quality Commitment page describes an automatic refund: if a customer doesn't reply to any pro they contacted within the first 72 hours, Thumbtack refunds the lead to you. You don't have to ask. On Thumbtack's community forum, a moderator repeated the rule on October 29, 2026, and an October 15 reply in the same thread said an automatic refund may be issued if its requirements are met. If a lead you expected back stays charged, ask support which requirement it missed.

Read that condition closely. It covers the case where the customer goes silent on everyone. It does not cover the case where the customer replies to another pro and hires them, or replies to you and then picks someone cheaper. Thumbtack's refund policy is explicit that it gives no refund when the customer goes with someone else. In those cases the lead was real, and you paid for a fair chance at it.

In practice, Fair Shot protects you from the customer who was only browsing and vanished. It does nothing for a slow reply. If you answer on day two and the customer already booked someone who replied in ten minutes, the customer did reply to a pro, and your lead stands. That is one more reason to treat every new Thumbtack lead as something to handle within minutes, not after the last job wraps up.

What does the Thumbtack refund policy cover?

Thumbtack's refund policy also refunds some leads automatically, for example a lead flagged by its Trust and Safety team, or a smart-match lead you decline and tell Thumbtack wasn't a fit. For other cases, you can request a refund within 45 days of the charge. It says refunds are made at its sole discretion. Cases it lists as likely to qualify include:

• the job changed significantly from the original request;
• the customer's first reply was "no thanks" (Opportunities only);
• the customer violated the Terms of Use;
• the customer needed a specific date that isn't flexible, and you had already blocked that date in your calendar;
• the phone number was invalid;
• a duplicate lead from the same customer for an identical job within 45 days, or a double charge.

Where the money goes matters as much as whether you get it. Refunds go to your Thumbtack balance by default, to be spent on future leads. If you want a refund on your original card instead, you have 10 business days from the refund's approval to ask Thumbtack for that, and your balance can't be zero or negative. A card refund isn't available at all for courtesy credits, prepaid packages or promotional balances. And if you close your account, Thumbtack says all sales and fees are final.

What do Thumbtack's terms say about your account?

The help pages cover day-to-day billing. Thumbtack's Terms of Use, last updated July 10, 2026, cover what happens to the account itself, and a few lines change how much prepaid money you should hold:

• Thumbtack may limit, suspend or cancel an account with or without cause or prior notice, and a pro in that position is not owed compensation or a refund of fees.
• Once Thumbtack suspends or terminates an account, any prepaid package or promotional credit left on it can't be redeemed.
• Thumbtack keeps its license to the content you posted after the account ends, and it doesn't have to delete or return that content.
• Calls and texts through Thumbtack's masked number feature or Thumbtack Messenger may be monitored, recorded or transcribed by an outside provider.

The masked number is called Thumbtack Numbers. On the community thread above, a moderator said it lets pros and customers call and text while keeping personal contact information private, after a pro complained that she could no longer get customers' phone numbers. Plan your records around that: the customer details you need to do the work belong in your own CRM, not only in the Thumbtack inbox.

Which settings control what you pay?

Most of your cost on Thumbtack is decided in your settings, long before a lead arrives. Spend an hour on them before you turn on a budget, and revisit them monthly.

• Job preferences. Turn off job types, property types and job sizes you don't want. Every one left on is a lead you can be charged for.
• Travel distance and service area. A lead 40 minutes away in traffic costs the same as one around the corner, but the job earns less after drive time.
• Availability. Keep your calendar current. Thumbtack treats a fixed date you had blocked off as a likely refund case, but it is easier not to receive those leads in the first place.
• The price slider. Thumbtack's guide to setting lead prices says a higher price for a service makes you more competitive for those leads, and the app estimates how many leads to expect as you move it. Change it in small steps and watch the cost per booked job for a few weeks before moving it again.
• Weekly budget. Every lead comes out of your weekly budget, and once you hit it, leads stop until the next week. Set one you can afford to lose entirely in a bad week, because some weeks will close nothing.

Your profile does the rest. Thumbtack says your lead price is only one of several factors in how many leads you get, alongside your profile, your star rating and reviews, how quickly you respond to new leads, and local demand.

Why reply speed decides most Thumbtack jobs

Thumbtack is unusually direct about this. Its refund-policy page tells pros that most customers want a reply right away, and that many hire whichever pro is quickest and most helpful. Its lead-price guide also lists how quickly you respond as one of the factors in how many leads you get. When several pros are in the running, the first useful reply has a clear edge.

Practical ways to be first and useful:

1. Turn on push notifications for new leads on the phone of whoever handles sales, not only the owner's.
2. Reply with a real answer, not "call me". Give a price range or the next step, ask the one question you need to quote, and offer two time slots.
3. Call as well as message if the customer shared a number and the request is urgent.
4. Keep saved replies for your common jobs, then edit each one so it reads like a person wrote it.
5. Cover the hours you can't answer. Leads that arrive at 8 p.m. on a Friday need someone, or something, to respond.

Those habits also pay off outside Thumbtack. A business that answers within minutes on a marketplace will do the same with calls from its own website. Our guide to speed to lead covers the systems that make it automatic, and our AI receptionist answers calls in your company's name when nobody can.

One more habit worth building: answer the customer's question in the first message even if you plan to visit. Someone comparing several pros in one afternoon is more likely to answer the one who already told them something useful.

How to use Thumbtack without depending on it

Thumbtack is good at one thing: putting a new pro in front of people searching right now, with reviews that build on the platform. It is a reasonable way to get first customers. It becomes expensive when it is the only way customers find you.

Use it with a plan. Move every customer you win into your own CRM and email list. Ask each for a Google review as well as a Thumbtack one, because Google counts reviews among the signals of prominence in local results, and that review stays on your own Business Profile. Give them your direct number and a reason to use it next time. And track every job by source, so you can see when your owned channels are carrying enough of the load to turn the Thumbtack budget down.

Frequently asked questions