So do you all feel like you're paying too much for Thumbtack?
Paying for leads that get sent to multiple contractors, then driving across town to give a free estimate to a homeowner that might ghost you is costing everyone tons of time and money.
After using thumbtack to find pros for some home renovations and then speaking to lots of independent small contractors about this, I realized finding new work through lead services absolutely sucks -- for everyone, and it makes home services more expensive.
Myself and 2 friends are building Estimarket to be an affordable alternative to Thumbtack, Angi, and Google leads -- and we'll never charge for leads or take a % of project cost, ever. We only plan to charge $25/month to access the market, that's it.
The basic idea is simple -- be a marketplace like craigslist or fb marketplace where homeowners post their projects, and pros can send bids right from their office, without a site visit.
Our special sauce is that we will do the work to also translate what homeowners want into a detailed, estimator-quality scope for them to post -- so you can always confidently give a ballpark bid.
My goal is sincerely to fix this part of the home services/remodeling market. I want to make this industry more affordable to do business in, and also transition as soon as possible to a contractor-owned model so pros can share in any profits from the marketplace as well.
We're launching in the Denver, CO area soon.
If you're interested, you can join our waitlist or nominate your city on our about page.
Please let me know what you think about this in the comments. I'm a small business owner looking for sincere feedback and for founding contractor partners in the Denver area.