Thumbtack – Platform for Cleaning & Other Local Services

Thumbtack is an online platform that matches customers with local professionals. Unlike online marketplaces specialized on cleaning services such as Handy, Thumbtack lists several hundreds of local services. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco. With 260,000 active professionals on their platform, services in all major and minor US cities can be booked through Thumbtack.

How Thumbtack works

In a first step, the customer needs to specify the service he is looking for, which can either be entered directly or chosen from one of several categories such as Home (this is where you will find cleaning services), Events, Lessons or Wellness.

Thumbtack Homepage

Next, a sequence of ~10 questions follows. These questions are meant to specify the customer’s need and narrow down the choice of available cleaning professionals.
The first set of questions relates to your home. You will need to provide information on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms to be cleaned as wells as the square footage of your home.

Thumbtack – Booking Process – Home Info

The second set of questions focuses on the cleaning preferences. The customer needs to specify the frequency (one-time cleaning, weekly housekeeping, etc.), the type of cleaning (standard cleaning, deep cleaning, move-out cleaning) and additional needs (fridge or oven cleaning, laundry, etc.).

Thumbtack – Booking Process – Preferences

In the next step, you need to define when the service is needed. You can also add specific instructions for the cleaning professionals, if there are any.

Thumbtack – Booking Process – Time & Special Requests

Lastly, you need to confirm your zip code and enter your email address:

Thumbtack – Booking Process – Zip Code & Email

Now the matching progress is started and the platform identifies suitable local cleaners based on the answers provided.
At this point, cleaning provider profiles incl. the quotes for the cleaning job specified are shown. The customer can find more information regarding the services provided by each cleaning company and scroll through the customer reviews.

Thumbtack – Providers & Quotes

Once a decision is made, you can message the cleaning provider or schedule a cleaning directly by providing the exact address and submitting the booking request.

Thumbtack – Send Booking Request

Thumbtack Prices

Unlike online platforms specialized on cleaning which provide standardized services and prices, Thumbtack aggregates the services of various local providers which determine the terms themselves. Therefore, cleaning prices offered through Thumbtack vary widely.
Hourly cleaning rates can start as low as 20-25 USD, but several housekeeping companies charge significantly more than that.

Training & Insurance

As Thumbtack is only an aggregator for the services of individual local cleaning companies, it is not responsible for the training of the cleaners. As a customer, you should be aware that you will deal with an individual local cleaning company. Some of these companies have well trained cleaning staff, others do not.

Thumbtack does offer a $1 Million Property Protection which covers damages that are a result of the service booked through Thumbtack.

Summary

Thumbtack is a great platform to find all sorts of local service providers including cleaning and housekeeping companies. One of Thumbtack’s advantages is the strong regional coverage. Customers will be able to find maid services and cleaners even in smaller cities, which are often not served by the large cleaning franchise companies or the online cleaning platforms.
Please be aware, however, that the quality of the companies and services enlisted on Thumbtack may vary.