Are you on Thumbtack?

You should be…

Note: I am not a Thumbtack affiliate and was not paid in any way to write this post. You can verify yourself that all links are not affiliate links.

When I first started tutoring, I was only listed on Wyzant. To this day, Wyzant is how I acquire the majority of my new students. But after first using Thumbtack for a home cleaning project, I wondered: can I tutor through Thumbtack as well? Yes, you can and should list yourself as a tutor on Thumbtack and here’s why:

Thumbtack gets great organic traffic for many crucial tutoring keywords

When I search for “math tutor” on Google, here’s what I see on the first page of organic (not paid ads) results:

Even though Thumbtack is a broad marketplace, offering everything from private self defense lessons to general contracting, it often ranks higher than Wyzant on keywords that include “tutor.”

Establishing yourself on a marketplace takes time. You want to make sure your effort will be worth it

As you can see in the chart below, twice as many people will end up clicking the Thumbtack link after searching “math tutor” as the Wyzant link. With an average of 18,000 people per month searching for “math tutor” on Google, that means hundreds if not thousands more people browsing Thumbtack’s math tutors vs. Wyzant’s.

Now to be clear, there are other “tutor” keywords where Wyzant ranks higher than Thumbtack. But you should be on both to maximize your exposure in Google search results.

Thumbtack charges only a $7-$10 upfront fee for passing you each lead, instead of a 25% ongoing fee.

This is the biggest advantage Thumbtack has over Wyzant. Although I get more lead flow through Wyzant, I end up spending way more in fees on those students. Meanwhile, Thumbtack only charges a modest fee upfront when the student initially reaches out to you. When you’re first getting started, it’s frustrating paying those lead fees when the student doesn’t end up booking a session. But just think of those “wasted” lead fees as the cost of doing business on Thumbtack, a cost that will be a fraction of what you end up paying Wyzant.

You can still use Wyzant to run your online sessions with Thumbtack students

In fact, this is exactly what I do. For new leads I acquire through Thumbtack, once they decide they want to book an initial session, I send them to my Wyzant referral link to set up an account. That way, I don’t pay the 25% fee to Wyzant even though I’m using their online whiteboard tool to power all my sessions. I still pay the $7-$10 to Thumbtack, but that’s it.

Now, keep in mind that even if you sign students up through your referral link, they still pay a 9% fee to Wyzant. Which is why after they sign up through your referral link, you should immediately send a rate change request to lower their rate so that you eat the 9% fee for them. I’ve accidentally forgotten to do this in the past and let me tell you, people are not happy to be surprised by an unexpected fee 😐 .

To help boost your ranking in Thumbtack search results, you can offer other services to gain reviews

When people view your profile on Thumbtack after searching for a tutor, they see all of your 5-star ratings, not just those you’ve earned through tutoring. So to help get my Thumbtack account off the ground, I started by reviewing resumes for a very low cost. It’s a service that’s always in demand so I was able to pick up leads and reviews easily. Soon I found myself rising up in the tutoring ranks and eventually I was able to stop offering resume editing entirely.