Today Thumbtack is introducing credit card payment support and invoicing services between buyers and sellers.
These two new features – frequently requested by our buyers and sellers – are big steps towards Thumbtack’s mission to change the way we buy services.
We want to make it as easy to hire a house cleaner or wedding photographer as it is to buy a book on Amazon or a used iPod on eBay.
Credit card payments and invoicing are huge steps towards this vision. Thumbtack is now bringing $40 million of new work to local businesses annually – these new features will make this work simpler to fulfill than ever before.
Book It Now: Lock in pricing and guarantee payment in advance
The Book It Now tool allows a merchant to offer a price quote that a consumer can book immediately with a credit card.
Here’s why this is a helpful tool:
- If you’re buying services, you can compare transparently-priced job quotes, lock in the job’s price up front, and pay online.
- If you’re selling services, you guarantee your job’s payment in advance so you don’t have to worry about when or whether you’ll get paid.
For example, say a bride is looking to hire a wedding photographer. When the photographer responds to the bride’s job request, the photographer can enter a price quote and enable Book It Now with one click. The bride can choose to accept the Book It Now price and enter her credit card information to lock in the price.
The advantage to the bride? She can compare transparently-priced job quotes, lock in the job’s price up front, and pay securely with her credit card online.
The advantage to the wedding photographer? This is a low-stress booking. The money will be deposited in his bank account, deposited in his Paypal account, or mailed to him by check within a few days after he tells us that the job is complete. No invoicing. No write-offs for non-paying clients. No waiting for his hard-earned cash.
Using the Book It Now feature is not required when submitting a quote on Thumbtack. However, consumers have told us that they’d prefer to book and pay up front – so when Book It Now is used, everyone wins.
We know that it will not be possible to enable the Book It Now feature for all price quotes submitted through Thumbtack. For example, a job might be charged by the hour, but the job’s total hours aren’t available until the job is complete.
That’s why we built Instant Invoice – to quickly and securely collect payments after a job has been completed.
Instant Invoice: Get paid by credit card after the job is done
The Instant Invoice tool allows all consumers to pay for any job on Thumbtack with credit card.
We know that paying – or getting paid – for a job can be a real hassle.
If you’re a small business, maybe you don’t yet accept credit cards but would like to do so. Or maybe you’re worried that one of your customer’s checks will bounce. Or maybe it’s just a pain to spend time creating and mailing invoices to your clients.
And if you’re a consumer, maybe you’d like to pay your house cleaner with a credit card rather than with cash. Getting cash from an ATM, remembering to pay an invoice, or writing and mailing a check take time. Currently very few local service professionals accept anything other than cash or check – wouldn’t it be nice if you could pay for any local service by credit card?
Now you can, with Instant Invoice.
Instant Invoice is an easy-to-use, professional-looking invoice builder. Merchants can use Instant Invoice to quickly compose and send a bill to the client for any job completed through Thumbtack. The Instant Invoice will be sent to the client by email, and the client will simply enter his credit card information to pay. The client’s payment is transmitted to the merchant’s bank or PayPal account (or to a mailbox by check) immediately after the client submits his or her credit card information.
The benefit to the consumer? A fast, easy way to pay by credit card.
The benefit to the merchant? No more printing invoices and mailing them. No more dealing with cash or checks.
The fine print
Using these features is currently free. However, we will one day charge a transaction fee for using these features.
Payments made through Thumbtack are powered by PoundPay.
Thumbtack has chosen PoundPay – a company that specializes in secure payment systems – to power payments for its service professionals. PoundPay has built a system to quickly and safely transfer money from the credit cards of consumers to the bank accounts of local service professionals.
After receiving their first payment, merchants will be prompted to open their PoundPay accounts and enter their preferred payout method: direct deposit, check, or PayPal. Once they set up their PoundPay accounts, money earned on any future job will be automatically delivered via the preferred payout method.
These features have been a long-time coming – we hope you use and enjoy!