What each one checks
| Thumbtack | Angi | |
|---|---|---|
| License | "Licensed pro" badge: Thumbtack "used a public database to verify the license number the pro provided" (Thumbtack safety page) | Businesses "attest to their licensing"; registered, bonded and insured flags are "self-reported" (Angi FAQ; 10-K FY2024) |
| Background check: who | "All new account owners" (Thumbtack safety page) | "The owner, principal, or relevant manager of every Angi Approved business"; not every employee; not Corporate Accounts (Angi FAQ) |
| Background check: when | At account creation; "continuous checks happen on an annual basis" | Before entering the Angi Approved network, and "any time concerns are brought to our attention" |
| Background check: what | "Criminal background check"; vendor and look-back period not stated | "Criminal background check"; vendor and look-back period not stated |
| Insurance | Not described on the safety page | Self-reported on the profile; Angi tells homeowners to verify it |
| Reviews | Reviews from customers who connected with the pro on Thumbtack carry a "Hired on Thumbtack" badge | 1–5 stars, cannot be anonymous; processes to stop pros reviewing themselves or competitors; average below 3 stars loses approved status (10-K FY2024) |
| Guarantee | Money back up to $2,500 (notify within 45 days); property damage up to $100,000 (notify within 14 days) | Not described on the Angi pages cited here |
| How the contractor pays | Pays to send a quote, or per matched lead; no subscription (Thumbtack pro page; Housecall Pro) | Fees per consumer match, plus advertising and memberships (10-K FY2024) |
| Permits and inspections | Not shown | Not shown |
The license check: a number versus a promise
On this one row Thumbtack does more. Its badge records that someone matched the pro's license number to a public register. Angi's attestation is the business saying it holds the licenses it needs; Angi's own FAQ calls those profile fields "self-reported" and tells you to check.
Neither check tells you the license status today. A license verified when the profile was built can lapse later. That is not rare: of the 749 firms that pulled electrical permits in Seattle in our window, 77 (10.3%) now match a Washington license that is expired, suspended or otherwise not active. The file does not say which of them closed and which are still quoting jobs, and a badge on a marketplace profile cannot either.
Background checks: the owner, not the crew
Both platforms check one person. Thumbtack checks the account owner when the account is created and again each year. Angi checks the owner, principal or a relevant manager before a business joins Angi Approved, and says plainly that it cannot check every employee and does not check Corporate Accounts.
So the crew that comes to your house may include no one who was checked. Neither platform names its screening vendor or says how many years of records the check covers.
Reviews: who can leave one
On Thumbtack, a review marked "Hired on Thumbtack" comes from a customer who connected with the pro through the platform. On Angi, reviews cannot be anonymous and Angi says it filters for fraud, while its 10-K says "the accuracy of consumer reviews cannot be guaranteed". Thumbtack's "Top Pro" badge needs at least a 4.8 rating, 10 hires and 5 verified reviews in 12 months (Thumbtack Pro Center, c. 2018).
A review can be posted the day the crew leaves. The final inspection comes later. In Elk Grove the usual HVAC permit took 50 days from issue to final.
How contractors pay, and what that means for you
Neither platform charges homeowners. Thumbtack's pro page says pros sign up free and "pay to send a quote" when a request fits; a Housecall Pro write-up (May 2026) adds that pros are charged when auto-matched to a lead or when they contact a customer, that "Opportunities" charge only if the customer replies, and that pros report $10 to over $100 per lead because Thumbtack does not publish its prices.
Angi's 10-K describes fees paid by professionals for consumer matches "regardless of whether the professional ultimately provides the requested service", plus advertising contracts and memberships. In 2023 the FTC ordered HomeAdvisor, Angi's lead business, to pay up to $7.2 million over how it marketed those leads to contractors (FTC, Jan 2023). That order concerned what contractors were sold, not the reviews homeowners read.
On both sites, the contractors who contact you are ones paying for leads on requests like yours. Paying for leads says nothing about whether their past jobs passed inspection.
The check neither does: permits and inspections
Every permitted job ends one of two ways in the city's file: it passes final inspection, or it stays open, expires or is cancelled. Here is what that file shows for two trades in two states.
| Seattle electrical | Elk Grove HVAC | |
|---|---|---|
| Permits in the window | 15,130 | 4,434 |
| Firms | 749 | 339 |
| Share of permits finished | 94.6% | 84.7% |
| Finished share at the 10th-percentile firm (firms with 10+ permits) | 85.1% | 65.3% |
| Firms with 10+ permits finishing under 70% | 2 of 252 | 10 of 67 |
| Usual days, issue to final | 44 | 50 |
| Firms whose license is now expired, suspended or similar | 77 | 3 |
The spread is the useful part: in Elk Grove, the firm at the 10th percentile finishes 65.3% of its HVAC permits, against 84.7% for the trade overall. A firm can have a strong rating on either platform and still sit in that bottom tenth.
What the file does not show: price quotes, whether the crew was polite, work done without a permit, or jobs in a city we do not cover. A contractor with few permits in one city may do most of its work in the next one over.
A five-minute check after you get quotes
- Ask each contractor for the exact business name and license number on the quote.
- Look the number up yourself: WA L&I Verify in Washington, CSLB Check a License in California. Check that the status is active today and the name matches the quote.
- Find the firm on our compare page for your city and trade. Look at how many permits it pulled, the share that reached final, and how that compares with the trade's usual share.
- If the firm has no permits in your city for the trade it is quoting, ask which jobs it permitted and where.
How we know this
The Thumbtack and Angi rows come from each platform's own pages, read on 20 October 2026: Thumbtack's safety page and pro sign-up page, Angi's background-check FAQ and Angi's 10-K for 2024. Lead-pricing detail for Thumbtack is from Housecall Pro, a competing software vendor, and is labelled as third-party; Thumbtack does not publish lead prices. Our counts come from Seattle's and Elk Grove's public permit files for the window shown, joined by firm name to the Washington L&I and California CSLB license registers. Name matching can miss, so an unmatched firm is shown as unmatched, never as unlicensed.
Numbers come from City of Seattle (SDCI) building, trade and electrical permits on single-family and duplex homes (the city's open-data exports); City of Elk Grove TRAKiT building permits on single-family, duplex, mobile-home and ADU homes, data through October 17, 2026. Nobody paid to be on this page and nobody can.
See every Seattle electrician by their permit record →
Questions
- Does Thumbtack verify contractor licenses?
Partly. Thumbtack's safety page says its "Licensed pro" badge means it "used a public database to verify the license number the pro provided". A pro without the badge has not been checked that way, and the page does not say how often the check is repeated.
- Does Angi verify contractor licenses?
Angi asks businesses to attest to their licensing (Angi 10-K FY2024; Angi background-check FAQ). Its FAQ says registration, bonding and insurance shown on a profile are "self-reported" and tells homeowners to check with the provider.
- Who gets background-checked on Thumbtack and Angi?
The business owner, not the crew. Thumbtack checks "all new account owners" and re-checks annually. Angi checks "the owner, principal, or relevant manager" of Angi Approved businesses and says it is "unable to perform a background check on every employee".
- Is Thumbtack or Angi free for homeowners?
Both are free to use as a homeowner. Contractors pay. Thumbtack charges pros to send a quote or for matched leads; Angi charges for consumer matches "regardless of whether the professional ultimately provides the requested service" (Angi 10-K FY2024).
- What are the biggest differences between Thumbtack and Angi?
Three. The licence check: Thumbtack's 'Licensed pro' badge means it checked the number the pro gave against a public database; Angi asks the business to attest. The money: Thumbtack charges pros to send a quote or for matched leads, Angi charges per consumer match. Background checks: both check the owner, not the crew, and Thumbtack re-checks annually. Both are free for homeowners.
- Do either show permits or inspections?
No. Neither profile shows whether a contractor pulled a permit or passed an inspection. That record sits with the city; our compare pages show it for each firm in the cities we cover.
Build your own list
Every firm with that kind of permit on record. Pick what you value. The list moves.
Related guides
- The best month to start electrical, HVAC and solar work (by city)
- How to check a contractor's license in California
- How to check a contractor's license in Washington
- What does a suspended contractor license mean? The rules, and how often it shows up in permits
For one city
- Your Safety (Thumbtack) (2026-10-20)
- Thumbtack for pros (2026-10-20)
- What is Thumbtack and how it works (Housecall Pro) (2026-05-05)
- Thumbtack Pro Center: Top Pro (2018)
- Frequently Asked Questions: background checks (Angi) (2026-10-20)
- Angi Inc. Form 10-K FY2024 (2025-02)
- FTC Order Requires HomeAdvisor to Pay Up to $7.2 Million and Stop Deceptively Marketing its Leads (2023-01-23)
- Verify a contractor, tradesperson or business (WA L&I) (2026-10-20)
- CSLB Check a License (2026-10-20)