Thumbtack does offer an upgraded Plus membership for $49 per year. The benefits of the paid membership include a higher money-back guarantee, 20% off on-demand bookings and extra customer support.

Thumbtack processes about $1 billion a year in business for its service providers in roughly 1,000 professional categories. Now, the matching feature is getting an upgrade on the consumer side.

Buying local services online is still a hair ball, but it's an $800 billion hair ball. A few young former policy wonks who founded Thumbtack think they have a better way.

Thumbtack also provides a graph showing roughly how much the price varies throughout the year, since certain tasks can be cheaper away from peak demand. Expand to continue reading ↓ Sign up for ...