The argument, honestly
Both sides of this are half right, which is why it never gets settled.
| «Publish them» | «Do not» |
|---|---|
| People want to know | Every job is different |
| Hiding it looks expensive or evasive | One number misleads |
| It filters on budget for free | Competitors read your site too |
The useful question is not which camp you belong to. It is: what does silence actually cost you, and is that more or less than what publishing costs?
Most businesses have never counted either side.
What silence costs
It filters the wrong people. This is the part that surprises owners. Hiding the price does not filter out cheap buyers — it filters out serious ones.
A serious buyer with a real budget and a real deadline does not have time to email four suppliers and wait. They check who shows a number, shortlist those, and get on with it. The person who will email and wait is often the one shopping purely on price.
«Contact us for a quote» tends to select for exactly the customer you were trying to avoid.
It moves the qualifying into your day. Every call starts at zero. You spend the first ten minutes finding out whether this conversation was ever going to work — on the phone, for free, several times a week. A number on the page does that while you sleep.
It reads as a tactic. A site with no price reads as «they want to size me up first», and suspicion is expensive to unwind later.
What publishing costs
Being fair to the other side, because these are real:
- A number without context misleads. Publishing only the small figure means explaining forever why the real quote is different
- Competitors see it. True, though usually overstated — they can also just ask
- It anchors you. The most legitimate objection, and it argues for a range rather than for silence
The real reason most businesses do not publish
3 in 4
businesses we look at price by memory: what they charged the last similar client, adjusted by feel.
That is not a criticism — it is how pricing starts. But it means there is no rule to publish. «We cannot publish a price» turns out to mean «we have not written down how we decide». That is a different problem, and a more valuable one to fix.
The middle ground: publish the shape
A range
«Most projects like this land between X and Y.» Honest, useful, filters on budget without committing you. The width of the range is itself information.
A floor
«We start at X. That covers A, B and C.» Best when the work scales without limit. It tells the person below your floor to stop reading, which is a kindness to both of you.
The levers
«Priced per unit. Up with X, down if you can be flexible on Y.» The strongest of the three, because it teaches the buyer how you think.
Almost nobody tries this, and it resolves most of the argument.
How to decide, in four questions
- Could you write your pricing rule on one page? If no, start there
- Is your range narrower than 3x? If yes publish it; if wider, publish the levers
- What share of your calls die on price in the first ten minutes? Over a third means silence is costing you
- Would you be uncomfortable if a client saw the number? Then the problem is the number, not the publishing
Then measure it
| Watch | Expect |
|---|---|
| Enquiries | Will probably drop |
| Enquiries that turn into work | Should rise, and by more |
Fewer conversations, more of them real, is the outcome you are buying.
What not to publish, even then
- Prices that vary so much a range would mislead
- Anything you would need to renegotiate constantly
- Discounts — publish the price, negotiate in private
Want us to look at yours?
We do a free Process Diagnosis, and pricing is part of it: we look at how you decide numbers today, whether there is a rule underneath, and what would be safe to publish. No cost, no commitment.