You’re thinking about trying a new restaurant that just opened in Hamilton.
You pull up their website, look through the menu, find something that sounds good…and there are no prices anywhere.
What do you do?
Maybe you call and ask. But there’s a pretty good chance you’re thinking, Why don’t they just tell me what it costs?
And depending on how motivated you are, you may simply move on.
Your customers do the same thing.
Price is one of the biggest questions people have when they’re considering buying something — whether it’s dinner, a new roof, professional photography, landscaping, or a new website.
So should you put your prices on your website?
In most cases, I think you should at least talk about them.
That doesn’t necessarily mean posting an exact price. But leaving customers completely in the dark usually isn’t doing either of you any favors.
Why businesses hesitate to talk about price
I understand why business owners are reluctant to put pricing on their websites. I hear variations of the same concerns all the time:
- Every customer and project is different.
- There are too many variables to give one price.
- Competitors will know what I charge.
- Someone might see my price and leave without contacting me.
Those are legitimate concerns.
But here’s the thing: not publishing pricing information doesn’t make the price question disappear.
Your prospective customer is still wondering what it costs.
Marcus Sheridan makes this point in They Ask, You Answer:
“When was the last time you were shopping for something and you didn’t care about how much it was going to cost?”
Exactly.
Your customers care about price. I care about price. You care about price.
We all do.
So rather than avoiding the question, I think businesses are better served by helping customers understand the answer.
But what if there isn’t one simple price?
This is where I think a lot of businesses get hung up.
There doesn’t have to be.
I deal with this every day at Touch Point Designs.
I have a pricing page on my website, and I publish a starting price for a custom website. But I can’t tell someone exactly what their website will cost until I know what we’re building.
A local contractor who needs a straightforward five-page website is very different from a business that needs online booking, e-commerce, dozens of pages, special integrations, or other functionality.
So my process works like this:
- You can see my starting price before ever contacting me.
- If that fits within your general budget, we have a conversation.
- I learn about your business, your goals, and what the website needs to accomplish.
- Then I provide a proposal with the actual project price.
Nobody has been promised a price I can’t honor, but nobody has been left wondering whether we’re talking about $500, $5,000, or $50,000 either.
That’s a pretty important distinction.
Pricing can actually help qualify your customers
Here’s something that sounds backward at first:
I don’t necessarily want everyone who visits my website to contact me.
I want the right people to contact me.
If my websites start at a price that’s outside someone’s budget, I’d rather they discover that on my website.
That’s not a lost lead.
That’s a lead that wasn’t a good fit.
They didn’t have to spend time filling out my questionnaire and scheduling a consultation only to discover they couldn’t afford the project. And I didn’t spend time preparing for and conducting a consultation that wasn’t going anywhere.
We both saved time.
On the other hand, when someone sees my starting price and still schedules a consultation, we’ve already answered one pretty important question.
They know approximately what they’re getting into.
That’s a better lead.
What if displaying my price scares someone away?
It might.
And I’m okay with that.
If your service typically costs $3,000 and someone’s entire budget is $500, hiding your price doesn’t suddenly give them another $2,500.
It just postpones the conversation.
There’s also another side to this.
When I’m shopping for something and a company refuses to give me any indication of what something costs, I sometimes assume it’s going to be incredibly expensive.
You may actually be losing perfectly good customers because they’re imagining a number that’s higher than the one you would have given them.
Transparency removes some of that uncertainty.
You don’t need a traditional price list
Depending on your business, there are several ways to address price without locking yourself into one number.
You might publish:
- An exact price for products or standardized services.
- A Starting at $___ price.
- A typical price range, such as Most projects fall between $___ and $___.
- Several packages at different price points.
- Examples of previous projects and what they cost.
- The factors that cause the price to increase or decrease.
- A detailed explanation of why you can’t provide an exact price until you’ve learned more.
The right approach depends on what you sell.
The important part is that you’re giving your customer something useful.
This is really about trust
That’s ultimately why I like this approach.
It’s not really about putting a dollar sign on everything you sell.
It’s about being willing to answer the questions your customers actually have.
A potential customer visiting your website is probably trying to figure out things like:
Can I afford this?
Is this company right for me?
Do I understand what I’m getting?
Can I trust these people?
Your website should help them answer those questions.
And I’ve found that being straightforward — even when the answer is it depends — goes a lot further toward building trust than avoiding the subject altogether.
So, should you put your prices on your website?
My recommendation is yes: if price is something your customers regularly ask about, your website should address it.
If you have fixed prices, show them.
If your prices vary, give people a starting point or realistic range.
If your service is too customized even for that, explain what determines the cost and why you need a conversation before providing an exact number.
You don’t have to tell your customer everything before you’ve even met them.
But you should give them enough information to decide whether taking the next step makes sense.
Because your customers are already thinking about price.
The question is whether they’ll get helpful information about it from you — or whether they’ll leave your website looking for the answer somewhere else.
