Two electricians, one town, near-identical vans. One publishes a call-out charge and an hourly rate. The other says "contact us for a quote". Ask them which gets more enquiries and the second one will tell you he gets far more, and he is right. Ask which gets more jobs and neither of them has ever counted.
That is the whole argument, and it is not really about pricing. It is about which work you want to be doing at nine on a Tuesday evening.
Hiding the price does not stop people judging it
This is the part that gets missed. A visitor with no number does not think "I will enquire and find out". They think "this is probably expensive" or "this is probably cheap", based on your photographs, your wording and the last business they rang. Then they act on the guess.
So you do not avoid being judged on price. You get judged on an imagined price you did not set, by someone who will never tell you what they imagined.
What publishing actually does
It filters, and filtering is the benefit rather than the cost:
- Fewer enquiries, better ones. The people who drop out were going to drop out later, after two emails and a site visit.
- You stop being a quoting service. Most small businesses spend hours a week producing numbers for people who were never going to buy.
- Trust. A published number reads as confidence. "Contact us for pricing" reads, fairly or not, as "the price depends on what we think you can pay".
- You get found. People search with money in the query. A page carrying a real number can answer that search; a page that hides it cannot.
The counter-argument is that competitors will see it. They will, and they already know roughly what you charge, because they do the same work in the same town.
When not publishing is genuinely right
There are real cases, and pretending otherwise is how this advice gets ignored:
- The scope genuinely varies by an order of magnitude. A kitchen fit is not a price, it is a conversation.
- You price by value rather than by hour, and a published rate would anchor every negotiation at the wrong end.
- You are contractually barred from publishing rates, which happens in some trades and franchises.
Notice what is not on that list: "we are more expensive than the competition". That is the strongest reason to publish, not to hide, because the enquiries you lose are the ones you would have lost anyway and the ones you keep already know.
Five ways to give a number without a price list
- A "from" price. The lowest real job you will take. It sets the floor and filters everyone below it.
- A range with what moves it. "Most kitchens come in between X and Y, depending on units and whether the plumbing moves." The reason matters more than the numbers.
- A typical project. One worked example in full: what it included, what it cost. Readers are good at working out where they sit relative to it.
- A day rate or call-out charge. Even when the total varies, the unit rarely does.
- What you will not do. "We do not take jobs under X" costs you nothing and saves both parties a conversation.
Any of the five beats silence, and all of them are quotable by a search engine or an assistant in a way that "contact us" never is.
Write the sentence next to the number
A price on its own invites comparison with a cheaper one. A price with a reason invites a decision. Say what is included, what is not, and what a customer gets for the difference. Two lines of context does more for conversion than any amount of moving the number itself, which is the same point made in website copy that converts.
Then watch what happens. If enquiries fall and jobs stay flat, you have removed work rather than customers, which is the outcome you wanted. What to measure on a small business website covers reading that honestly, and where website visitors drop off covers what to do if they fall too far.
Frequently asked questions
Should I put prices on my website?
Publish something in almost every case, even if it is not a full price list. Hiding the price does not prevent people judging it, it just means they judge an imagined price you did not set. Publishing filters out enquiries that would have failed later and saves the hours spent quoting people who were never going to buy.
Will publishing prices scare customers away?
It will reduce enquiries and that is usually the point. The people who leave were priced out anyway; you simply find out on day one instead of after two emails and a site visit. Being more expensive than a competitor is an argument for publishing, because the customers who stay already know and have chosen you anyway.
What if my prices vary too much to publish?
Use a "from" price, a range with the thing that moves it, or one worked example of a typical project in full. A day rate or call-out charge works even when totals vary. Any number with a reason attached is more useful to a reader, and more quotable by a search engine, than "contact us for a quote".
Do competitors use my published prices against me?
They already know roughly what you charge, because they do the same work in the same area and their customers tell them. The visitor who cannot find a number is a real cost; the competitor who reads one is mostly a hypothetical.