Publish prices unless you have a specific reason not to. Contact for pricing filters out most buyers, and the ones it keeps are frequently the ones who were going to negotiate anyway.

The site

A supplier of equipment, perhaps two hundred products, each with a photograph, a specification and a button reading Request a Quote.

No prices anywhere on the site.

The reasoning, when businesses explain it, is usually a mixture: prices vary by quantity, competitors would see them, and a conversation lets them sell properly.

Each of those has some truth and none of them survives contact with how people actually buy.

What a buyer does

Somebody researching a purchase has a budget in mind and a shortlist to build.

They open four suppliers. Three show prices. One asks them to fill in a form and wait.

They compare the three, form a view of the market, and go back to the fourth only if the others were unsatisfactory.

Which means the no-price supplier is not in the comparison at all. They are a fallback, considered after a decision has largely formed.

The three reasons, examined

The third is the one worth examining honestly. A conversation does convert better per enquiry, and it converts far fewer people overall, and businesses measure the first without measuring the second.

A worked example

An equipment supplier who published no prices, receiving perhaps fifteen quote requests a week.

They published prices for their standard range and kept quote requests for configured and volume orders.

Quote requests fell to about six a week, which alarmed them.

Direct orders, which had not previously existed, ran at several a week within two months, and were substantially the smaller purchases that had never justified a phone call.

The larger enquiries continued, and the person handling quotes spent their time on those rather than on answering what a standard unit costs.

Total revenue rose. The number that had been measured fell, which is why this change is hard to make on instinct.

When hiding prices is right

There are genuine cases and they are narrower than the practice suggests.

Where the product is genuinely bespoke and no meaningful starting figure exists.

Where pricing is contractual and varies by customer agreement, as in much wholesale and trade supply.

Where a regulator or a supplier agreement restricts published pricing, which happens in some categories.

And where the buyer is always a procurement process rather than an individual, and a published price would be ignored anyway.

What is not a reason: that the price is high. A high price stated confidently, with an explanation, outperforms a hidden one every time.

The middle options

Between full publication and nothing, there are several positions worth considering.

A starting price: from a stated figure, which sets expectation without committing to a final number.

A range for a typical configuration, with what moves it up and down.

Published prices for the standard range and quotes for anything configured, which is how the worked example above resolved it.

Or an indication of order of magnitude, which for a large purchase is frequently all a buyer needs to know whether to continue.

Any of those puts you in the comparison, which is the thing hiding prices prevents entirely.

The quote form itself

Where the remaining enquiries go wrong.

Eleven required fields, including company name, position, and how did you hear about us.

Somebody who wants to know a price is being asked to complete a sales qualification form first, which reads as an exchange they did not agree to.

Three fields is enough for a first contact, and the rest can be established in the reply.

And say how quickly you respond. A quote request with no stated turnaround is a request into silence, and buyers who need an answer today will go elsewhere while waiting.

What publishing prices does beyond selling

Two effects businesses rarely anticipate.

It filters. Buyers who cannot afford you never make contact, which removes a category of conversation that was never going to convert and always took time.

And it makes you findable. Somebody searching for a product with a price attached, or comparing on a shopping surface, cannot be matched to a page with no figure on it.

That second effect is invisible from inside the business. You cannot see the searches you were excluded from, which is why hiding prices feels costless.

A supplier with published prices appears in comparisons, aggregators and searches that a quote-only competitor is structurally absent from.

The counter-case within the site

Worth noting, because the site does one thing well.

The product specifications are thorough: dimensions, capacities, materials, compliance and what is included in the box.

That is genuinely useful and better than most competitors manage, and it is exactly the kind of detail a technical buyer needs.

Which makes the missing price more frustrating rather than less. Somebody has been given everything required to decide except the one figure that determines whether they can.

The site is close to good, and one omission is holding it back.

Where the objection really comes from

Worth naming, because the stated reasons are rarely the actual one.

Underneath most no-price policies is a worry that the price is too high and will be rejected without a chance to explain.

Which is a real concern and it is solved by explanation rather than concealment.

A price with a paragraph saying what it includes, why it differs from a cheaper alternative, and what the cheaper one leaves out, does the job the phone call was supposed to do, at scale, for everybody who visits.

Concealment only moves the rejection later, to a point where somebody has invested time and feels their time was wasted, which is worse than a quiet decision on a page.

What to change

  1. Publish prices for the standard range.
  2. A from figure for anything configured.
  3. Keep quote requests for volume and custom work.
  4. Cut the quote form to three fields.
  5. State a response time.
  6. Say what affects the price, so a range is interpretable.

The first is the whole change and the rest support it. Everything else on this site is already better than its competitors, which is what makes the single omission expensive.

The broader argument is covered in the page that answers the awkward question.

Frequently asked questions

What does a buyer actually do?

Opens four suppliers, compares the three showing prices, forms a view of the market, and returns to the fourth only if the others disappointed.

Is it true that competitors will see prices?

Yes, and they already know from their own customers, and they can phone you as easily as anybody else. The secrecy protects very little.

Does a conversation sell better?

Per enquiry, yes. Overall, no, because it converts far fewer people. Businesses measure the first without measuring the second.

When is hiding prices right?

Genuinely bespoke products, contractual pricing that varies by customer, regulatory restrictions, or where the buyer is always a procurement process.

What are the middle options?

A starting price, a range with what moves it, published prices for standard items with quotes for configured ones, or an order of magnitude.

What is wrong with the quote form?

Eleven fields asks somebody who wants a price to complete a sales qualification first. Three is enough, and the response time should be stated.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Every product saying contact for pricing?

You are not in the comparison at all. A starting price puts you back in it without committing to a final figure.

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