[klintcho]

On the same note: I love the saying that comes up here and other places sometimes "if SpaceX can have pricing on their launches, your SaaS product can provide a pricing section".

If I can't afford it, i'm not of interest to you anyway, if I can afford it, why not give it to me ? Only time I can understand it if you have something highly customized which will greatly affect the price, if not just give it to me.

[wcarss]

I don't want to defend hiding the price too vehemently, but we should be fair here: there is a difference between "I cannot afford that", and "I'm not psychologically ready to agree to pay that" -- at the end there is an implied ", yet".

Hiding the price means a customer can't see a number and compare it against a competitor in a drive-by fashion. It means the customer has to self-vet to the stage of interest where they'll spend the time to fill in a form. It means that there is a high likelihood you'll get to have a conversation with them, which will hopefully stick with them even if they decide not to buy because of price. It means that if they decide not to buy, you're likely to hear about why. It means you can tailor your sales message to them. It means you can empathize with them and try to better understand whether your product will fit them, maybe what you need your team to build before they would be a good sale. And so on.

It's a very, very reasonable and sound tactic. I also don't like encountering it when I just want to know about something's cost, but it's not done for nothing.

[Osiris]

If there is no pricing page then it's expensive. Pricing is the first page I jump too when comparing services / products. The ones without them don't get considered.

[cptskippy]

It also allows them to look at your info and come up with a personal quoted price.

[avs733]

it also allows them to evaluate whether you are going to be an annoyance as a customer and require untennable amounts of support when buying what is still something of a prototype.

[cptskippy]

> Hiding the price means a customer can't see a number and compare it against a competitor in a drive-by fashion.

It means they can't compare at all without giving away valuable information.

> It's a very, very reasonable and sound tactic.

No it isn't. It's a tactic used my sales weasels to gain leads. You a paying with your private info for the opportunity to see a price that's usually custom to you based on how much they think you can pay.

[wcarss]

> No it isn't. It's a tactic used my sales weasels to gain leads.

Thanks for the broad assertion, and your weasel words! :)

Your point that it's used by bad people is valid -- I agree with you. There's a lot of bad stuff about the tactic of not revealing price, and certainly a lot of bad actors out there who will use it to eke out the best price they can, or for numerous other bad reasons.

Unfortunately for your argument, you can't really assert the negative here: that no one could hide the price for a good reason, because you can't know 'em all. There are good reasons, as I outlined, and there are people who've chosen not to display their price for reasons among the ones I listed. I know some of them, multiple firms, and I know intimately that these firms do not e.g. change their prices depending on who they're talking to. Some places might! But these ones don't.

Often they're early businesses proving themselves or new products out. They want to focus on leads who've expressed a clear signal of intent, price isn't the strongest selling point of their product, and they want their great product to shine in the areas where it is most competitive.

Price is not always what matters most to a buyer, especially an institutional or commercial buyer, but people are strange about money. Upon seeing a $100 difference on a thousand dollar purchase, someone might choose the cheaper product because they think it's a "better deal" without having ever investigated both fully. If they'd looked a little deeper, maybe the higher cost thing had a far higher value? It can sometimes be hard to articulate that value without digging in a little, or learning about someone's problems. But haggling on price is a little bit like bike shedding -- it's simple: lower is better, so it's easy to focus on.

So as I said, it's a reasonable tactic for some firms. They aren't necessarily hucksters, they're just rational people doing what they can to compete. Maybe someday price will be an attractive part of the sales strategy, but... today it's not, so it takes a back seat.

[wokwokwok]

> They want to focus on leads who've expressed a clear signal of intent...

Let’s not try to wrap it up and put a ribbon on it.

This is for generating sales leads for sales people/automation to attempt to get sales.

That’s it.

You can try to justify it, but bluntly, since there’s no way to control how your information is distributed after you release it, you are only in a lose position as a customer from engaging with this.

You will either a) be ignored, b) taken advantage of or c) have your data passed on for other people to take advantage of.

As a customer, there is no reason for you to engage with this: you get less than nothing from it.

The only benefit is for the company, and fair enough, that’s their job.

...but as a customer, I think you’re entitled to say: I’d rather not do business with you under the circumstances if that’s how you treat customers.

...and it is how Google treats customers.

[wcarss]

I respect the time you put into your response, but I don't agree. I do agree there are bad actors, but I just don't think it's a categorical matter.

Doing b2b sales can be difficult, and the lowest price just isn't job one in a lot of situations as long as it's reasonable. I get that this tactic is annoying, and that businesses can take advantage -- but that's true of almost any situation.

I think any reasonable person running a business, especially a b2b one, would consider using tactics like this, and not necessarily out of any malice. Put yourself in the shoes of a small business with many competitors, and you just can't beat them on price. How do you run with that the best you can?

Google shouldn't necessarily need to worry about that, but they could easily have other legitimate reasons too though, e.g. open supply and development questions, especially given the world today.

Of course though, I wouldn't want to trust Google as far as I could throw them.

[bombcar]

It’s cargo cult copying of places like Oracle where the “how much it costs” depends on “who is asking” and “how much revenue do you have”.

[paxys]

The simple reason is that there's an entire enterprise software sales establishment out there that has every incentive to keep things exactly how they are. Individual salespeople get fat commissions, sales executives get bonuses, CIOs and other purchasing authorities get (both legal and illegal) kickbacks.

A simple pricing and checkout process would rock this whole ecosystem.

[fireeyed]

This ^ just ask CIOs about the kickbacks they receive from offshore outsourcing companies in the form of condos purchased by anonymous LLCs and held by “trusts”. Somebodys gotta get a cut of the billions in profits these offshore companies reap.

[kevincox]

> if I can afford it, why not give it to me ?

Because they can give it to you for more.

If you put a price on your website you lose everyone who doesn't want to pay it, and you get that price from everyone else. There is no "perfect" price. You either undercharge on average or you lose some customers because they can't afford it.

If you make people call you can charge each person the exact amount that they are willing to pay.

I'm not saying it is "morally" optimal. But there are a bunch of legitimate reasons to try this strategy.

[lostcolony]

"If you make people call you can charge each person the exact amount that they are willing to pay."

Not really. You're still going to be the first one throwing out the number. -IF- I call (big if), I'm going to say "Here's what I want to do; how much will that cost". If you come back with "Well, what are you looking to pay", my answer will be to hang up.

[throwawayfire]

> "Here's what I want to do"

By saying only this, you might give me sufficient information to allow me to gauge how you value my service.

I don't have to ask "what's the maximum you will pay" directly, and you won't know that I asked it.

[kevincox]

But in theory you can! Again, I'm not saying that this is the best system, but it does have advantages.

[lostcolony]

In theory posting your prices will have more customers respond since the barrier to adoption is so much lower, and your costs will be lower, since you won't have people calling and taking up personnel time only to realize you're too expensive.

Neither theoretical advantage is a realized advantage.

[14]

I can’t even count the times I’ve completely abandoned a company because they hide their pricing. If you are ashamed of the price then lower it.