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by ablekh 1835 days ago
What is the point of having a webpage called "Pricing", which has practically no information about pricing? (Rhetorical question)
3 comments

I need to make sure that startups say something about this when they're launching. It came up yesterday too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27447214.
It certainly would be nice. I have an off-topic, but, nevertheless, important request in the question format: is there any chance that HN UI will be improved in the nearest future by allowing users to selectively expand & collapse individual discussion threads? The lack of this feature is IMO a very annoying issue and a glaring example of how simplicity taken to an extreme leads to a significant friction in UX (which arguably could be fixed relatively easily in this case).
You can collapse threads by clicking [-] and expand by clicking [n more]. Are you asking for something different?
Oops, I'm sorry! Perhaps, I have focused so intensely on the content of so many interesting discussions on HN that I somehow totally missed that control (unexpectedly to me, located on right side of the anchor label). Thank you for pointing at it and please accept my sincere apology for unwarranted criticism, which, obviously, I'm retracting. :-)
No worries! I'm just glad that we actually have what you were asking for. I wasn't sure :)
This practice seems to be becoming more and more normal for B2B products. I like to see pricing too, but understand that in some cases it’s not the best sales funnel.

(At the end of the day it should be a measurable part of the sales funnel, and perhaps should be A/B tested.)

For Okay, I wonder about the hybrid approach. They could have the “startup plan” that has published pricing and self-service signup, and then the “enterprise plan” that requires contacting them for pricing and setup.

Often the “pricing” page is the first page potential customers check prior to evaluating the product. Without one the customer journey generally gets disrupted.
Sure. And having absolutely no relevant info on that page is a great way to certainly disrupt a potential customer's journey one step later. :-)
It's a filter in the sales funnel, often intentionally. "Contact us for pricing" tells everyone what they need to know – either you have a big budget and are not price sensitive, or you're self service and this product isn't for you.

Pricing is hard, it makes total sense to just not publish prices early on.

I'm well aware of this practice and have no objection to it, in general. However, unless a company provides enough relevant information (e.g., feature breakdown per tier, other details) on the pricing page, IMO it could be better implemented as a button, link, one-liner or other compact visual element located on the home page, without wasting time and effort on repeating - and maintaining - essentially the same marketing copy on a separate page (as is the case here).