[passwordoops]

Love this! As a consumer, there's nothing like open pricing.

However, as a provider I can totally see a situation where I (proverbially, I'm not in this business) sue you for disclosing what amounts to a trade secret (depending on what's in the fine print) and compel you to give up all documents so I can go after my loose-lipped client too.

I hope you've got your legal bases covered

[mox1]

Just to let you know this kind of pricing information is available and given out during F500 SaaS deals.

Our microsoft reseller was using pricing and contract info on a deal he closed last week to assure us he would and could get us a similar deal.

Gartner will literally cutthtoat re-negotiate any large contract you have, using pricing data they have gathered from their members.

Call them up tomorrow, tell them your current cost for Splunk, they will tell you exactly how much you can save.

So this type of thing is not illegal and not even frowned upon for the big players.

[jpgvm]

Once you are big enough to have a procurement department this isn't just not frowned upon it's expected and very much "part of the game".

I personally hate it but it's just how the game is played and it's why all enterprise software has stupidly high advertised prices so they can give "90% discounts" and let people think that is a good deal when it is ultimately just the real price that all the big players are getting anyway.

[pcl]

When I worked at BEA (which I think published its prices), the steep discounts on a crazy high price actually had a clever reason — evidently the sales team could discount the list price pretty freely, but they were forbidden to discount the yearly support and maintenance fees. Sorta subscription pricing before it was cool.

[fraserharris]

Support & maintenance have radically lower margins than software licenses. Without discounting rules, sales can craft deals that lose the company money.

[vasco]

My practical experience with vendor negotiations is you ask for a discount and talk to them honestly and make the sales person have a good time with you and you don't need to play hardball, say you have some secret information or other crap. I have seen many contracts negotiated by a regular engineering manager and by "proper" procurement people, and the outcome is clear that hardball negotiations end up in worse outcomes than just being a nice person and speaking plainly.

[matt-p]

There's a difference between 'a company negotiates on behalf of a number of clients and individuals happen to get a feeling for ballpark figures' verses publishing the exact figures of every deal on the internet.

[mickael-kerjean]

Loving this as well from the point of view of a small saas provider who has no idea what typical enterprise contract runs for.

[uoaei]

Is there precedent that points in either direction that pricing details are considered a trade secret (or whatever the legally enforceable version of that is)?

[tyingq]

There's precedent that points in both directions. There was a fair amount of research when there was a push for transparency in hospital pricing for services in the US. One piece of research: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/OHS/Healthcare-Cabinet/2021-Me...

You'll see there's some cited court cases that supported pricing as a trade secret, and some that held it was not.

It seems to be still pretty muddy legally.

[staticautomatic]

Sure. Broadly, a trade secret under state and federal law is "information that derives independent economic value from not being generally known to the public or people who can obtain economic value from it and is the subject of efforts to maintain its secrecy that are reasonable under the circumstances." Price lists could clearly fall under this definition, and they do! Here's an 8th circuit case where the plaintiff "adequately allege[d] that the information that was purportedly misappropriated— ... pricing information ... qualifies as trade secret[]." Ahern Rentals, 59 F.4th 948 (2023).

[passwordoops]

I've signed and written quotes that have those provisions. What the legal standing is, I can't comment on because it never came to that.

This is with the obvious caveat that public tenders are the exception, but only after it's awarded

[instagib]

Most of the quotes I get have clauses about not disclosing them to others. Prices may be okay but the entire quote can include drawings, specific item information, etc.

I had to get a lot of quotes and talking to legal is painful.

[rmbyrro]

Price being a trade secret and legal fears for telling people a price number shows how far we are from a free market society.

This is ridiculous.

If there's one piece of information that is public by nature in a free market is price, folks.

We should bash on any business that tries to manipulate the legal system to destroy price publicity. They should be the ones in fear.

[lotsofpulp]

> If there's one piece of information that is public by nature in a free market is price, folks.

The whole concept of a market does not work without price transparency. The more price transparency, the more efficient the market.

[adql]

> However, as a provider I can totally see a situation where I (proverbially, I'm not in this business) sue you for disclosing what amounts to a trade secret (depending on what's in the fine print) and compel you to give up all documents so I can go after my loose-lipped client too.

I don't see this holding in court aside from the company needing to remove that info from the site.

You are not beholden to NDA you have not signed, and it woudld be employee that shared it breaking any agreements, not the company that then shared it.

[blackeyeblitzar]

I’m not sure you can sue to block price signals and that seems blatantly anti competitive. Also other services provide this type of intelligence already, like Vendr, Sastrify, Torii, etc.

[pc86]

There is no scenario where pricing information can legitimately be described as a trade secret.

Sure you may be able to find some unscrupulous attorney who will make the argument that you charging $5 for one thing and $6 for another is somehow a "trade secret" so they can keep on billing, but that's only "legitimate" in the sense that a dictator is legitimate because they hold power. Price transparency and discoverability is a bedrock tenant of free market capitalism and any market to the contrary should be viewed as a direct attack on the free market. It's about as un-American a thing as you can get.

[burnte]

Prices aren't trade secrets.

[spxneo]

prices aren't a trade secret and difficult to enforce even if its covered under an NDA

[staticautomatic]

They totally can be. There's plenty of case law on it.

Source: I'm a 3L about to graduate with an IP specialization and got an award for being the best student in my trade secret law class.

[spxneo]

can you share some?

[staticautomatic]

Here's 4 from the first page of results on WestLaw:

- Ahern Rentals, 59 F.4th 948 (2023)

- Wilmington Star-News, 125 N.C. App. 174 (1997)

- Ingram, 260 Md. App. 122 (2023)

- Intertek Testing Servs., 443 F. Supp. 3d 303 (2020)

[CPLX]

The first one is obviously distinguishable. It’s an action against competitors.

I’ll save myself the trouble of doing your research for you and ask if any of these involved a fact pattern where customers of a service sharing price info with each other is considered a trade secret.

Here’s a hint: if I am the customer and I am describing something that I myself did, specifically the outcome of a business decision I made on how much to pay, that’s not someone else’s trade secret.

[staticautomatic]

A customer can misappropriate a vendor’s trade secret and price lists can be trade secrets. As a general matter these propositions easily fall within the relevant laws (UTSA, DTSA, NY common law) and there are plenty of cases around the country supporting that. If you have a different opinion, all I can say is that I believe you’d find out in court that you’re wrong.

[spxneo]

looking at the third one it does seem like pricing did fall under confidential data but that was after the database with those info was directly accessed

> Trial court did not err in finding the plaintiff took reasonable steps under the circumstances to maintain the secrecy of its trade secrets, including internal customer and pricing information, as required by MUTSA, CL § 11-1201(e)(2), where the plaintiff restricted access to the information on a company database; an employee handbook prohibited employees from removing sensitive categories of information

This seems very different from me getting a quote from you and then at a bar saying yeah XYZ enterprise plan costs $42,000/year

[staticautomatic]

If the price list is provided under NDA, that could certainly be a reasonable effort to maintain its secrecy. It should be unsurprising that NDAs are canonical examples of such efforts. The fact that any given case may be distinguishable on some issue from our hypothetical fact pattern doesn’t mean much.

[passwordoops]

"prices aren't a trade secret"

Is there a basis for this in recent case law? And how difficult would it be to enforce against a 3rd party actively publishing pricing, and therefore competitive, strategy?

Nope I'm not staying they should shut down or they will get sued, but they should do the sensible thing and talk to a good lawyer

[makeitdouble]

Not a lawyer either, but I think there is a more obvious angle to this: publicly traded companies can be audited, publish costs to investors, list their creditors and amount when going bankrupt, ask for tax rebates by declaring their expenses etc. In many circumstances their money flow needs to be transparent.

Not being allowed to expose the buying price of a service would go against many of these procedures/obligations.

We could look at it the same way disclosing one's salary can't be illegal: how do you then apply for a loan for instance ?

[spxneo]

there hasn't been any caselaw from my knowledge where they went after a customer for revealing the price of a software license

prices wouldn't be enforceable because knowing how much you charge isn't revealing anything proprietary (because you have to tell your customers in order to get them to make a decision).

Also not exactly possible to expect confidentiality around prices because your banks and their staff will see it..

[passwordoops]

Just to be clear, we both agree we're not lawyers

But I can argue that pricing is part of my strategy and revealing pricing information in cases where I explicitly forbade it is potentially damaging because it allows a competitor to undercut me. I'd be surprised if they do go after a client, but my concern for these guys is they are not a client. They are an aggregator of this information. If any of these quotes were given with the caveat that pricing should not be shared, then a named company who's on the pricier side might have a good leg to stand on arguing this site damaged their business with what amounts to a trade secret (pricing strategy). At three very least or could result in a letter and headaches. Asking for who gave the information is something I would totally see too, especially if this was a client who jumped ship, if anything else just as a scare tactic/revenge

[thayne]

> it allows a competitor to undercut me

So, allows them to compete with you...

IANAL, and don't know how the law actually applies to this, but prohibiting customers or potential customers from disclosing price information clearly seems anti-competitive to me. And in some ways it is even worse than giving you an advantage for you over your competitors, if all your competitors also keep pricing a trade secret. In that case it gives you and your "competitors" an advantage against the customer, because the customer can't effectively compare prices, at least without expending considerable effort, which can result in the customer paying more. Especially for smaller companies with less negotiating power.

[airstrike]

also not a lawyer, but unless your contract includes specific confidentiality around the price, I don't think disclosing it is an issue. it will be very, very hard to argue it's a trade secret because it is not, in fact, a secret

[e12e]

> Also not exactly possible to expect confidentiality around prices because your banks and their staff will see it..

There's a big difference between seeing data in the course of your job, and being legally able to share it!

[CPLX]

By default you’re legally able to share it. It’s your data, you’re telling someone how much you paid for something.

Something can’t be a trade secret if it’s not a secret at all, and if you’re the seller, and the information is a description of something someone else did (ie how much the buyer paid) then it’s not your secret to defend.

[unstatusthequo]

Pricing isn’t a trade secret.

[passwordoops]

Best you consult a lawyer on the subject first. Trade secrets can certainly include "Pricing strategies and information" (1)

(1) https://www.lplegal.com/content/what-are-trade-secrets-and-h...

[OccamsMirror]

Pricing strategy isn't the same thing as a price you gave a client.

[nosefurhairdo]

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems possible that an enterprise software licensing agreement could contain a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality clause.

Not making a value judgement and happy to be corrected if this is not a thing.

[airstrike]

but then that's a breach of an NDA which is not the same as sharing a quote-unquote "trade secret"

[willcipriano]

Sounds like something the FTC should investigate.

[mediaman]

What are they going to investigate?

The FTC is going to render contractual terms negotiated in good faith between well-represented and sophisticated commercial buyers “just because”?

If a big buyer wants better terms, the seller might give it to them under the condition the pricing info isn’t leaked, spoiling the rest of their market. Otherwise they don’t give it. So the buyer agrees to confidentiality to get the best terms. There’s zero chance the FTC gets in the middle of this kind of negotiation.

[lotsofpulp]

> The FTC is going to render contractual terms negotiated in good faith between well-represented and sophisticated commercial buyers “just because”?

Because without price transparency, markets do not work (microecon 101, prices are the signals from which supply and demand curve movements are determined). How can participants in a society determine where to allocate supply of resources without being able to see prices?

And making markets work more efficiently should surely be in the purview of the Federal Trade Commission.

[thayne]

One might be able to argue that by keeping the pricing secret the big buyer is colluding with the seller to give the seller an advantage in in negotiating prices with other buyers, which could include competitors of the big buyer.

I think that would be unlikely to go anywhere with the current FTC though.

[RowanH]

I can totally see some uninformed staff member contributing what they're paying for things, and landing their employer in deep, deep, trouble with their suppliers.

I've found in competitive price analysis there's some companies that do very, very, well at hiding their pricing. If they've worked that hard, that long, to protect/hide pricing they're not going to take it lying down.