Should you put prices on your trade website?

Why trades keep prices off their websites

Many trades don't show prices online, and the reasons come up again and again:

• "Customers will use my price to check someone else's." You do the work of pricing, and they take your number to a cheaper firm.
• "Competitors will see my rates."
• "Every job is different." A price on a website can't know about the rotten joist or the awkward access.
• "A price will put people off." Better to get them talking and explain the value.

Each of these is a fair worry. Here is how each one holds up.

"Customers will use my price as a check price"

They will. But they will do that whatever form your price takes. A written quote after a visit gets compared. A price over the phone gets compared. Customers compare because the job matters to them, not because of where the price came from.

What a website changes is when the comparison happens. Without a price, it happens after you have visited, measured and written a quote. With one, it happens before you have spent anything. If a customer is going to shop around, it is better that they do it before your evening goes on them.

And a price on your website does something a quote can't: it gets the decision made sooner. A customer who sees a price that fits their budget can get in touch the same day, instead of waiting for three visits and three quotes.

"Competitors will see my rates"

Any competitor who really wants your prices can already get them, by asking for a quote. A website doesn't give them anything a quote request wouldn't.

It is also worth separating your prices from your rates. A finished price for one job tells a competitor far less than your price list, your day rate and your margins. There are ways to show customers a price for their job without publishing any of those (see below).

"Every job is different"

This is the strongest objection, and it is true. It argues against a fixed price list. It doesn't argue against a guide price.

A guide price says: for a job like yours, this is roughly what it will cost, and we will confirm it once we have seen it. Customers understand that. What they find hard is no number at all, because it leaves them unable to tell whether you are in their budget.

"A price will put people off"

It will put some people off. Usually the right ones: people whose budget was never going to fit. Without a price, you find that out after the visit. With one, they find it out themselves, and the people who do get in touch already know roughly what it will cost. The money conversation has already started.

The ways to show prices

If you decide to show prices, there is more than one way to do it:

• "From" prices. "Combi swaps from £…", "laminate from £… per m²". Quick to set up. The downside is that customers fix on the lowest number, and every job ends up being explained as "more than the from price".
• Price ranges for typical jobs. "A typical three-bed semi: £… to £…". Fairer than a "from" price, but customers still have to guess where they sit in the range.
• Example jobs. A few real recent jobs with what they cost. Good for trust, but customers have to find one that looks like theirs.
• A price calculator. The customer answers questions about their own job and sees a guide price for it. The most work to set up, and the closest to a real quote.

Whichever you choose, say plainly that it is a guide, what's included, and what would change it.

Where Build A Quote fits

Build A Quote is a price calculator for trade websites. Your customer answers the questions you'd ask on a visit and sees a guide price for their own job, worked out on your rates. Prices are worked out on our server, not in the customer's browser, so your price list isn't sent to the customer. You receive the enquiry with all their answers, and you still confirm the price before any work starts.

It answers the check-price worry the same way any price does: the customer can compare it. But they compare it having already had a price from you, the same day, for their own job.