Should You Put Your Prices on Your Website?

Should you put your prices on your website… or not? 

This is one of those questions that sparks a lot of opinions. 

Some people will tell you: 
“Always show your prices.” 

Others will say: 
“Never show your prices—get them on a call.” 

And it’s very common to feel stuck somewhere in the middle. 

In this episode, we’re breaking down the real answer—because it’s not as black and white as most people make it. 

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Transcript

The Pricing Question Framing

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Should you put your prices on your website or not? This is one of those questions that sparks a lot of opinions. Some people will tell you, always show your prices. Others will say never show your prices. Get them on a call first. And it's very common to feel stuck somewhere in the middle. In this episode, we're breaking down the real answer because it's not as black and white as most people make it. And I'll walk you through how to decide what's right for your business, your offers, and your audience. I'll also share the one mistake I see business owners making when they do show pricing that actually hurts conversions instead of helping them. Let's dive in. Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about whether you should show prices on your website or not. Now, obviously, if you're an e-commerce listener and you have standardized prices and not custom prices, you should always show your prices. However, if you're an e-commerce owner who has custom prices, you are a coach, course creator, or otherwise some sort of entrepreneur where you provide services, then you may or may not want to show your prices. So let's figure that out. How do we decide do you show your prices or not on your website? And we want to talk about this because pricing isn't just about numbers. It's about expectations, it's about trust, it's about qualification, it's a decision-making item. When someone lands on your website, they're trying to figure out is this something I can afford? Is it worth it? And this is for someone like me. So how you handle pricing directly impacts whether they move forward or whether they leave. There are some strong beliefs that putting pricing on your website is very important. So there's certain things you should consider if you think you should be putting prices on your website. So it one thing it does really help is it pre-qualifies your leads. So people who reach out to you already know your range of prices. You spend less time on calls with people who aren't a good fit for you. It also can build trust. Transparency can really feel refreshing. It shows confidence in your offer as well. So this trust building factor can really help you. It also reduces friction. People don't have to hunt for information. They can make faster decisions, whether they're a fit or not for you. And it can attract the right buyers. Buyers who value clarity are ready to invest and more likely to move forward. So that can really help you attract good, you know, the appropriate buyers. But this is where it can go wrong if it's not done strategically on your website, too. And then let's talk about the situations where not showing prices on your website makes sense. So if you have complex or custom offers, so if your pricing varies quite a bit based upon scope, listing the price can confuse people and make them not sure what to do. And then that leads into the next part of this, is they might need context first before the pricing matters. So sometimes people need to understand the value before they see the number. So this would be a situation where you might be cautious about whether you want to put prices on your website or not. You also may want to have a conversation first. For higher ticket or relationship-driven services, a call may help be the first step so you can qualify them and they can qualify you. Also, you can help avoid price shock if you don't have your prices on your website. Because if somebody sees a number without the context behind that number, it's going to be hard for them to see the value and you'll reduce price shock by not having your price on the website. So, what about for you and for your current situation? How do you decide whether to be on the show prices fence or the don't show prices fence? So it's not always about whether we're showing prices or not here. We want to align this option with your offer type, your audience, and your sales process. So showing your prices or not showing your prices should align with that. For example, low ticket and digital products, it's generally a good idea to show pricing for that. Like I can't really think of really any exceptions of that when it's low ticket or digital items. Also, clear service packages. So let's say you have a really clear you get XYZ when you work with, you know, you, for example, often showing prices or ranges here makes a lot of sense, especially if there's not a lot of potential for different scopes or scope creep, um, showing prices or a range can really help. Now, if you're on more of the high ticket or custom work, whether you're, you know, custom work like us, where we do custom website builds, or maybe it's a custom work as far as an e-commerce product and you're building something for them before they receive it, you might want to consider starting with a conversation first. So that mistake I mentioned earlier, that's showing prices without context or value explanation. That's what causes people to leave and bounce and just be really turned off on your website. So what if you're listening to this and you're like, ah, Carrie, I'm not quite sure whether I should show prices or not. I feel like I'm in the middle. So if you're unsure, some middle ground strategies include showing starting at prices, sharing price ranges, breaking down very specifically what's included, using case studies or examples to support you putting your pricing on there, or potentially to support not putting your pricing on there. Peer pricing with clear outcomes and benefits can really help too. So the goal is to not just show a number. We want to help someone understand what that number represents. When we are trading money for time, is basically what we're doing when we're purchasing something from somebody. Kind of really doesn't matter, doesn't matter what it is. It could be clothing. You're you're saving time on making the clothing yourself, right? Not many people want to do that. You are you know trading that time for money, they need to, or money for time, they need to see the value as to why they should give you money. How is it going to save them time? How's it going to benefit them? What are you gonna provide for them? So we need to make sure we show what that number represents if we have pricing on our website. So to wrap up, pricing is not just a detail on your website, it's a decision-making tool. And when you use it strategically, it can filter, qualify, and convert the right people before you even get them on a call. However, there are some cases where you're doing, you know, custom work, custom quotes, custom packages where pricing may not make sense. So you need to be looking at your business to see whether pricing helps you or hinders that sale. As always, you can find our show notes at SmarterOnline Business.com where you can get extra resources and sign up for our newsletter over there. And if you'd love to join our wonderful Facebook community, come on over to Smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash Facebook, and that will redirect you to our Facebook group, which you can join and ask questions just like this anytime you want. And we will see you next week.