It's one of the most common arguments we have with clients, and it's usually the same two sentences. "If we put prices up, we'll scare people off." Or, "If we put prices up, our competitors will undercut us." Both are reasonable worries. Both are usually wrong — or at least, wrong in the way they're being applied.
The short answer
For most small service businesses, some form of pricing belongs on your website. Not necessarily a full price list, and not necessarily a fixed number — but enough that a visitor can work out whether you're in their ballpark before they pick up the phone. The goal isn't to close the sale on the page. The goal is to filter: fewer enquiries, better ones, and far less time spent quoting jobs that were never going to happen.
The real exception is genuinely bespoke work where scope swings wildly — but even then, a starting price or a typical range beats silence.
What hiding your prices actually costs you
When there's no price anywhere, the visitor has three options: guess, ask, or leave. Most leave. The ones who ask fall into two groups — people who are seriously interested, and people shopping on price alone who are about to email six of your competitors the same message. You end up doing your most expensive work, quoting, for the people least likely to buy.
There's a second cost that's easier to miss. A page with no price gives a visitor nothing to weigh you against. If they can't see value and cost side by side, they can't decide you're worth it — they can only decide you're a hassle. Price is context. Without it, your beautiful portfolio is just pictures.
The competitor argument, honestly
Yes, your competitors can see your prices. They can also ring you and ask, or send a mate in as a fake enquiry. If your entire advantage is that nobody knows what you charge, that's a fragile position regardless of what's on your site.
The businesses that get undercut are the ones selling an undifferentiated thing. If a competitor can genuinely do the same work for less, hiding your number doesn't save you — it just delays the conversation. What protects a price is everything around it: proof, guarantees, response times, who actually does the work, what happens if something goes wrong. Publish the price and the reasons for it together, and undercutting stops being an easy move.
Four ways to publish pricing without committing to a number
You don't have to choose between a full price list and nothing. In practice there's a spectrum, and most businesses land somewhere in the middle.
Starting-from pricing. "Projects typically start at $X." Simple, honest, and enough to filter out someone with a $500 budget. Make sure the number is real — a fake-low "from" price is the fastest way to lose trust in the first meeting.
Ranges tied to scope. "A small five-page site is usually $A–$B. A larger site with booking and payments is usually $C–$D." This is the most useful format for service businesses, because it teaches the visitor what drives the cost — which makes your eventual quote feel reasoned rather than plucked out of the air.
Packages. Three tiers with what's included in each. Works well when your work genuinely comes in shapes. Works badly when you're inventing tiers to look organised.
A worked example. "Here's a job we did last month, what was involved, and what it cost." Sometimes the most persuasive pricing page is one real story rather than a table.
How to write the page so it converts instead of scaring people
Placement and framing do most of the work here. A few things that consistently help:
Put the price after the value, not before it. Explain what's included, who it's for, and what the outcome looks like — then the number. Same figure, very different reaction.
Explain what moves the price up or down. Two or three factors is plenty. This turns a scary number into a decision the visitor feels part of.
Say who it isn't for. "If you need a simple one-pager, we're probably not the right fit — here's what we'd suggest instead." It sounds like you're turning away work. It reads as confidence, and it saves everyone time.
Give the next step immediately. The moment after someone reads a price is the moment they're most likely to act. A clear call to action right there — a call booking, a short enquiry form — catches them while they're deciding.
Keep it current. An out-of-date price on a live page is worse than no price. Diarise a review every six to twelve months.
How to tell if it's working
Don't judge it on enquiry volume alone, because the number of enquiries should probably go down. Watch the quality instead: what proportion of enquiries turn into quotes, what proportion of quotes turn into jobs, and how much time you spend per won job. If enquiries halve but conversions hold steady, the page is doing exactly what you built it for.
Give it a fair run — a quarter at minimum for most small businesses — before you draw conclusions. And keep a note of what people say on first contact. When enquiries start opening with "I saw your pricing and this looks about right," you've saved yourself an entire conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Won't publishing prices make me look expensive?
Only if the price appears without context. Someone who sees a number alongside what's included, why it costs that, and evidence you deliver, is judging value rather than cost. If you're genuinely at the higher end, saying so plainly attracts the clients who want that and repels the ones who don't — which is the point.
What if my pricing really does vary that much?
Then publish the variables instead of the number. Explain the three or four things that drive cost in your trade, give a typical range for a common job, and be clear that a proper quote needs a conversation. Visitors are far more forgiving of "it depends, and here's what it depends on" than of nothing at all.
Should I use a pricing calculator?
They can work well when your pricing follows clear rules — square metres, number of rooms, number of users. They work badly when the logic is fuzzy, because a calculator implies a precision you can't honour. If in doubt, a well-written range beats a calculator that produces a number you'll have to walk back.
Does showing pricing help with Google?
Indirectly. People search things like "how much does X cost in Perth", and a page that actually answers that can rank for those searches. The bigger benefit is that it's high-intent traffic — someone searching for cost is usually much closer to buying than someone browsing.
Where should pricing live on the site?
A dedicated pricing page is worth having, because people look for it in the navigation. But don't stop there — repeat the relevant range on the individual service pages too, so a visitor who lands directly on one from Google doesn't have to go hunting.
What if I've never published prices and I'm nervous about it?
Start small. Add a single "from" line to one service page, leave it for a quarter, and watch what happens to enquiry quality. It's a reversible change, and the data you get from it will settle the argument faster than any opinion — including ours.