Should you put your prices on your website?
Most answers to this are opinion. This one is not, or at least not entirely: we read the published pricing pages of 88 home service businesses and recorded what was actually on them, 311 priced lines in total.
The interesting part is not that they publish prices. It is how.
What they actually show
Of the 311 priced lines:
- 77 percent were a range. Two numbers, a low and a high, for one described job.
- 14 percent were a starting price. One number with the word "from" in front of it.
- 9 percent were a single fixed figure. One number, no range, no qualifier.
So the fear that publishing a price means being held to that price describes something roughly one business in eleven actually does. The rest publish a shape, not a commitment.
Spread across painting 106, HVAC 87, plumbing 62, electrical 56. This is what we found on the sites we read while collecting prices for our cost guides, not a survey of the industry. It is a convenience sample and worth reading as one.
The argument against, and what is actually true in it
"My competitors will undercut me"
They can already call and ask, and the ones who care enough to do that have. What a published range does is set the frame before somebody else does. A customer who has seen your numbers judges the next quote against them rather than against the cheapest ad they saw.
"Every job is different"
True, and it is why 77 percent publish a range. The question is not whether the work varies, it is whether you can name the band it varies inside. If you cannot, that is worth knowing about your own pricing before a customer finds out.
"I will be held to the number"
Only if you publish it as one. A range with the conditions written next to it is a starting point for a conversation, which is what most of these pages are.
The risk nobody mentions
Publishing prices works. That is the problem.
The enquiries go up, and they arrive at the times you cannot answer: on a job, in a van, at nine on a Saturday. The businesses that regret publishing prices are usually not the ones that got undercut. They are the ones that got more enquiries than they could answer and let them go cold, which reads to a customer exactly like being ignored.
So the honest order is: work out what you can answer, then publish.
Questions people ask
Do contractors actually publish their prices?
Many do. Reading the pricing pages of 88 home service businesses turned up 311 priced lines across plumbing, electrical, HVAC and painting work. It is more common than the argument about it suggests.
Does publishing a price mean being held to it?
Mostly not, because most businesses do not publish a fixed number. Of the 311 priced lines we read, 77 percent were a range, 14 percent a starting price such as "from 269 dollars", and only 9 percent a single figure. Publishing a price and committing to a price are different things.
What is the risk of showing prices?
The real one is not being undercut, it is being called by people who were only ever going to ask the price. A published number filters the ones who cannot afford the work, and it increases the ones who can. Whether that trade is worth it depends on whether you can answer the enquiries it produces.
Should a price on a website be a range or a fixed number?
A range is what most publish, and it is honest for work that varies. A starting price is the other common shape and says the same thing more plainly. A single fixed figure only makes sense for work that genuinely does not vary, which for most trades is a short list.
Working out what you can answer
That is the part Tono was built for. A customer asks for a price through your quote link, Tono asks the follow-up questions you would ask and prices the job from the rates you set, and you get a draft to approve, edit or decline. The customer sees nothing until you say so.
Free during early access, no card. Or draft a quote for a real job right now with no signup, and see what it produces before you decide anything.