Quoting Guide
Should I Put My Prices on My Website?
By Liam Bucklen · Last updated September 7, 2026 · 7 min read
The short answer
Put a starting number on the page. Skip the full price list. Most people who leave your site without calling aren't leaving because your price is too high. They're leaving because they can't tell whether you're anywhere near their budget, and guessing is uncomfortable enough that they'd rather open the next tab. The version that works for most Pittsburgh trades businesses is three lines: the job you do most with a starting-at number in front of it, the two or three things that move that number, and a plain sentence saying the real figure comes after you see the work. That keeps every bit of your room to quote. Leaving the number off doesn't protect your pricing. Somebody else answers the question and gets the call you were waiting on.
Forty quotes, six jobs
A plumber out of Ross called me in the spring, worn down. He'd written forty quotes in a month and closed six of them.
He was sure his prices were the problem.
I asked him what happened between the phone call and the quote. Same story almost every time. Somebody found him, called, described a water heater going out, waited two days for a written number, then went quiet.
He wasn't losing jobs on price. He was losing them on a two-day wait for a number he could have printed on his homepage.
What a missing number actually does
When there's no price anywhere on a contractor's site, nobody assumes you're reasonable. They assume you're expensive, or they assume finding out means sitting through a visit. Both guesses end the same way, which is a closed tab and a call to the next company.
Then there's the other half, the people who do call. Some of those calls were never going to become work. Somebody with $400 in mind asking about a $3,200 job costs you the call, the drive, and an hour you don't get back. A number on the page tells him that before either of you spends anything.
Silence doesn't screen anybody. It just moves the screening onto your truck.
Worth knowing
- People search the money question directly. If you run Google Ads, open your own search terms report and count how often cost, price, and how much show up next to your service. On the accounts owners have shown me it's near the top every time.
- Homeowners rarely stop at one company. In the jobs I've watched go out around Pittsburgh, the outfit that answers the money question first usually gets the second conversation. That's my read from a few dozen jobs, not a published figure.
- A quote that arrives in two days is competing against quotes that arrived in an hour. Speed reads as competence whether or not that's fair.
- A starting-at block takes about an hour to write and costs nothing to publish. A full flat-rate price list takes weeks of real pricing work.
- When somebody asks an assistant what a water heater replacement runs in Pittsburgh, it has to pull the figure off a page somewhere. A site with no numbers on it can't be the page it pulls from.
Four ways to handle price on the page
Every trades site does one of these, usually by accident rather than on purpose.
| What matters | No prices at all | Starting-at range | Full price list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls you get | More, poorly matched | Fewer, better matched | Fewest, mostly decided |
| Quotes written per job won | Highest | Lower | Lowest |
| Room to quote the real number | Total | Kept, with a floor | Mostly gone |
| Work to set up | None | About an hour | Weeks of pricing work |
| Best fit | Bid-from-plans commercial | Almost every trades business | Flat-rate, high-volume work |
What a starting number looks like when it works
Three lines. That's the whole thing.
The job you do most, with a number in front of it. Water heater replacement, starting at $1,450 installed.
What moves it. A tankless unit, a permit, a tight basement, a Sunday call.
The honest caveat. Final number after I see it, and the quote holds for thirty days.
That third line is the thing owners are afraid of losing, and it's sitting right there in plain sight. You didn't lock yourself into anything. You told somebody enough to decide whether to pick up the phone, which is all they were ever asking for.
The two things owners say back
One is competitors. They'll see my prices.
They already know your prices. They've been quoting against you for years, and if any of them wanted your number today they'd call your office and ask for one. The only person your silence keeps in the dark is the customer deciding between you and the company down the road that did publish something.
The other is flexibility. If I post a number I can't charge more than it.
You can, as long as the page said starting at and named what moves it. What you actually give up is pricing the same job differently depending on the neighborhood and the car in the driveway. That one I'd let go of anyway.
When leaving the number off is the right call
There are real cases. Commercial work bid from plans. Insurance and restoration jobs where the carrier sets the figure. Anything where the scope isn't knowable until somebody's on site with a camera down a line.
Even then, put something on the page. How you charge, whether the estimate is free, what a typical project has run. People aren't demanding a price out of you. They're checking whether talking to you is going to be a straight conversation, which is the same thing they're checking when they read any other part of a site that isn't getting leads.
Where the plumber landed
We added one block to his homepage. Three of the jobs he does most, each with a starting number, and a line under them naming what pushes the price up.
He didn't lower a single price. He didn't change a single quote.
He called me in June and said he was writing about half as many quotes. He also said he was closing more of them, and I'll pass that along as his word rather than mine, since I don't have his books.
The forty quotes were never the work. They were the tax he was paying for not answering a question. Putting the number somewhere visible is the same kind of decision as publishing what a website costs, which is why my own pricing sits on the services page instead of behind a form.
Before you write another quote
Pull up your own site and read it like somebody with water on the floor and a number in their head. Find one figure. Any figure.
If you can't, you already know what that visitor did next. Somebody in your trade published a number this year, and that's who's getting the call while you're still writing quote forty-one.
Common questions
Should I put prices on my website?
Put a starting number and a short range on the page, not a full price list. Name the job you do most, give a starting-at figure, and list the two or three things that move it. That answers the question a visitor came with, filters out the people who were never going to hire you, and leaves your room to quote the real number after you see the work.
Will my competitors use my prices against me if I post them?
Your competitors already know roughly what you charge. They have been quoting against you for years, and any of them could call your office and ask for a number today. The person your silence actually keeps in the dark is the customer who is deciding between you and the company down the road that did publish something.
What should I do if every job I quote is a different size?
Price the version of the job you do most often rather than the job you do rarely. A plumber can post a starting number for a standard water heater replacement even though a repipe is unknowable. Add a line naming what pushes the number up, like a tankless unit, a permit, a tight basement, or a weekend call, and say the final figure comes after you see it.
Is a starting price better than a full price list?
For most trades businesses, yes. A full price list only works when your work is genuinely flat rate, and building one takes real pricing effort you probably do not have time for. A starting-at number takes about an hour to write, answers the same question, and keeps your quoting flexible. Full lists fit high-volume standard services like drain cleaning or tune-ups.
Not sure what your page says about price?
Send me your site and the one job you do most. I'll tell you what a first-time visitor can figure out about your pricing in ten seconds, where the number belongs on the page, and how to word it so you keep every bit of your room to quote. You'll hear back within 24 hours. No pressure, no obligations.
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