Ask a room of business owners whether they show prices on their website and most will say no. Ask a room of customers what they want from a business website and "what does it cost" is near the top every time. Somebody has to give.
We show ours. From $2,000, with most jobs landing between $2,000 and $3,000. Here is why, and how to think about it for your own business.
Why businesses hide prices
The reasons are usually some mix of these:
- Every job is different, so there is no single number.
- Competitors will see it and undercut.
- A price without context sounds expensive.
- Getting the customer on the phone first gives you a chance to explain the value.
All of those are real. None of them changes what the customer does next, which is leave your site and find someone who will tell them.
What hiding prices actually costs
You still get the price shoppers. They just ring, take twenty minutes of your time, and then say it is more than they expected. A price on the site would have saved you both the call.
You lose the people who assumed you were dearer than you are. This one hurts. Plenty of good businesses look expensive precisely because they are vague, and quietly lose work to someone who published a number.
Google and AI assistants cannot answer for you. "How much does a kitchen renovation cost in Logan" is searched every day. If your site has an honest answer, you can be the one that appears. If it does not, somebody else will be. SEO, AEO and GEO in plain English explains why the written answer matters.
How to show prices when the honest answer is "it depends"
You do not need a price list. You need three things:
- A starting point. "Bathroom renovations from $18,000." A floor stops people assuming it is $5,000 and then being disappointed.
- A typical range. "Most of our bathrooms land between $22,000 and $35,000." This is the number people actually want.
- What moves it. Two or three plain sentences on what pushes a job up or down. Size, moving plumbing, tiles to the ceiling. Now the customer can place themselves in the range before they call.
That is more useful than a price list and far more honest than silence. Here is roughly how it reads on a services page, which how to write a services page covers in more detail:
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| Contact us for a quote | From $18,000. Most bathrooms land between $22,000 and $35,000 |
| Prices vary | What moves the price: size, moving plumbing, and tiling height |
| Competitive rates | Fixed price agreed in writing before we start |
Rules worth following
The starting price must be real. A "from" figure that nobody has ever paid is worse than no price. Customers notice, and so does your reputation.
Say what is included. A number with no scope invites arguments later. One line on what the price covers is enough.
Say whether it is fixed or an estimate. People will forgive a higher price more easily than a surprise.
Keep it current. A price from 2022 still on the site in 2026 is a problem either way. Put a reminder in your calendar to check it twice a year.
When not to show prices
There are a few genuine cases. If you work on large projects where every job is quoted from scratch, publishing a number may do more harm than good. If your prices are set by someone else, such as a franchise, you may not be allowed to. And if your trade genuinely has no typical range, say that, and say why.
Even then, say something. "Most of our projects are between $80,000 and $250,000" is still better than nothing, and it filters the enquiries you do get.
Why we show ours
We put the number on our own site for exactly these reasons. Anyone who rings already knows the ballpark, and anyone for whom it is the wrong ballpark has saved themselves a call. We would rather lose an enquiry we could never have won than waste half an hour of someone's day.
If you are rewriting your pages and not sure where the price belongs, what to put on your homepage puts it in context with everything else a visitor is looking for.