Ask HN: “Contact us for pricing” nonsense

I have personal experience working on both the software and marketing site for the software product like this.

In particular, we had a very high-touch sales process that started with cold-calling or references. The marketing website was more likely to act as an aid to a cold call than as Google traffic.

Second, it was a more abstract product with a custom implementation that had to pull data from whatever pre-existing software they were using.

Also, it was a very young product that was constantly evolving with ad-hoc deals and pricing. Some would buy the software package outright with full integration, demanding high-touch support and training. Others were willing to go with our “development partner” package, with a 50% discount off any custom implementation - but we also retained the ability to decline those customizations if they didn’t fit with our vision.

Also, the product was so abstract, it was very rare that its potential would be understood without a conversation.

Finally, often the person “tasked” with buying the software was not actually the holder of the purse strings. They usually needed a boss or other stakeholder to sign off and write the check. So it wasn’t really advantageous to discuss the price and sticker-shock that the lower level employee might experience, vs the business owner who was more used to making those types of purchases. Really, we needed to turn the person who was doing the inquiry into an advocate for our product within their organization. If they could advocate the value of our product to the check writer in an effective manner, it reduced the friction for us to come in and tell the check writer the price of the solution. Then we let them make the judgement call.

Another part of this is that since the sales process was very high touch, and since we were so small. There was a serious opportunity cost to incur if our sales guy was wasting his time creating materials for a particular customer who wasn’t going to buy. So we would quickly qualify the customer by getting them to pay a non-trivial amount of money to RESEARCH the implementation. If they paid that qualifying cost, we would ask for information on all of the software systems they had in place, along with database schema information. Then we would pour over it to determine what we could do with that data, if it would be a successful implementation, and if there was any data missing that we’d need to collect. Either from a UI or through a bulk dump from some obscure archive. That was definitely not worth the opportunity cost of a barely interested customer.

Overall, I think we were trying to be honest and fair. Not trying to price gouge or anything, but it was a very complicated product, and it was a complicated sale.

Now being a technically minded business owner, I have been on the other end of this and found it to be extremely annoying. But it is not too often that whatever product I am looking at is being researched directly by a business owner with check-writing ability, and one who is also coming from a technical background. So while it annoys me, I get why the company/product is choosing to do that.

Some thoughts after reading your various responses in this thread:

1. You seem to be looking for commodity pricing -- that is, you just want the product/service, and you do not want any others services related to it.

2. Most (all?) of the vendors are unwilling to provide open commodity-level pricing. This makes me think that one of two things (perhaps both) are in play. One is that the margin on commodity-level pricing just isn't worth the time. If that's the case, good luck finding a vendor -- maybe go straight to the manufacturer.

3. The other (more likely imho) is that the device requires something else to reach its full potential/value, and that something else is variably priced (e.g., set up, follow up, maintenance, etc.). If that's the case, make the call and either buy their expertise or demonstrate that you do not need their expertise. You can get to a near-commodity price fairly quickly if you actually know your stuff.

4. You seem to think that the "song and dance" is a waste of time. As a provider, I want satisfied customers. I want to add value to their experience purchasing through me. There exist cases where certain unsophisticated customers think that all they need is a product or service, and they do not realize that the real value add is in something else (e.g., the proficiency with which the product is used, onboarding, etc.). There are a lot of products and services for which this holds true. I have declined to do business with people because I knew they would use the product/service I was selling them in an inefficient manner and then blame me for it not working.

5. My general thought about customers like you who are not even willing to pick up the phone is that I do not want you as a customer. If you can qualify yourself as needing absolutely zero support, I am happy to sell you a product or service at a lean margin, and I have a sales process that accommodates that. If you do not trust me to qualify you as a customer, then feel free find someone else to do business with.

6. Beware of becoming a pathological customer. You may find that somehow your options are much narrower than others around you. Good business people engage in mutually beneficial relationships -- show that you can add value to the relationship (money is just one factor).

A few possible reasons for this:

- You aren't their target audience. I come from enterprise SaaS, where we often force people to talk to someone, and working with sales is not a problem for the people we care about. I know that someone who has your reaction (calling it a "sales dance" and assuming you'll be spammed) is unlikely to be a real buyer, since real buyers are accustomed to the sales process. They also appreciate that sales reps for this type of product can be really valuable. Maybe you're the exception here, but it's worth losing your business to filter out bad leads.

- They've done the math and realized that when they get someone on the phone, they are better able to build a long term relationship and have a substantially greater customer LTV. They lose some customers, but the ones they retain end up being higher enough in value to offset the loss.

- The product can't be sold as a standalone item - it requires setup and integration, and without understanding what you have in place already, they can't give you a quote. Of course, this seems less likely for a hardware solution.

- Related to the above, it's possible that it's a complex product to set up, and they've found that if they don't get you on the phone, you're likely to screw up the setup and get mad at them and/or return it. Better to scare you away up front if you're ultimately just going to take up time and end up getting a refund.

Ultimately, the answer to this question and any like it is that if they're competent, they do this because they've done the research and determined that it is better for them (typically in terms of revenue generation, but really better is defined as they see fit).

I ask this question a lot from new clients coming in for marketing or ecommerce rebuilds who have this style pricing.

I get three answers

1. Not allowed ( manufacturer/vendor regs)

2. High Touch sales, "anyone who was over worried about price isn't likely a buyer/good match" real buyers know the price range and we need to customize/vet the buyer

3. Highly customizable product that they cant or won't invest into making possible to pre-price online, probably wont get added to a cart and shipped or sold without a buyer wanting to actually talk to someone)

( for example, a 150k Caterpillar with various attachment options)

Manufacturers typically dictate reseller pricing and marketing to serve the needs of their brand ("you can't sell below x as that makes our product seem cheap") so dictating a sales tactic isn't unimaginable. Especially if the tactic is designed to sell services and what not the manufacturer offers via the resellers.

My other guess is that the resellers have figured out that while they cannot fleece you on the price of the device - they all sell the same, identical hardware after all - they can charge you extra for services, support insurance and extra options as long as those prices aren't readily available for comparison.