Should You Show Prices on Your Website? The Honest Answer for Trades
Show prices and scare nobody, or hide them and lose the researcher? The middle ground that works for trades, and the calculator pattern that turned pricing into a lead machine.
Half the trade owners we talk to are convinced showing prices scares customers off. The other half are convinced hiding them does. Both are half right. The move for most trades is the middle ground: publish “from” ranges and cost guides, keep exact quotes for the conversation, and let a calculator qualify the serious where the job suits one. Silence loses the researcher; a naked price list anchors you into arguments. Here is how to hold the middle.
What hiding prices actually costs
Price is one of the first things visitors look for (the check step). Finding nothing, they assume expensive, or worse, they leave for the competitor whose cost guide answered the question. “Contact us for pricing” reads as “brace yourself”. Meanwhile “how much does X cost” searches are exactly the high-intent queries a cost guide ranks for, silence is an SEO donation to whoever publishes numbers first.
What full transparency risks (the honest other side)
Custom work genuinely cannot be priced sight-unseen, a published number becomes an anchor argued against you on site. Competitors will read your list, and a price given without context always feels high because the visitor cannot see the difference between you and the $99 cowboy. These are real, which is why the answer is not “publish everything”.
The middle ground, in practice
| Approach | Example | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| “From” pricing | “Bathroom renovations from $20k” | Filtering tyre-kickers while staying approachable |
| Cost guides | “What a reno costs in Cairns and what moves the number” | Winning the research phase + the “cost” searches |
| Package prices | Fixed price for genuinely fixed scope | Standardised services |
| Calculator | Inputs in, instant estimate out | Jobs with knowable variables, and it doubles as a lead magnet |
The calculator pattern (the strongest version)
MYBUILD’s instant bathroom calculator is the proof case: visitors get a real estimate range in seconds, MYBUILD gets a qualified lead who has already seen the ballpark and continued anyway. It answers the price question, filters the mismatches, and captures the serious, the centrepiece of a site holding two page-one rankings for “bathroom renovations cairns” with 100+ leads (the case study).
Whatever you choose, say the +GST part
Ranges with GST noted, what is included, what moves the price. The goal is never to quote from the website, it is to make the visitor feel informed enough to call. (We publish our own numbers on the quote builder for exactly this reason, it filters as much as it sells.)
Not sure which pattern fits your trade? Book a discovery call, pricing strategy is a ten-minute conversation with your job types in front of us.