I need some work done and many recommended Base Analytics so I thought to check their website for pricing and looks like they will only share their pricing if I contact them. I really hate such companies.
Because they want to have you as a marketing contact for their sales people to cold call until the end of time after you don’t buy it. It also let’s them do variable pricing based on how much they think you’ll pay.
Yup, it’s variable pricing. They want to be able to discriminate based on how rich they think you are, or whether or not they actually want your business. There are a lot of sales managers who will quote jobs obscenely high if they simply don’t want your business. Rather than outright saying no, they’ll use the pricing to scare you away.
Even if you do fucking buy it.
Have had plenty of manufacturers call me 6+ months after a job goes out to bid to sell me their equipment… That I already specified… And was already purchased and installed on the job site.
Like what in the flying fuck leave me alone. At least most reps that actually come in bring lunch.
I get unsolicited emails from random sales people every day at Zendesk, GoTo, Salesforce, HubSpot, Adobe, et al not even realizing I’m already a customer and have an account rep.
Oh I actually have a legitimately good reason for why the company I work for doesn’t list pricing!
I work as a tour guide at a local nature attraction, got a campground as well. It’s a privately owned thing, and a small, sorta hole in the wall place. In the past there’s been big issues of third party websites, usually illegitimate, taking info about our pricing and services and selling tickets/camp lots to customers without our know or say.
Customer shows up after paying the not-us website, complains when we have no record of them nor their payment. They technically never paid us, only a scamming website, so we can’t honor those tickets.
It was a big enough deal that reservations are currently only over the phone or in person. Kinda sucks, but it’s best for everybody involved for now.
I don’t follow how that solves the issue? If anything by removing online purchases from your own website you’re further pushing users to go to the scam site
It says explicitly on the website reservations are done over the phone or in person in the shop.
That doesn’t protect anybody who’s on a scam site though.
How was the affect of this? Was there a quantifiable lower amount of people coming with scam tickets?
this was always a sign to me that they have excruciating high prices that they’re afraid to publicize
Sometimes that’s the case. Other times, it means that the pricing varies based on the client. This is very common with enterprise software - the bigger the client, the more they can charge for the exact same SaaS system.
Or it may not be SaaS and thus it really depends on how much support and custom integrations it is going to take.
Definitely a possibility too.
The other fun thing with enterprise software is that advertised features may not even exist yet, and only get built once a client requests it. The client gets charged a fee to activate the feature, which covers a lot of the development cost to build it.
I recently went to a mall. A clothing store had QR codes as a price tag.
Why? Just… why?
Opens up a web page with a tracking cookie so they can analyze what interests you.
And if their profile thinks that you’re better off your price tags might be higher than someone on welfare
How would that work at the register though? How would they link your scan with your purchase?
Probably so they can Target you with an algorithmic price point, but if that’s not it, it’s so they can change their prices without having to pay someone to retag all the stuff
Saves them having to reprint the tags when prices change I guess, but as others suggest it might also be for tracking.
Yeah, I don’t shop at places like that. If you have a product on a shelf and I can’t find a price tag, I don’t buy it.
Why? Just… why?
It allows them to change the pricing dynamically and on a whim, without the use of stuff like wireless programmable e-ink tags (like I’ve seen in grocery stores) so they reduce staffing and maximize profit.
Sometimes it’s because the company realized that people who are just shopping the price but don’t want to call aren’t the target customer.
Maybe they customize every customer’s pricing. Or maybe it’s a long sales cycle so want you in their funnel from the start so they can stay in touch while working to close the deal.
There’s many reasons to not share a price up front but it is a clue that their solution will be customized somehow and is not focused on being cheap.
If everyone does it, you’re likely to stop at the first place that gives you a price deemed reasonable instead of doing the extra annoying work of shopping around. Stops people from just picking the cheapest option.
That plus if they are selling a non-standardised service to a business it can be challenging to work out the cost. Projects, consultancy, etc all need to be scoped and estimated.
Yeah, I think there is a fair argument that going with the cheapest option will lead to a worse outcome for you, but I do think there is a little bit of game theory involved here.
A lot of this seems to be consulting work and not actually software cost. How are they supposed to estimate the necessary number of hours if you haven’t told them what you need.
If you are serious about it, identify a few companies (no fewer than 5) and send them a Request for proposal (RfP) with what you are looking for and let them bid.
Also, even if they’re stupid enough to put up their tariff card for how much a Director/Manager/Associate billable hour is, they’re just going to get annoying questions about “Why does a manager need to do this rather than an associate?” as well as the “We think this will take you 7 hours - why are you quoting for 8?”.
Yeah, there is a legitimate complaint about “contact us” pricing, but not in this case. How do you price bespoke work without knowing what the work is?
Is it ten hours by a schmoe front end, or 2 years by the guy who invented Ethernet?
Its truly bizarre behaviour. Like some kind of psychological phenomenon where the company don’t want their time wasted by tyre kickers who aren’t serious.
Works both ways though. Put your prices up or I will just assume you aren’t competitive and skip you.
It’s not that. If the price is put out there, they’re less likely to be able to talk you into buying it, even if you think it’s too expensive. If they get you on the phone and talking the chances of you buying go way up.
Who the hell is falling victim to phone sales tactics in this day and age? Seriously. The market has never been more free. I would like to think we don’t have too many people left on earth that can be talked into a bad deal just because you manage to get them on the phone. Good luck to ya, but I won’t be your mark.
Lots of people. People call in to get a price and end up talking to the person a lot longer than they meant to. I worked in martial arts gyms for a long time, and they all use this tactic, though really they try to get people in to take a class before they give up pricing details. It works a lot of the time, but it’s exhausting to constantly have to go through that process. Not fun.
I see this as predatory behaviour and maintain my original postion: I just won’t call a business that doesn’t list their prices. I don’t want to listen to some sales jerk’s bullshit spiel about why I should pay more through their business VS getting the best price from someone who isn’t afraid to list it.
My country has amazingly strong consumer laws with an enforced period of warranty so the only genuine risk posed is a company I buy from going out of business and not existing when I need that warranty support, even in that scenario - the law is still enforceable on manufacturers so it’s a moot point.
Much like using a booking agent for a holiday, relying on a salesman to make any decision in life is really only there for the mentally deficient and infirm.
I mean, I wouldn’t call it predatory for legit businesses, but it is super annoying. I do call in for pricing at places who don’t have them listed, but simply insisting and staying firm on asking for a price usually gets them to cave.
To avoid giving the information to their competitors
To use variable pricing to get you to pay the most amount possible, or to convince customers that are on the fence with a clever salestalk or small bonuses
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I am not a tech person but I own a business which needs their business intelligence expertise. Are you saying theres no fixed price ?
…yes. That’s exactly what they’re saying. Obviously.
How could they possibly give you a price without knowing anything about your business or the problems you want them to solve?
It’s super common in B2B not to have a commoditized product offering especially if they push heavy on services work for on-premises/dedicated offerings more than precanned SaaS on shared hardware. Specifics of one customer’s needs can change the cost to maintain a contract for the vendor (e.g. wages, server costs) from 5 to 6 or 7 figures. Estimating that often requires in-depth conversations both internal and external. How do you even start turning that into a fixed price offering that guarantees a reasonable profit margin?
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