Our position, stated plainly
Yes, in almost every case. Not necessarily a full price list, but something. A range, a starting figure, a typical job, an hourly rate.
We publish ours on every page of this site, so treat this as a view from someone who has already made the choice and has a reason to defend it.
What silence on price actually communicates
Businesses leave prices off for sensible reasons. They worry about being undercut, about scaring people off, about being held to a number. The trouble is that the customer does not read silence as caution. They read it as one of three things.
- "It must be expensive." The most common assumption, and it filters out people who could have afforded you
- "They will size me up first." Nobody enjoys the feeling that the quote depends on how they sound on the phone
- "This is going to be a whole process." A form, a call, a visit, a follow up. For a small job that is more effort than the job is worth
Meanwhile the competitor who published "from £85" gets the call, even if they end up costing more once the job is properly understood.
Your competitors already know what you charge. They have rung you, or they have quoted against you a dozen times. The only people your secrecy protects you from are customers.
The honest case against
There are real situations where publishing is genuinely the wrong call, and pretending otherwise would be daft.
- Genuine tender work. If you bid for commercial contracts, published rates can weaken your position
- Wildly variable scope. An extension is not a price, it is a conversation. A range that spans £8,000 to £90,000 helps nobody
- You compete on value, not cost, at the premium end. Though even here, a "projects typically start at" figure qualifies people rather than scaring them
- Your prices genuinely change monthly with materials. Then publish the labour rate and say materials are quoted separately
Notice that none of those is "every job is different". Every job being different is a reason to publish a range, not a reason to publish nothing.
Four ways to publish prices without committing to a number
1. A starting figure
"Bathroom fitting from £2,400." It sets expectations, filters out people expecting £600, and commits you to nothing above the floor. The single easiest option and it works for most trades.
2. A range
"Most rewires come in between £2,800 and £4,500 depending on the size of the property." Wider than a single figure, more useful than silence, and it lets you explain what moves a job up or down.
3. A typical job
Often the most persuasive. "A recent three bedroom semi in Royton: full rewire, twelve circuits, two days, £3,100." Real, specific, and it quietly demonstrates competence as well as price.
4. Your rate
"£45 an hour, minimum charge one hour, no call out fee." For anyone doing repairs and small works this answers the only question the caller actually has.
Whether you charge for a callout or a quote. It is the question people are most reluctant to ask and most likely to assume the worst about. One sentence removes it.
Wording that protects you
You can publish figures without being trapped by them. These phrases do the work:
- "Prices from" rather than "prices are"
- "Typical" or "most jobs" rather than "all jobs"
- "Correct as of [month]" on a full price list
- "Final price confirmed after we have seen the job"
- "Materials quoted separately" where they swing wildly
None of that is weaselling. It is accurate, and customers understand it perfectly well.
Keep them current
The main argument against publishing that we take seriously is that prices go stale. A page saying £45 an hour when you now charge £60 is worse than no page, because it starts every conversation with a correction.
So the practical question is not "should I publish" but "can I keep it updated". If changing a number on your site means emailing a developer and waiting a week and paying for the privilege, you will not do it, and the page will rot. That is a reason to fix how your site is maintained, not a reason to hide your prices.
Our own answer is that content changes are included in the monthly fee, so a price update is a message rather than an invoice. Whoever you use, ask what a small change costs before you commit. That question is on our list of things to ask.
A quick test
Open your site on your phone and time how long it takes to find any indication of what you charge. If the answer is "you cannot", you are asking every visitor to make a phone call to find out something your competitor put in a heading.
Some of them will make that call. Most will not.
If you want a hand putting it right, tell us what you do. If you are still deciding how to pay for a site at all, our monthly against upfront comparison has the numbers, and what a website needs covers the rest of the page.