Should You Show Prices on Your Website?
For most businesses, yes. Price is the main thing visitors come looking for, and when they can't find it, many of them leave. Hiding the number rarely gets you the phone call you were hoping for. More often it sends people to a competitor whose price they could see.
The harder questions come after that: which prices to show, when a range is more honest than a fixed figure, and how to lay out the page so the number helps instead of scaring people off.
Why do hidden prices cost you customers?
Buyers want to know the price early. In a survey of more than 2,000 B2B technology buyers, 45% ranked pricing transparency as the change they most want from vendors, ahead of every other request (TrustRadius, N=2,058). The same research found that 84% of buyers expect to find self-service pricing tools on a vendor's site (TrustRadius).
Usability research points the same way. The Nielsen Norman Group has found that price is the top information need, and that people abandon sites that won't show it. When the price is missing, visitors tend to assume it's expensive and that you'd rather they didn't know yet.
45% of B2B buyers say pricing transparency is the single biggest thing they want vendors to fix (TrustRadius, N=2,058).
When is it OK to not show a price?
Showing a price doesn't have to mean one fixed figure. For custom work, such as large contracts or anything scoped to the client, a fixed number on the page would be misleading. Give an honest range instead.
"Starting at £2,000" or "projects typically run £5,000–£15,000" filters the people who get in touch, so you spend less time on enquiries that don't fit. It also gives the visitor an anchor, which takes away the worry that sends them elsewhere. A bare "contact us for pricing" gives them nothing. Left guessing somewhere between "free" and "terrifyingly expensive", many people give up.
Hiding enterprise pricing is common, but that doesn't make it wise. One analysis of nearly 1,000 startups found that 61% offer an enterprise plan, but only 12% show its price upfront (Breadcrumbs, N=998). For high-ticket custom work, a gated price is defensible. For everything else, our rule when we build a pricing page is to show a number or a range, but always show something.
How many price options should you show?
Three is a good default. Across a benchmark of 200 SaaS pricing pages, three visible tiers converted about 14% better than four or more (Atticus Li, 200-site benchmark). A long list of options can feel generous to the business and overwhelming to the buyer.
Three packages also let you steer the decision. Pages that highlight a recommended tier convert around 17% higher than pages that present every option as equal (Atticus Li, 200-site benchmark). In a controlled eye-tracking study, the highlighted plan drew attention faster and was chosen more often (Speero/CXL, p=0.0171).
The effect behind this is anchoring: people judge a price against the options around it. Huber, Payne and Puto first demonstrated the mechanism in 1982, and later work found it to be a consistent effect with one underlying cause (PNAS, 2020, N=189). A sensible top tier makes the middle one look like the comfortable choice.
How should you display the price itself?
Whether to use round or "charm" pricing depends on who you sell to. The "£49 instead of £50" effect is real for consumer and low-cost products. Thomas and Morwitz (2005) confirmed this left-digit effect, and it holds up across a meta-analysis of 69 studies (Nicolai et al.). For premium and business services, round numbers such as £2,000 or £5,000 feel more trustworthy. A £4,999 quote for a high-end service looks like retail pricing.
Avoid crossed-out prices on recurring plans. DoWhatWorks analysed 22 experiments from Spotify, Dropbox and Prezi, and every strikethrough variant lost. On an ongoing service, a slashed price suggests instability. Use a plain "save 20%" or "two months free" instead.
Put trust signals next to the number. A specific customer count ("trusted by 12,000 teams") lifted conversion by 13% over a vague logo bar, and placing social proof above the prices instead of below added another 9% (Atticus Li, 200-site benchmark). The price is where people hesitate, so that's where the reassurance should go.
FAQ
Does showing prices scare customers away? Usually it does the opposite. A visible price lets the right buyers qualify themselves and lets the wrong ones leave before they take up your time. A missing price puts more people off, because they assume the worst.
What if my pricing is fully custom? Show a starting price or a range. "From £2,000" still gives buyers an anchor and filters enquiries, without committing you to a figure you can't honour on custom work.
Where should I put pricing on the page? Give it its own clear section, with three options at most and the recommended one highlighted. Put trust signals above the prices and a short FAQ below. One analysis suggests a pricing FAQ can lift conversion by around 21% (WinSavvy). Treat that as a rough indication. The FAQ is there to answer doubts where they come up.
Should I crash my prices with a big discount? Be careful. Crossed-out prices consistently underperform on recurring plans (DoWhatWorks). Describe the saving plainly ("two months free") instead of slashing a number.
The choice between a fixed price, a range and a "from" figure is yours. We can look at the layout around it with you, including how many tiers to show and where the trust signals go. Send us your current pricing page when you're ready.