Almost every solo expert website leaves prices off. The reasoning is always some version of the same thing: every engagement is different, and a number without context will scare people away before you get to explain the value.
Both of those are true. They are also the reason a lot of good people spend their week on calls that were never going to convert.
What does hiding your prices actually cost?
It moves the qualifying conversation from your website to your calendar.
Someone who cannot afford you does not know that yet. So they book the call, you spend forty minutes building rapport and understanding their situation, you name a number, and it is three times what they had in mind. Nobody did anything wrong. You just both spent an hour finding out something a line of text could have told you.
Do that twice a week and it is a working day a month, spent on people who were never going to buy.
There is a subtler cost too. A visitor who cannot find any indication of price often assumes the worst, and not always in the direction you would like. Some assume you are expensive and leave. Others assume you are cagey. A small number, usually the most senior and most time-poor, treat the absence as a reason to skip you entirely, because they have learned that “contact us for pricing” means a process they do not have time for.
Does showing prices scare away good clients?
It scares away the wrong ones, which feels the same in your analytics and is not the same in your bank account.
The fear is that a serious buyer will see a number, judge it out of context, and leave. In practice, a buyer who is genuinely a fit and sees a number they consider high does one of two things: they leave, in which case they were not going to pay it, or they read on to find out why it costs that. The second group is who you want, and a well-built page gives them the reasoning right there.
What does get harder is charging different clients different amounts for similar work. If your pricing depends heavily on what you sense a client can pay, publishing a number removes that flexibility. That is worth being honest with yourself about, because it is usually the real reason prices stay off the page, not the stated one about every project being different.
Publish a number or publish a range?
Three options, and the middle one is where most solo experts should land.
A fixed price works when the thing you sell is genuinely the same each time. Productised work, a defined audit, a fixed-scope build. It is the strongest signal because it is checkable, and it lets someone buy without talking to you at all.
A starting price or a range works when scope varies, which is most consulting and advisory work. “Engagements typically start at X” tells a reader whether they are in the right building without committing you to a number before you understand their situation. This is the honest answer for most people reading this, and it captures nearly all the qualifying benefit.
No price, but a defined process is the fallback when your work is genuinely bespoke or your fees are constrained by a licensee or employer. In that case the page still owes the reader something: how pricing is arrived at, what a typical engagement looks like in size and duration, and what happens on the first call. “Contact us” on its own is not a pricing policy.
What does not work is a price so hedged it says nothing. “Investment varies depending on your needs” is the same as saying nothing, with extra words.
What should the page say around the number?
The number is not the hard part. The framing around it is.
Here is an invented example, to show the shape.
Weak:
Pricing available on request.
Stronger:
Most engagements land between X and Y depending on how many teams are involved. If that is roughly the range you had in mind, the next step is a short brief rather than a call.
The second version does three things at once. It qualifies, it explains what moves the number, and it gives the reader a next step that matches where they are. Someone out of range leaves without either of you spending time. Someone in range arrives already knowing the price, which changes the entire tone of the first conversation.
What to do this week
Decide which of the three approaches fits your work, then write one paragraph.
If you land on a range, put it on the page with one sentence explaining what moves it up or down. If you land on no number, replace “contact us for pricing” with a short description of how you scope and price, and what the first step actually involves.
Either way, the reader should leave your site knowing roughly whether they can afford you. That is the whole test.
For what it is worth, this site publishes its prices, including the exact cost of the audit and where builds start. It costs some enquiries. The ones that arrive are people who have already decided the number is fine, which makes the conversation about the work instead of the money.
If you are not sure what your page is currently telling people about price, the 60-Second Homepage Audit will tell you what a stranger takes from it.
FAQ
Will publishing my prices let competitors undercut me?
They can usually estimate your rates anyway from your positioning and your market. The bigger risk is the opposite one: competing only on price with people who publish theirs, because you are the one asking for a call before anyone knows anything.
What if my prices vary a lot between clients?
Then publish a starting price rather than a fixed one, and say plainly what moves it. Wide variation is a reason to give a range, not a reason to give nothing.
Should I put prices on the homepage or on a separate pricing page?
A separate page, with a clear link from the homepage. People looking for price go looking for it, and they expect a page. Putting numbers in the middle of a homepage tends to pull the reader’s attention away from whether you are right for them.
Does this apply to regulated fields?
Partly. If you are authorised under a licensee or bound by professional rules on fee advertising, check what you are permitted to publish before you do. The principle still holds: tell the reader how pricing works even where you cannot state the figure.