Showing Prices on a Trades Website: Say Something, Not Everything

Showing prices on a trades website is the decision most owners quietly avoid. The job feels impossible to cost in advance, so the page says nothing, and a blank space goes up where a number should be. The instinct is understandable. It is also usually wrong.

The objection is always the same. Every job is different. A rewire is not a rewire, a leak is not a leak, and a fixed price on the page would tie your hands. All true. But “every job is different” is an argument for a range, not for silence.

The question every trade eventually asks is “should I put prices on my website”, and the honest answer is that a rough figure does more work than no figure at all.

Showing Prices on a Trades Website Filters, It Does Not Repel

A price on the page is not a quote. It is a filter. When you publish a “from £120 for a consumer unit change” line, two things happen at once. The person with a £90 budget reads it and moves on, which saves you a phone call you did not want. The person with a real job reads it, decides you are in their range, and rings with intent.

That is the point most owners miss. You are not trying to win everyone. You are trying to lose the wrong ones early, before they eat an evening of your time with a job you were never going to take.

A “from” figure or a typical range does the sorting for you. It says: this is the neighbourhood we work in. Serious buyers self-select in, tyre-kickers self-select out, and the enquiries that reach you are warmer because they already know roughly what things cost.

Silence Sends the Right Buyer to the Competitor Who Spoke

Here is what actually happens when the page stays blank. A homeowner in Malton needs an electrician for a fuse board. They open three websites. Two say “contact us for a quote”. The third gives a “from” price guide, a short note on what changes the figure, and a number to call. Which one gets the call?

People do not ring three trades to compare. They ring the one who already answered the first question in their head. Silence does not read as premium. It reads as “this will be awkward”, and awkward loses to clear every time.

You do not need a full price list. A pricing page for a small business can be three or four typical jobs with a “from” figure and one honest sentence about what moves the number up. That is enough to feel like a straight answer without boxing you in.

This is the same principle as saying less on your homepage so the important thing lands. Fewer words, clearer content. A blank pricing page is not caution. It is a decision to make the customer do the work, and most will not.

So the test is simple. Read your own quote page as a stranger with a real job and a real budget. If it gives them nothing to hold onto, it is not protecting you. It is sending your best enquiry down the road to the trade who was willing to say something.