The hidden-price playbook
You know the move. You land on an agency's site. You scroll past hero animations, capability decks, “trusted by” logos. You hit pricing. Pricing says “contact us.” You sigh. You either book a call to find out if they're in your budget, or you close the tab.
The pitch for hiding price is always the same: “Every engagement is different, we need to understand your needs first.” That's true. Every engagement is different. It's also true that the rough shape of what we cost doesn't change much. We have a floor. We have a band. You can know it before you spend thirty minutes on a call.
What changes when the number is on the page
When we put $7,500 next to Discovery Sprint and $25k–$100k next to AI-Accelerated Sprint and $20k–$50k/mo next to Fractional Product Team, three things change:
- The wrong-fit calls don't happen.If you have $4,000 to spend, you don't book a call with us — because you can see we won't be able to help. We'd rather you go straight to a freelancer who can. You save 30 minutes. So do we.
- The right-fit calls go deeper.When you do book a Fit Call, we're not spending the first ten minutes establishing budget. You already know the band. We spend that time talking about what you're trying to ship.
- You stop wondering if we're padding.Published prices mean a $50k engagement is a $50k engagement, not a $50k engagement that quietly grew to $80k because we “learned more about the scope.” The number on the page is the number on the SOW.
The honest tradeoff
Publishing pricing has a cost. Some prospects look at $20k/mo and bounce who would have closed at $12k after a call. That's real. We've lost deals to it.
We've decided the tradeoff is worth it. A larger pool of fit-aware inbound is more valuable to us than a tighter pool of qualified-on-the-call inbound. The Fit Call should be about whetherwe'll work together, not if you can afford us.
The pricing page is a filter, not a wall
If our numbers don't match what you have, the pricing page also points at options that might — a Discovery Sprint when you want to scope, the under-budget redirect on the qualifier when you're below the floor. The goal is to route you somewhere useful, not to gate you behind a sales process.
When you're ready, the price tag won't move on you.