I think the real question is if their pricing design is optimal. Would they make more money with clear pricing? I think so.

One of my ancestors had a company selling commodities. He wouldn’t answer the phone until the customer had called three times and left messages. He said this was a filter to identify the customers who really needed his product.

The logic is sound and on the surface clever. But would he have made more money servicing all customers? Or perhaps marketing?

I'm sure it's tough to tell, and the side with less risk is the one that often costs fewer resources.

My dad runs a shop restoring classic cars, mostly as a hobby. The number of minutes you can spend on the phone discussing some potential client's great-grandfather's old clunker and their dreams / aspirations of getting it fixed is nearly limitless, but the number of clients willing to actually pay and wait for it is a tiny fraction.

Similarly I looked into having a hair transplant done and found most places near me actually charge for consultations! It probably makes sense, though. The market of "guys that want to be less bald" is gigantic, but the ones serious enough to plop down tens of thousands of dollars for it is much smaller. Narrowing that group down made for a consultation that was much more personal and focused than it'd have to be if they offered it for free knowing 95%+ will never be seen again.

I agree with both of you. The level of business that grants a "write us to know prices" message must be well above the small to medium customer... but still it itches when you're interested and realize that their product is not directed at you at all.

We could argue that they would get more money, but at the end of the day they probably decided that a single bigger fish is definitely worth losing business from a hundred smaller ones. I guess it's one of those "nice problems to have", if you grow so much that you have it.