Concur. This is so obvious to me I do not understand why not posting a price — no matter what it is — is still considered good business practice. Perhaps once upon a time before the internet but no longer.

It’s not that they have a fixed price they’re not sharing with you. They want to estimate how much you’ll pay first - look at Crunchbase, etc.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea but there are plenty of smart cookies who seem to think it maximises revenue.

If you want to counteract, have a shitty little startup with no funding and ask for the quote for them.

I suspect it’s primarily a mix of three things. The first is price discrimination, like you mention. The second is wanting to have some control over the sales process (price anchoring, tempering sticker stock, etc.). The third is related to the second: focusing inbound sales efforts by subtly communicating that “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” for a large chunk of price-sensitive customers.

And the 4th is once I see those sorts of sales tactics I know what kind of people run that company and I am not interested in associating with them. Principal matters.

* * *

Why in the world would you try to put a positive spin on it? It's bad behaviour, and you should feel bad for engaging in it. It's greedy and dishonest. Pass.

anytime you hear "custom quote" it means a sales person is try to maximize his or her value out of you

When in fact the opposite should be true. How can I as a company maximize my value to you. This is the type of companies I choose to partner with.

its a backwards system and then when you combine sales teams that are commission based how can anyone realistically expect to get a fair price when a human's pay is based on getting as high a price as possible

I believe not giving you a fair price is the goal there. A fair price would mean leaving money on the table. Your money, which you probably should not have, especially when it's something they're helping you make.

Some businesses think of you from the perspective of partners. Others think of you from the perspective of farmers or ranchers, where they try to pen you in and extract what they want, but understand the necessity of at least some investment on their part. And then there are those who are more like poachers.

This isn't always true. Sometimes you want to stop large customers from performing naive cross-comparisons of price when the on-the-ground reality is more nuanced.

This can be price levers on individual features, security track record, non-obvious user patterns that deliver a lot of value, etc. You're given more opportunities to pitch the full value of your product in a way that engages the customer with their particular pain points.

Maybe we should still all use transparent pricing, but I don't think it's fair to say it's used to extract more cash (though some companies definitely do that).

That’s probably a valid point. I would liken that to car lots but most of them at least publicly post a starting price. I guess it’s no wonder why I instinctively steer clear.

That's exactly why I avoid those companies. If the price is hidden behind a quote, it means they're going to try to gouge you for every penny they can get away with.

classic https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

Some products/service are really hard to quote upfront without knowing the customer's exact use case and needs. You don't want to scare everyone away with sticker shock but at the same time you don't want to mislead people into expecting a much lower price. Often this includes offering customers decent pre-sales support in the quoting process. Sometimes it's a sign they are willing to negotiate widely on price as well.

One reason is that plenty of powerful people default to zero-sum thinking. If there's money involved, they would like most of it to be theirs. Long ago I read something from Philip Greenspun where he talked about Oracle's pricing strategy, and it went something like, "Take all of your money, and then another $50k/year for support."

Which reminds me of a quote from Brian Cantrill: "You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246

100% agree, nobody wants to contact sales so I outlawed that. Easy decision

Yep. To me (and, I suspect, plenty of others) "call for pricing" = "call so one of our trained manipulators can figure out how to screw you out of as much money as possible".