There wasn’t a day in business school when we discussed whether or not it was appropriate for us to list our prices on the internet.

You know why?

Because there isn’t a right or wrong answer that applies to every business.

We’ve chosen not to publish our prices since opening Cressey Sports Performance in 2007. Back then, we started knowing we’d be the price-leader in a market that was new to us.

Situated in a community full of commercial gyms, our thinking was that the locals wouldn’t immediately understand our unique business model and would quickly jump to inaccurate conclusions about who we are and what we do if they had nothing but a dollar figure to evaluate us by.

The Thing About Pricing Strategy…

I know that my pricing strategy tells a story, and I am better at introducing that story than an inanimate page on my website will ever be.

When you list all of your prices on the Internet you miss an opportunity to articulate differentiators while holding the undivided attention of the consumer. The pricing page on your website makes a simple declaration:

These are our prices — take it or leave it.

Is that a sure fire way to put yourself in a position to counter the concerns of a potential client?

No...it most certainly is not.

If you want to convey expertise in advance of outlining a premium pricing model, the least you can do is to get a lead on the phone or into your office.

A disclaimer…

There’s one reason for withholding pricing information that I can’t get behind, and that is so that you can reserve the right to manipulate fees based on perceived spending capacity. This approach is both difficult to scale thanks to the complexities surrounding extracting that information, and is setting you up for challenging conversations if and when word gets around that your prices are “flexible.”

The price is the price is the price, and there should be no exceptions.