Almost every website project has this argument. The owner is torn: show prices and competitors see them, or hide prices and customers bounce. Both fears are real. Here's how to actually decide, instead of guessing.
Why hiding prices feels safe (and the cost of it)
The instinct: prices let competitors undercut you and let customers reject you before you can sell. Sometimes true. But the visitor doesn't know that — they just know your competitor showed a number and you didn't. A meaningful share of people treat "no prices anywhere" as "can't afford to ask," and leave. Hiding prices doesn't remove the price objection; it just moves it to a phone call you now have to win cold, if they call at all.
Why showing prices works more often than owners expect
A number does two quiet things. It qualifies — people who'd never pay it leave, and that's good; you didn't want that call. And it builds trust — a business willing to say what things cost reads as confident and honest, which is the entire brand for a small local operator. We make our own pricing public for exactly this reason, and we wrote about why in the agency-speak words we ban.
The rule we actually use
You rarely need exact prices. You need to kill the fear of the unknown. Three options, in order of how often they're right for a small business:
Starting-at pricing. "Projects start at $X." Sets the floor, qualifies, commits you to nothing exact. Right for most service businesses.
Ranges or tiers. "Most kitchens land between $X and $Y." Honest, useful, still flexible. Right when scope genuinely varies.
Real "it depends" — shown honestly. If price truly can't be indicated, say why in plain words and give the one thing that determines it. "It depends" with a reason keeps trust. "It depends," full stop, with a contact form, loses it.
The only genuinely wrong answer is no signal at all.
When hiding prices is actually correct
Real cases exist: heavily custom work where any number misleads more than it helps, or regulated/quoted work where a public figure is a liability. Even then, show the process and what drives cost, not silence. The test isn't "do I show a number" — it's "does a stranger leave my site knowing roughly what they're getting into." If yes, you've done the job.
The honest bottom line
For most small local businesses, some price signal beats none — usually "starting at" or a range. It qualifies the leads you want and earns trust from the customers who were going to ask anyway. If you're stuck on how to phrase it for your specific business without boxing yourself in, that's a two-line email: info@mule-digital.com, or send the brief at /project.