Why do software firms not publish prices?

Why does the same brief cost three different amounts?

"We need a customer portal" can mean a login and three screens over existing data, or it can mean a permissions model, an audit trail, a payment integration and a migration off a system that is still in daily use. Both are described in the same sentence. One is a fortnight and one is a quarter.

The variables that actually move the number are rarely in the brief: how clean the data is, how many systems it has to talk to, how many people must approve a change, whether anything is regulated, and whether the process being automated is written down anywhere.

This is the honest reason a price list is hard. It is not a reason to refuse you a figure.

What does a published price list actually optimise for?

It optimises for the buyer who is comparing quotes rather than choosing a partner — which is fine if that is genuinely your situation, and expensive if it is not.

It also sets a ceiling. A firm whose page opens with a low starting figure gets measured against that figure on every subsequent conversation, whatever the work turns out to be. We published prices on this site for one day in September 2026 and took them down for exactly that reason: the entry number had become the identity of the firm.

And it quietly pushes the vendor toward the scope that fits the price rather than the scope that fits your problem, because the number has already been promised in public.

What should you ask instead?

• "Can you send a figure in writing by tomorrow, and what would change it?" — the single most revealing question you can ask a vendor.
• "What is in this price, and what is explicitly not?" Get the exclusions, because that is where the second invoice comes from.
• "What happens when the scope moves?" You want a named process, not goodwill.
• "Who actually does the work?" The gap between the person selling and the person building is where most disappointment lives.
• "What would you refuse to build for us?" A firm that has never turned down scope is selling hours, not outcomes.
• "What does it cost to run after launch?" Hosting, model and API costs, support. A build price with no running cost beside it is half an answer.

Is it a red flag when a firm will not quote?

It is a red flag when they will not quote and cannot say why, or when every answer routes back to another meeting. Withholding a number is sometimes rigour and sometimes leverage, and the difference shows up in how fast they will commit something to writing.

A reasonable pattern looks like this: a short conversation about how the work runs today, a written scope and figure within a day or so, the figure fixed before anything starts, and changes quoted separately as they come up.

An unreasonable pattern looks like this: three calls before a number, a proposal that arrives as a range twice as wide as your budget, and a price that moves depending on what you reveal about your funding.

A practical shortcut: ask for the figure by email rather than on a call. It is much harder to price a buyer you cannot hear.

How do we handle it?

For work with a known shape — a business website, a standard web or mobile application — tell us what you need and you get a scope and a figure the same working day, in writing. No call required.

For anything larger we run a free diagnostic first: thirty minutes on how the business actually runs, then a researched plan within 24 hours covering what is worth building, in what order, and what we would leave alone. The price comes out of that, sized to the work, and it is fixed in writing before anything is built.

You keep the plan either way, including if you take it to a different firm. That is not generosity — it is the fastest way for both sides to find out whether the work is worth doing at all.