Why we publish price ranges
Publishing indicative ranges costs us some enquiries and saves everyone time. Here is the arithmetic behind the decision.
For six years our site said “contact us for pricing”. The result was predictable: roughly half of first calls ended with both sides discovering the budget was off by a factor of four, after forty minutes nobody got back.
Now the site says a project typically runs between €45,000 and €160,000. The volume of enquiries fell by about a quarter. The proportion that became proposals roughly doubled.
We shortlisted three studios in an afternoon because two of them published ranges. The one that would not say anything never made the list.
What a range communicates#
It answers the only question a prospective client has in the first thirty seconds: are these people plausible for us? Withholding that answer does not protect negotiating position. It just moves the disqualification to a later, more expensive point in the process.
It also sets an expectation about what kind of studio we are. Nine senior people in Berlin are not competing on price with a fifteen-person offshore team, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone’s afternoon.
Why the range is wide#
Because scope decides cost, and we do not know the scope yet. The honest version is: two weeks of discovery, then a fixed price. Any studio quoting a precise figure before understanding the problem is either guessing or planning to make it up in change requests.
What we lost#
Some enquiries from organisations with smaller budgets who might have been talked into a smaller scope. That is a genuine cost, and we accept it. The alternative was a calendar full of calls that ended politely and produced nothing.