"Contact sales" is not a price

Every week I open a pricing page with three columns, and the one in the middle says "Contact sales". Not the enterprise one on the right. The middle one. The plan most people are supposed to buy.

Founders tell me it is flexibility. They want to understand the customer first, they want room to negotiate, they do not want competitors to see the number. All fair reasons. The buyer does not see any of them.

The buyer sees a form. Name, company, team size, phone number, and somewhere a promise that someone will be in touch. A finance manager in Rotterdam or Munich does not want to be in touch. She wants to know if this fits the budget she already has, before she spends a call on it. If she cannot find the number, she does not ask for it. She opens the next tab.

In Europe this matters more than founders think. Buyers here compare quietly, often in a spreadsheet, often weeks before anyone talks to a vendor. A hidden price does not make you look premium in that spreadsheet. It makes you an empty cell.

So my rule is simple. If a plan is meant to be bought by a normal team, it has a number on it. A starting price is enough. "From €490 per month" already does the job, because now she can say yes or no to the call.

Keep "Contact sales" for the column where it is honest: custom contracts, security reviews, the deals where nobody pays the list price anyway.

And if you are worried a competitor will see your price, they already know it. They booked the demo.