Why can't I just see the price of software without a sales call?
Software vendors hide standard pricing behind mandatory sales demos and custom quotes, leaving buyers blind to wide cost variations for identical services. This lack of transparency forces IT professionals to waste time on calls just to learn baseline costs they cannot reasonably predict or compare.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1attending sales demo calls to find out custom pricing quotes
- 2Comparing multiple vendors across different price tiers
- 3Relying on initial discovery calls to filter out services
- 4Contacting sales directly and trying to decipher complex release notes or tier structures
- 5Doing independent research beforehand
- 6Walking away from vendors who withhold pricing
- 7Using demos strictly to confirm specific feature lists or configure trial accounts
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Small RIA, four advisors, and we are quoted anywhere from four to fifteen thousand a month for the same described service. i cannot work out what the spread is buying.”source ↗
“if you're pushing some monitoring tool, just put the actual price in the comment and save me from another demo call that ends with "we'll send a custom quote"”source ↗
“I looked at Autel MaxiAP AP200 but it requires to buy subscription for every car brand.”source ↗
“Nobody from either company would give a straight answer on minimums or total cost, just "contact sales" which is never a good sign”source ↗
“Yes - if you make me sit through a demo before you'll give me a price list, I already don't want your product.”source ↗
“If 100 qualifying questions and a demo are the gate to pricing and packaging, then I’m out.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 33How to handle unexpected software subscription price hikes and slow support
- 3How to market paid software without a free version
- 2Per endpoint software pricing is too expensive
- 5How to follow up with a client who picked a cheaper vendor
- 37Why are contractor and window replacement quotes so absurdly high?
- 3Competitors got my MSP client list and license expiration dates