Key Takeaways
- Stop treating a missing price as a private one. A buyer who asks an assistant what you charge still gets an answer. When your page is silent, the number comes from somewhere you do not control.
- Ask an assistant what you charge before deciding. Use one that shows its sources. Whatever figure it gives, and wherever it found it, is the price buyers are already hearing in your absence.
- Publish the smallest honest number you can stand behind. A starting figure or a typical range, with what moves it, answers the question without turning your page into a rate card.
- State the unit and what is included. A number with no unit gets compared with the wrong thing. Say whether it is per session, per month, or for a three-month package, and what the client gets for it.
- Keep one version of the price everywhere. Update or remove old pages, PDFs and profiles that carry an outdated figure, because an assistant can quote any of them as if it were current.
You have kept prices off your website on purpose. Every client is different, a number feels like it invites haggling, and you would rather explain the value on a call.
Should you publish your prices? The case for it has changed, because a buyer can now ask an AI assistant what you charge, and a page with no price does not stop the assistant from answering.
Here is the short answer, then what AI does with a page that has no price, how to check what it already says about yours, when keeping the number off really is right, and what to publish if you do.
Should you publish your prices?
For most coaches and consultants, yes: publish at least a starting figure or a typical range. A page without a price does not keep your number private. It hands the question to whatever else an assistant can find, and none of those sources know your fee as well as you do.
The old reason to stay quiet was that a buyer who wanted a number had to call you. That buyer now asks an assistant first, and hears a number before they ever reach your page.
What AI does with a page that has none
When your page has no price, an assistant either says so or fills the gap from other sources. Saying so is the good outcome. Filling the gap is common enough to plan for, because answering questions from many sources at once is how these tools work.
Google describes its own AI features as using query fan-out, issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to build a response. A question about what you charge becomes several searches, and any of them can land on a number that is not yours.
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Your real fee$2,400, stated nowhere
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An old page of yours still online$1,800
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A directory's range for coaches$500 to $5,000
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A rival's published package$3,600
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A general article on what coaching costs$1,000 to $2,000
The dashed line is the fee you never published. Every other mark is a stand-in.
The figures are illustrative, and the shape is the point. Every stand-in is wrong in a different direction, and the article's range sits entirely below the real fee, so a buyer who hears it may rule you out before visiting.
| Stand-in source | Is it about you? | Who controls it | How it tends to be wrong | What you can do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An old page or PDF of yours still online | Yes | You | Out of date | Update it or take it down |
| A directory or marketplace listing | Partly | The directory | A range so wide it says little | Edit your listing if the site allows it |
| A rival's published package | No | The rival | Someone else's offer, read as the going rate | Publish your own figure beside what it includes |
| A general article on what the service costs | No | Its publisher | An average that may not fit your market | State your number and what sets it apart |
| No number: "pricing is not published" | Yes | Nobody | Not wrong, but the buyer may move on | Give the buyer a reason to ask |
Find out what AI already says you charge
Before you decide, ask. Use an assistant that shows its sources and ask what you charge in the words a buyer would use: "how much does [your name] charge", then "how much does a [your kind of coach] in [your city] cost". Open every source it cites.
You will get one of three results. It says your pricing is not published, which means nothing is misleading buyers yet. It quotes an old figure of yours, which you can fix today. Or it quotes someone else's number, which is the case publishing a price actually solves.
Ask more than once, and on more than one assistant. A single answer is one draw, and the next person asking may hear a different number from a different source.
When keeping the number off the page is right
Keeping prices off the page is right when there is genuinely no honest starting figure: work scoped from nothing each time, where the smallest engagement and the largest differ by a factor of ten and any number would mislead more buyers than it helps.
Even then, you can publish the shape of the price without the figure: what the fee depends on, the usual unit, and what the first step costs, if it costs anything. The trade-offs of each way of wording a fee are laid out in how a consultant should describe fees online.
The damaging admission: publishing a price will not make you the one an assistant recommends. Price is one question buyers ask, and many of them ask it only after they have a shortlist. What it fixes is the number they hear about you once you are on it, which is worth fixing on its own.
What to publish if you publish
Publish the smallest honest statement a buyer can act on: a starting figure or a typical range, the unit it covers, what is included, and what moves a client up or down the range. One sentence in plain words does more than a pricing table no one can read.
Put it on the page for the service it belongs to, near the top, rather than on a separate page nobody links to. How to lay that page out is in how to structure your services page so AI can answer how much it costs, and the cost questions buyers ask before hiring a consultant are collected in what clients ask AI before hiring a marketing consultant.
If you also want the figure in a form machines read directly, schema.org's PriceSpecification has fields for the lowest and highest price in a range and the currency. A vague "$$$" tells a buyer almost nothing, so state the number itself.
To see whether you are named on your buyers' questions in the first place, start with the free check. It asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions from your niche at $0 and emails a plain-English readout: your score, who got named in your place, and the one fix to start with. It runs as soon as you ask for it, and the report lands within the hour between 7am and 5pm Central, or by 10am the next morning outside those hours.
Questions we hear the most
Should you publish your prices on your website?
For most coaches and consultants, yes, at least a starting figure or a typical range. A page without a price does not keep the number private; it leaves buyers and AI assistants to find one somewhere else.
What does AI say when a business does not list prices?
It varies. An assistant may say pricing is not published and suggest contacting you, or it may fill the gap from an old page, a directory, a competitor, or a general article about what the service costs.
Will publishing a price scare clients away?
A clear starting figure mostly filters out buyers who could never afford you, which saves both of you a call. The buyers you lose to a published number are usually the ones a vague page was going to lose later anyway.
Is a price range good enough for AI?
Yes, if it is honest and has a unit. A range such as $1,500 to $3,000 for a three-month package, with what moves a client up or down it, gives an assistant something accurate to repeat.
How do I find out what ChatGPT says I charge?
Ask it directly with search on, for example "how much does [your name] charge for coaching", and open the sources it cites. The figure and its source tell you what buyers are already hearing.
Does the free check look at my prices?
Not directly. The free check asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions from your niche at $0 and emails a plain-English readout within the hour, showing whether you are named and who is named instead, not what an assistant says you charge.
Will AnswerHalo change the prices on my site?
No. Your site and your prices stay yours. The $500 audit runs 125 checks across five AI tools and shows where you are and are not named, by this time tomorrow; what you publish, and whether you publish a number at all, is your decision.
Your buyers are already asking. Find out what AI tells them.
The free check asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions about your niche and sends you the report within the hour, at $0. If it shows you are already getting named everywhere, we will say so in plain words.
Get my free check →