On the web, “Contact Us For A Quote” offends my sensibilities.  An all-to-common occurrence is to land on a website and say “Oh.  This looks great!  How much?”.  You end up spending the next 30 minutes searching for a price but finding countless “Talk to a Sales Representative” links.

SaaS to the rescue.  Most SaaS companies freely publish pricing on their website, sometimes in multiple tiers.  Hopefully there’s a price that works for everyone.

So what about enterprise software?  Adaptiv, our mobile healthcare software company, walks a fine line.  It’s enterprise software from a team with Web 2.0 DNA.  Should we publish our pricing, or is “talk to a sales representative” a better idea?

Let’s look at the benefits of each approach:

SaaS Sales

1. Reduces sales friction
2. Immediate conversion to beta or paying customers (shorten the sales cycle)
3. Reduction in expensive sales staff

Enterprise Sales

1. More price flexibility on a per-client basis
2. Less risk of leaving money on the table
3. Additional profit from SLAs, overages, etc
4. Hide pricing information from competitors

What do you think?  Should we publish pricing on our website and reduce sales friction, or have our sales staff work out the best deal for each customer?