Rates: show them, or keep them on request?

Shown rates do one thing brilliantly: they screen. A man who sees the figure and messages anyway has already accepted it, and half the tedious negotiation never happens.

Hidden rates do a different thing: they signal. At the top of the market, "on request" says the price is not the point, and asking is part of the etiquette.

When to show

If your inbox is full of people haggling or arriving with the wrong expectation, publish. The number on the page does your first round of screening for free, before you spend a word.

When to withhold

If your clientele expects discretion around money — the banker, the public figure — "on request" fits the register, and a private figure feels more considered than a public one.

The answer most of the time

Rarely all-or-nothing. Show enough to set the tier and stop the wrong enquiries — a starting point, the shape of a longer booking — and keep the bespoke, the travel, the overnight to "on request". You are not hiding the price. You are choosing which part of it does the talking.

A rate on the page is a filter. A rate on request is a signal. Decide which job you need done.

How rates sit on the page — what to publish, what to hold — is part of how we build.