
No way I am calling you for a price - labaraka
http://labaraka.tumblr.com/post/19249892253/no-way-i-am-calling-you-for-a-price
======
patio11
I sympathize, partially because I get filled with existential dread every time
I get a voicemail message to my business number. ("Who in their right mind
calls to ask for information when it is all right there on the website?!
GRUMBLE GRUMBLE." + )

That said: ballpark how many people work in this industry with decisionmaking
authority on this. Ten thousand? A thousand? Let's call it one thousand. It is
entirely possible that you are smarter than all one thousand of those people.
They've devoted their careers to selling payroll services and success at
selling payroll services determines whether their children eat tomorrow.
You're unwilling to make a phone call because you find payroll services pretty
boring. But nonetheless it is entirely possible you've found the thing the
whole industry is missing.

I just would not bet that way.

\+ n.b. I get phone calls from people whose budget is $9 a month (me: "Oh
cripes, not again.") and people whose budget is $200 a month (me: "Now here is
a call which I'd gladly take.") and people whose budget requires an NDA to
hear ("Schedule a call for 3 AM in the morning? It can be arranged, sir!")

P.S. There exist interesting hybrid models where you have the self-service
option and published pricing and then there exists the Call Me plan,
explicitly or by implication. Find someone in one of those businesses, get
them drunk, and then ask whether the published plans or Call Me makes more
money.

~~~
gvb
_\+ n.b. I get phone calls from people whose budget is $9 a month (me: "Oh
cripes, not again.")_

When I have a $9/month budget, I would rather know up front (from the web
page) that the reaction on the other end will be "Oh cripes, not again." The
"call me for a quote" is a very strong signal that I need not bother to call,
and I generally don't. It's the old adage "if you have to ask, you cannot
afford it."

On the other hand, the OP is indicating there is an underserved marketplace
that may be ready for disruption by a low cost no frills service.

~~~
TWAndrews
<i>OP is indicating there is an underserved marketplace that may be ready for
disruption by a low cost no frills service.</i>

There might be, but I wouldn't bet that way. There's a relatively small window
of company size between the point when someone needs a payroll service (10+
employees?) and the point where it makes sense to speak with a person about
what bits and bobs a payroll provider should include and negotiate a price for
those services (maybe 200+ employees).

I'd guess that's the size of a significant fraction of Y Combinator companies,
but I'm not sure how well that would hold up across all industries.

~~~
incongruity
Well.. don't forget, the distribution of corporations by size isn't even nor
is it linear – it's exponential. From small business data taken from:
<http://www.census.gov/econ/susb/> – 98.7% of all US firms have fewer than 500
employees. 36.6% have between 5 and 100 employees.

To approximate the range you gave, 20.6% of all US firms fall between 10 and
500 employees (The bins in the data don't match your range perfectly) – so
it'd be reasonable to guess that ~14% of all US firms are between 10 and 200
people.

That's a fairly attractive market – especially considering that if you made it
easy enough, you'd draw in more of the smaller companies (say 5-20 employees)
and they represent an even bigger slice (~74.5% of all US firms).

So yeah, I think it's significant as a target market.

~~~
Domenic_S
> between 10 and 200 people. That's a fairly attractive market

That's crazy. There's not near enough granularity to infer anything about the
attractiveness of the market. A firm with 10 people is probably not paying a
payroll company; a firm with 200 people almost certainly is.

~~~
incongruity
If you looked at the data, you'd see the granularity you desire. I was
summarizing, but it's all there for you to poke at if you'd like to.

Also, given the number of companies that have 10 employees vs. 200 employees,
if you could figure out how to make those 10 employee companies outsource
their payroll, you'd have a decided opportunity (and that was also my point
and it's exactly the point that philwelch makes here).

The fact that you and everyone else assumes that a firm with 10 people makes
it to small to sell to makes it an opportunity for innovation. A well-done
web-based setup rather than the higher cost, high-priced sales person/pitch
could easily bring down the costs to make it a more economical proposition to
serve the (presumably) lower-margin but higher aggregate volume small business
segment.

------
PaulHoule
As someone who's sat on both sides of the table in enterprise software sales I
understand this sentiment, but there are many kinds of software where you
really do need to talk to a salesperson.

I once worked for a company that had an average sale well under than $100,000
but that sale typically included several licenses for at least two different
products -- one a desktop app and the other a SaaS offering. There would
always be at least a day of training, and possibly some consulting services
and the possibility we'd bundle in something from a vendor we work with.

If customers tried to set that up with a web form they'd screw it up and hate
our product.

Similarly, something like an ERP or Library Management System is going to take
a considerable amount of attention from the vendor to fit it to your needs, so
the salesperson isn't just there to harass you, he's there to make sure you
get what you need to succeed.

\----

I'm working on a product now that I could have sold through an impersonal
automated process for $50 a month... If I could get enough subscriptions.

I didn't believe that I could, and decided to price the product much higher
and sell it through a "high touch" process so I could make a living selling it
to a handful of customers.

One issue is that anyone who sees the price would get sticker shock. However,
the price per year will be between 1/3 and 1/4 of what it would cost to
develop in house, and it would be charitable to estimate that most
organizations would have 50% chance to produce a product that works (almost)
correctly... After losing a few months on the schedule! Plus my product is
documented, supported and comes with a pretty bow on top.

My guess is that for the value this delivers to customers it's worth my time
to explain to them the value they're getting.

~~~
freejack
If your prospects are going to screw that up with a web form then I'd say some
or all of these things are true;

a) your licensing model is too complicated. b) your web forms aren't usable c)
your website isn't helpful enough

And before I get flamed, I regularly sell services worth north of $2k via a
web form that lets the customer purchase solely using a credit card. Instead
of making it hard for people to buy and assuming that "high touch" means "call
us", we have staff ready at every step of the way to help people with their
purchases and the use of their services _when_ they need help. Instead of
investing in artificial processes that force a customer to call us, we're
investing in real customer service, training and product development.
Automated doesn't have to be impersonal, unless that's your frame going in.
Also, I have a suspicion that real customer value can't be created in the
sales process. No one has ever come out of a negotiation or sale (automated or
otherwise) saying "Now that's why I do business with these guys.". Customers
derive value from __using __your product or service, not buying it. I think
its misguided to try and create customer value in the sales process (Although
you do say that your sales process simply explains the value to come, it
doesn't try to create value... I'm just riffing on an idea... :)

~~~
bmelton
I strongly disagree that any of those things is necessarily the case.

Licensing models tend to be complicated for enterprise software, but it's
usually complicated for a fairly decent reason.

I can't possibly expect somebody to understand how Sun Access Manager (now
defunct) is going to work when they buy it without talking to us first. Even
those people who understand the product well enough are going to need support
from the mothership, and the high touch process gives us the ability to plan
for that, to your benefit.

Depending on the features you need, it might entail wrapping in five or six
different products. Some of those products might be given to you for free (if
they're only there to fit a requirement of another product, and aren't going
to be used, otherwise) -- some of those products will be discounted based on
expected use, or the expected benefit to your organization. Some of those
products might have different requirements. In large software companies, it's
entirely common for two companion products to support different databases, or
different message buses, etc. You need to know that before you buy.

My company currently sells software that costs $3million a year or more, and
involves weeks of professional services to get up and running, training on how
to use the produt, etc.

You really expect us to let you just buy this on the internet?

Instead, just call us. Pretty please.

~~~
einhverfr
Also I use the contact process to determine whether or not someone needs
training. I have spent enough time fixing folks broken setups regarding
accounting software to know that you want to have a good idea of what someone
needs to know and work that into the project price as well :-P

~~~
bmelton
That's also a good time to determine customer fitness as well.

The better at enterprise sales you get, the more quickly you can determine who
is going to drag their feet, who's going to give you a bunch of money and then
be a pain in the ass, and who's just going to draw out the sales process to
infinity while making sure to call you every day so that they can get their
money's worth.

------
rdl
I wish there were a price estimator for arbitrary things and services site.

Knowing, for instance, that the unpublished standard Salesforce price is
$50/seat/mo would be really useful when preparing budgets, without wasting
time engaging salespeople.

Knowing the general price of various things makes it obvious if something is
even an option (i.e. you do not have someone TIG weld your $3 item back
together; you buy a new one).

Sort of like "jigsaw, for prices". eBay, Amazon, and Google work pretty well
for cheap items with deep markets, but not for relatively obscure things. I'm
sure Purchasing people have rules of thumb for various types of products, but
I don't have access to this.

The prices don't need to be great, just within 20-30%. You could probably pay
for this in leadgen alone, easily.

~~~
prawn
I have thought about doing this for home renovation because general pricing
takes at least a phone call or two and involves people whose time you may not
be keen to waste at that point. e.g., Have estimates for home demolition,
flooring, rendered walls, brick work, fences, landscaping, pools and spas,
etc.

Gyms in Australia are often pretty cagey with the pricing structure and many
have not historically advertised their prices openly. Because of that, I
created gymprices.com.au - it does suffer from the problem that the traffic is
people looking for prices rather than to share their membership prices, but
maintenance is pretty minimal and it makes enough to pay various bills.

~~~
re_todd
Gyms in the USA can be pretty cagey with pricing as well. I looked at a few
different gyms briefly and could not get even a ballpark figure what the price
would be. They all wanted to set up a meeting with their sales guy. One guy
said it depends on my job, where I live, etc ... I was pissed and left.
Luckily, I knew a guy at one of the gyms who got me signed up for $29/month.
When one of the employees saw that, he said the owner must really like me to
approve that, so I guess it was a good deal. However, I know a sales guy that
makes $100k/year, who got a gym membership located in a wealthy community for
only $25/month.

~~~
rdl
Gym pricing is one of the most annoying pricing policies around. The best hack
I found was the Costco $300-320 2-yr 24h Fitness All-Club Sport membership;
prepaid, no hassles.

------
GigabyteCoin
I thought this mentality would be a given on HN but thanks for writing about
it.

I would go even further to state that "no way am I going to meet you for a
price".

I just recently had the task of finding the cheapest storage lockers for
myself.

I called 5 companies. 4 of which gave me their pricing immediately. The 5th
company had the most ridiculously gung-ho storage locker saleswoman I almost
laughed... she refused to give me a firm price, and suggested that I drive in
to meet her (~45 minutes) before she will even hint and what I might be
paying..?

I told her I was an experienced (and cranky) entrepreneur at heart and that I
didn't feel like playing this game right now. She persisted and I hung up.

Maybe they make more money that way, but it sure is a bad business model.

Car salesmen work the same way I have noticed... I visited a large block of
car salesmen recently... Time is money so I simply walked into each dealership
and asked them for a price list of a few cars I was interested in.

Nobody would give me one. Not without sitting down for some kind of
appointment with a scummy salesman (when they were all just standing around
drinking coffee anyways, we're at the height of their demise here).

How is this business tactic still in practice?

I would think consumer protection laws would target it at some point? If you
sat my brother down with any salesman, he would walk away much poorer.

He wasted $200 on a "gold HDMI cable" and would probably waste an extra
$10,000 on a car if given the opportunity with a salesman, not that he has the
money.

~~~
Duff
At the grocery store, a banana is a banana -- it costs $0.89/lb, and the
store's CoGS is $0.69/lb. Car dealers are different -- they don't make money
on the car, they make it on the other stuff that the salesman peddles. Thus,
no price list.

Software is the same way. Salesmen are there to spot opportunities and get a
solution out to the customer. You may sign up for payroll services online, and
not realize that for an additional $X/mo, you can get some sort of expensive
regulatory requirement handled as well.

If you're dumb, and buy a $200 HDMI cable, how is a web form going to stop you
from making poor decisions. A typical startup pricing page has 3-5 plan
options.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
My brother is not dumb, he simply doesn't know about cabling and electronics.
I would venture to bet that you would look pretty dumb trying to perform his
job as a carpenter.

All he wanted to do was have the best picture for his brand new PS3, and the
salesmen in Futureshop were eager to sell that to him.

~~~
Duff
Whenever you buy stuff "Let the buyer beware" applies. I'm sure your brother
has stories about unwary customers who paid ridiculous amounts of money for
awful work that he had to fix up.

A smart customer isn't an expert in cabling -- you just need to know enough to
question the person you are dealing with. Or ask more than one person. Or ask
google. The whole business model of Futureshop is to be a convenient, one stop
shop. Their vision of a satisfied customer is someone who walks out the door
with anything that the store thinks they need.

I can do rudimentary carpentry, but I know what I can't do. So when I needed
to have a new front door hung, I got a couple of quotes. The prices ranged
from $250-$1,500. I think I paid around $600 to an old school carpenter who
did an awesome job.

------
andrewem
I used Ceridian for COBRA services after I left a previous employer. (For non-
Americans, COBRA is where you get to keep your employer-provided health
insurance for a limited time if you pay the full cost of it, and yes it's a
hassle.) I noticed in January that I hadn't gotten a bill from them in a
while, and thus began months of agony where they told me they hadn't gotten
updated rates for the new year from the insurance company but were sure it
would come any day now. After a while they sent a notice saying that the
insurance had been cancelled. Many long phone calls to them over three or four
months got me nowhere, until finally frantic calling to the HR department of
my ex-employer got it sorted out in a mere two weeks or so. And yes, I
should've involved my ex-employer sooner.

The upshot is that I will never willingly do business with Ceridian again.

------
MehdiEG
This is what was discussed a few days ago here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828>

Joel Spolsky's blog post, mentioned in the discussion, is worth a read too:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

And so is this post: [http://blog.boundary.com/2012/03/02/selling-in-2012-its-
comp...](http://blog.boundary.com/2012/03/02/selling-in-2012-its-complicated/)

As the later says, it's complicated. Personally, as most of HN readers I
guess, I also can't stand this sales model. But some buyers demand it. And
they happen to be the ones with the most cash to spare.

~~~
labaraka
Thanks for these links. I hadn't seen the Alex' post. Exact same feeling
except that he is clearly a much better writer than me :)

------
swalberg
I'm in this space - wavepayroll.com - and I worked at Ceridian for 3 years, so
I might have some insight here.

Most payroll companies don't just do "payroll", e.g. a gross to net
calculation. They offer different modules, like time and attendance, some HR
functionality, direct deposit, employee self service. For the most part, every
feature is an additional charge. Add on top extras like having your cheques
and reports couriered to you.

So from their perspective it's difficult to provide a price because they don't
know what kind of business you are and what features you want. The charges are
highly variable and can differ from run to run.

~~~
pnathan
I was looking at one of the professional math toolbenches the other day, and
pricing ran like this:

    
    
       Base Product, $X.
       Addon A, $a
       Addon B, $b
       etc.
    

I have a hard time believing that these solutions can't be architected in such
a way that each plugin is a discrete charge that can be listed.

------
davemel37
Putting yourself in their shoes for a second.. they were just trying to pre-
qualify prospects who really are in pain, enough pain to really try to solve
their problem by talking to a salesman who can properly communicate the value
and figure out if you are a good fit.

You are right that this pisses some people off, people who are prepared to
spend money on their product, but many marketers don't try to get ALL the
business out there, they try to get the RIGHT CUSTOMERS FOR THEM... Customers
who will appreciate their value. Afterall, if you can't differentiate them
from others without tools like price points, you probably wouldn't be happy to
be their customer either..It is a Win For You.

Odds are, if you are making this decision based on price, and not being able
to compare price is enough to scare you off, you consider their product
somewhat of a commodity, which exposes the company to price resistance, which
is bad for business.

So, while you hate these companies, and their process pissed you off, I would
argue that you probably don't fit into the profile on "their perfect customer"

Perhaps they are guilty of not qualifying you in a better way, like with
content so compelling it convinces you to call them to discuss your needs...

~~~
Zak
Shopping primarily based on price isn't the only reason I want to see prices
very early in the process; I also want to eliminate things I obviously can't
afford.

If I wanted a car and had no pricing information, I'd start with the cars that
appealed to me most - likely Ferrari, Koenigsegg and Hennessey. I'd have to
waste hours or days setting up calls or meetings with salesmen and doing the
"who mentions a number first" dance to figure out that I can't afford these
cars and should be looking at a Mazda Miata instead.

If I wasn't sure I really needed a car yet and had some idea what the process
would be like, there's a good chance I'd put it off. Cars don't work this way
though. I might not know exactly what options I'll get or how much I'll pay
down to the dollar, but I know a Miata is about $25k. There's room for a
little more transparency in enterprise software pricing without going to a
fully self-service model. I should be able to find out in a few seconds
whether your product is something I can even consider.

~~~
jrs235
So, if not showing a price stops you from calling/inquiring about their
product then, assuming the market they are attempting to pursue are companies
with a very high need and lots of money, not showing a price appears to have
worked.

If they showed a price that seemed astronomical they would probably get
hagglers and feedback of "I'd go with you if you drop your price" and they
don't want to deal with those customers/inquiries and noise...

Edit: I didn't see the comment you replied to prior to responding with the
above.

To add, if the company's sales people got lots of and lots of these potential
customers calling/emailing/etc saying "you're overpriced" the sales team could
begin to believe it and being probably commission based push internally to
lower the price to increase their sales which, in the long wrong, hurts their
company's goals, strategy, and long term objectives.

~~~
davemel37
"if the company's sales people got lots of and lots of these potential
customers calling/emailing/etc saying "you're overpriced" the sales team could
begin to believe it and being probably commission based push internally to
lower the price"

Or Worse, undermine their own sales attempts because they don't believe the
value offered is worth the price.

------
JS_startup
I used to be of the same mindset until I got into enterprise sales.

Face it, some products and sales processes are going to be complex and can't
be boiled down into a simple pricing scheme like a startup would use. It
doesn't mean the company is old or dishonest or that you should take offense,
just that it isn't practical to list prices on the site.

Examples would be:

Per user pricing (what constitutes a user? Any discounts for users past a
certain number? What about simultaneous access? Can we share accounts?)

Revenue scaled pricing (what if we're pre-revenue? Any discounts for newer
companies?)

Contracts (can we work off of a contract for an increased price? Do we get a
discount for longer term contracts? Who owns the data? Do we get onsite
support? How much does support cost, if anything?)

Basically, stop looking at large enterprise sales through a startup lens.

~~~
OriginalSyn
If that is a case ballpark it for some of common use cases. When I was a
systems admin there was nothing I hated more when doing initial discovery of
options was high pressure sales harassing me before I was ready to even short
list products. Having to call for a quote was usually an immediate
disqualification.

~~~
TWAndrews
As a system admin, what do you do when someone comes to you and says "how much
hardware do I need to support my application?" Imagine trying to give them the
correct answer without being able to talk to them.

~~~
ehutch79
You could just toss out a few options for various scenarios for a ballpark
idea, and then ask for details to refine.

as another poster said, when you're just starting to compile a list of
options, high pressure sales pitches are a turn off.

~~~
JS_startup
There doesn't have to be anything high pressure about it. When someone calls
me for a quote I simply ask them for the details I need and tell them exactly
what it will cost.

In my experience, the fastest way to lose a prospect is by being ambiguous or
flighty about the price which is exactly what you'd be doing if you posted
ballpark figures on your site (as well as inviting lots of questions and
raised eyebrows since our installations literally range from $1000-$25000)

~~~
justincormack
Even the information that your installs cost $1-25k is useful and shold be on
your website. We can all understand ranges of options. That tells me it doesnt
cost $1m, lets me know who I will need to get approval from, and most people
will know roughly where in the range thy are.

------
MikeMacMan
I think you're being a little unfair here.

You need to talk to a salesperson because payroll is complicated, every
business's needs are different, and most small businesses want some kind of
personal touch. If they let you just sign up for what you think is the best
solution for you, chances are you'll get it wrong and you won't be satisfied.

I'll give you an example: I manage a retail business that is composed of 5
different LLCs, each with their own payroll. When I went to ADP, I needed a
salesperson to help me migrate all my payroll data, choose a suitable cutover
date, talk through what kinds of special services I might need (direct
deposit, checks drawn against ADP's accounts vs. our own checking accounts,
etc).

Lastly, customer service is very important when it comes to payroll, and I see
the sales process as a demo of their customer service.

Could somebody like ADP offer a self-service solution for somebody like you,
who knows what they're doing and doesn't require much? Of course they could.
But then the burden of getting the setup exactly right is now placed on you.
And if you screw it up, then you'll be calling them for help. That's not an
experience they'd prefer the customer to have.

------
GB_001
On one hand I definitely agree that transparent pricing gets more customers,
if your product isn't made for an enterprise level there is no excuse not to
make the prices transparent.

With that being said, many software and web applications that use the "contact
us for a price method" that aren't just vultures looking for your info usually
need more information in order to price you properly. For example, the size of
the company, your budget, your specific needs etc. may be needed to ensure
that the company gets a fair specific price that caters to their needs.

~~~
Xurinos
I skip by any site that does not mention a price, but the one thing they could
do to get my interest is to at least mention a price range and what goes into
the calculation of the lower and upper prices. Ballpark figures are nice, and
some small description of the rationale helps me to make a decision, even if
it is to make a call to drill down further.

~~~
dsr_
I'd really appreciate that. It informs the customer and doesn't waste the
salesperson's time.

Even better, show me some preconfigured packages that you're willing to sell
at a public price. If they look reasonable but I need more, I'll happily talk
to a salescritter, now that I understand that I actually have a more
complicated problem.

------
Ryan_Shmotkin
Something most 'non - enterprise' people don't understand:

The price is not set by some magic formula. It is set directly by how much the
customer is willing to spend.

And you can't get that from a Webform. (Its worth loosing some 100$/mo clients
to wheel in a $50K one)

~~~
jpdoctor
> The price is not set by some magic formula. It is set directly by how much
> the customer is willing to spend.

You missed half of the formula: It is set directly by how much the customer is
willing to spend _among the options available_.

As soon as transparent pricing exists (Ceridian in OP), it will garner market
share. Presumably the overhead is lower (because sales people cost money), so
they are probably at an advantage.

~~~
Ryan_Shmotkin
Sadly this is untrue.

Two enterpise buyers (yep, its a profession) can buy the same number of
licenses and additions ending up paying significantly different (10x) price.

[And many of those won't ever even use the product]

------
SoftwareMaven
Something early-stage companies don't get is that enterprises are _complex_.
Adding a service provider requires hooking up to a dozen systems that manage
everything from time tracking to shipping logistics. For many, many problems
in this space, there is no ideal, perfect solution. Instead, you make a series
of weighted choices to come up with the least-worst solution. And that
information, for a broad swath of software, can't be effectively communicated
on a web site.

Given those types of sales are the ones that bring in six or seven figures of
revenue, it is not surprising companies optimize for that. But that is just
one of the places startups, solving focused problems, can find some blue
ocean.

(But, yes, when you are in the small company, buying almost _anything_ just
sucks. You aren't big enough to even get attention, often times.)

------
dholowiski
I used to feel the same way, until I got a job as an IT manager at a company,
and a big budget. I still like prices posted on web sites, but I won't buy
something without talking to a sales-person.

My job depends on making the right technology decisions. I'm not just going to
buy based on the price list, I'm going to buy a custom tailored product with
the right price for me. And I need to talk to a sales person, and I want them
to be good at selling and I want them to convince me. If a company can't be
bothered to hire good sales people then they probably can't be bothered to
hire good support people, or programmers either.

Enterprise is different.

------
wheels
It's only been two weeks since we had exactly this discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828>

------
brudgers
I understand how the author feels. I prefer to bank using an ATM. I prefer the
self scanning checkout at the grocery store.

Call for price isn't aimed at the author (or me). It's aimed at people who
have a certain set of expectations about B2B relationships. It's aimed at
people who see receptionists as a necessary business expense in all
circumstances. It's aimed at people who don't trust the internet when it comes
to transactions.

It's a bigger market segment than people like myself or the author.

------
jchung
Where is this alleged clear and well-designed Ceridian website with the
transparent pricing? I clicked through and all I got for it was a whole bunch
of "call me back" forms. Exactly what OP derides about all of the "other"
services.

~~~
labaraka
Screenshot: <http://d.pr/XXCj>

~~~
NameNickHN
How do you get there?

------
acak
To the author: Is this the Ceridian you're referring to?

<http://www.ceridian.com/>

There is no pricing information I can find on their website and they're very
clearly saying for their products (in this case, on the payroll page):

 _Contact a Ceridian expert today for a free payroll software analysis, and
you'll find a payroll processing solution that's exactly what you need,
exactly the way you need it._

~~~
sdfjkl
There's pricing for some of their products. For "small business" it makes
perfect sense. For "Enterprise" the "contact us so our salesperson can make
false claims[1] about what our software does and gauge how much money he can
screw you over for" method is sadly still prevalent.

[http://www.ceridiansmallbusiness.ca/Products/Payroll-
Bundles...](http://www.ceridiansmallbusiness.ca/Products/Payroll-Bundles/Pay-
Time-Track.html)

[1] Not all salespeople are evil, greedy bastards. Only the majority I've met.

------
areed
I've had the same problem the last few weeks looking for a colocation provider
in my city for half a cabinet. Ever time I ask for information through a web
form, they ask for a conference call. I reply back with my power and bandwidth
requirements and ask them to email me a quote. At that point I'm usually
ignored. I finally selected a provider two hours away who publishes their
pricing online.

~~~
nmcfarl
This is what gets me - the time. In things like Payroll, or Merchant Accounts,
where I have a ton of options, I could spend all week on hour long con calls,
just to get pricing ball parks from all of the viable vendors. I don’t even
need hard prices on a website - but I could really use 1) people that are
willing to talk to me for 5 minutes, not an hour. 2) some reason on the web
site to choose your company to devote my time to.

Interestingly what this lack of info usually leads to is us going with
services our friends and acquaintances suggests - we just don’t have the time
to listen to all the salesmen.

------
jasonkolb
This is a good way to tell old companies from startups.

IMHO startups are much more sophisticated in marketing. It's pretty common
marketing knowledge that you want to reduce friction as much as possible. A
phone call is a lot of friction for most technical people who want to be as
efficient as possible.

No pricing model should be this complicated. If you have to make a form for
the customer to fill out to calculate their cost, fine. To be honest even a
live chat wouldn't be terrible.

I understand the people here who defend the enterprise sales cycle. I get it,
I participated in that world as a startup for years. But you have to admit
there's something fundamentally broken about the whole idea.

I think it comes down to this: if your product is good enough that people can
use it and want it, you shouldn't have to hide your pricing or require time to
use sales tactics to justify the price to customers.

~~~
ktsmith
> I think it comes down to this: if your product is good enough that people
> can use it and want it, you shouldn't have to hide your pricing or require
> time to use sales tactics to justify the price to customers.

I think this is naive. I've found that at the enterprise level those involved
with purchasing often aren't those using the services being purchased. I spent
a signifiant portion of the day yesterday on the phone with an extremely large
company (~140k employees) explaining why the process they wanted to implement
with our software couldn't happen as it would not be compliant with federal
law and they could risk losing their billions of dollars in federal contracts.
There was only one person on the phone actually involved in daily management
of their process and everyone else was part of purchasing.

------
tylerrooney
I went through the exact same process 2 months ago trying to set up payroll.
In general, Canadians get some pretty horrible value out of any small/medium
business service.

I was going to go with Ceridian but their web app doesn't support Mac. Because
we're still small enough, I actually just rigged it up myself in Xero and then
just have to use the nastiest 90s era website from my bank. That at least
saved me the step of massaging exported data into Xero.

If you want some real price transparency on payroll apps, this is pretty hard
to beat : <http://wavepayroll.com/pricing>

~~~
Zak
_their web app doesn't support Mac_

What millennium is this? There's no excuse for a web app needing a specific OS
these days, and hasn't been for quite some time.

------
krmmalik
I've been noticing the same thing about so many sites in the UK lately. And
it's the IT related industries that seem to be the very worst it. I was
gathering some competitor intelligence for most of this week and noticed that
there were very very few sites that were transparent with their pricing. Its
wrong on a few levels, but when everyone else around you is doing the same
thing sometimes its not so obvious how bad for business it really is.

we're setting all our sites up with transparent pricing now.

------
vaksel
what I don't understand is why email isn't enough. Why in this day and age do
you need the phone # and address? That just tells me that you'll use my
information to do high pressure sales calls, and not just to "inform" or
"customize" my quote

~~~
ig1
Because email has completely different dynamics from real-time conversations.
If you need to ask lots of short questions (varying based upon previous
answers) than email is a terrible way to do it.

It's also much easier to figure out misunderstanding on the phone due to the
more informal nature of phone calls rather than emails.

~~~
vaksel
fine...why not chat? Not as much pressure on the customer to just have a quick
chat online...phone calls are much more pressure intensive

------
joshaidan
This reminds me of the robocall political scandal in Canada which was fuelled
by CRM data. It's just as frustrating when political parties do it, especially
in the robocall case which was an absolute abuse of the system.

I worry sometimes about the implications this has on democracy, where power
might be defined as how strong and agile your CRM system is, rather than your
actual ideas and character.

------
thekevan
It all depends on what is being sold. I worked for a company where the options
were almost infinite. Price depended on which options they wanted and how many
subscriptions. (Which could literally be from 1 - 10,000) When asked how much,
I would reply with, "How much for a house? Hard to answer because we don't
know if "house" means an outhouse of the White House."

------
johngalt
<translation>Code me an app. What do you mean I have to call you and discuss
design? No way I'm calling a developer and dealing with all the geeky stuff.
Just list me a flat price and timeline per app. </translation>

Even if you feel that payroll is a solved problem, you still need to deal with
people. Anytime something is important you want a specific person in charge of
it's execution. Imagine that you have a business of 50 employees and one day
the payroll doesn't get processed correctly. You now have 50 angry employees
on your doorstep. How much do you think they will care that you've filled out
a form on a website asking for resolution? Or that you're on continuous hold
with some call center op that is paid $2 a day regardless of if he solves your
problem.

You pay an account rep commission so you have an individual person who's
direct personal livelihood depends on a well executed service.

------
ValG
Having been in sales for most of my career (well entrepreneurship is sales so
all of my career), I can tell you the premium for a "customer database" within
a sales organization. Any good sales organization will do every and anything
they can to get your info so that they can do exactly what everyone hates, put
you in their CRM cycle... you'll get emails, pamphlets, calls, everything
until you die (hence the credo "Die or Buy"). I would venture to guess that as
these companies were designing their sites, they looked at their competitors
and figured out "wow, everyone else is requiring all of the info before we
give them a quote, what a great way to build a 'database'". Clearly not the
case, but I'm also guessing Ceridian was the only one to really think about
how a customer views the quote getting process. As such, they come out
ahead...

------
bencpeters
This kind of thing happens all the time in the scientific instrument market as
well. In some cases it's justified - many instruments/sensors have near
endless customization options. But much of the time I've been asked to call
for a quote even for simple things like industrial sensors. I can understand
not having an exact price, but it seems like in this day and age it's shooting
yourself in the foot not to have some kind of ball park price listed online. I
know I personally just go to another supplier's website if at all possible
rather than filling out a quote request form or calling...

------
daemon13
Having read all the 140+ comments, this reminds me of the hooker/girlfriend
dilemma.

In the first case you know how much you ought to pay upfront and you [mostly]
know what you will get. No need for call backs, conf calls or multiple
meeting...

In the second case, the price to pay and the promise is unknown. But! things
can go both ways - (1) good or (2) bad. And yes, you will know the outcome
only after many call backs, conf calls, meeting and flirting period...

Looks like the everyone's conclusion is that those are different use cases [or
market segments], so it's better for your own sake not to mix them! :-)

------
onethumb
Related: [http://al3x.net/2012/02/29/how-not-to-sell-software-
in-2012....](http://al3x.net/2012/02/29/how-not-to-sell-software-in-2012.html)

Wonder when companies will start to figure this out already?

------
bitwize
The last time I saw a Ceridian payroll system it was fucking broken. Their web
interface was written in ASP VBScript and looked it. It was so stunningly
well-coded that if you closed the browser window without explicitly clicking
the "Log off" button, it will count you as still logged in but lose critical
state, meaning you couldn't get back onto your timesheet without calling
someone down from HR who knew the voodoo chicken dance it took to get Ceridian
unwedged.

I hope they've improved since then. Otherwise this person is in for a bit of a
hassle.

------
aidenn0
There are large classes of companies for whom sales of less than say $50k or
$100k just aren't worth their time. All customers will have the same sorts of
problems, so the smaller customer are less profitable.

The smart companies that want you to call them for a quote do it to make it
harder for less profitable customers to come to them, without being at all an
impediment for larger customers (who would want to negotiate anyway).

The dumb companies that want you to call them for a quote say "Oh look, ADP
does it, we should copy it!"

------
Tashtego
I recently had to deal with this when shopping for a shipping system to
replace our ugly old Filemaker plugin. "Call us for a quote", having to wait
through two weeks of sales cycle to get an API doc that should've just been on
the web site (the worse was the company that had a full wiki for their API,
but only available to customers), features written in marketing-speak instead
of displaying the real capability of the product, etc. These were good
products being horribly sold.

------
rdl
At the very least, if you don't offer pricing transparently on the site (and
signup), you should offer a free demo. Get the user hooked before talking
about price is a viable enterprise sales technique (mainly to price
differentiate and extract maximum revenue), but you need to accomplish the
"get him hooked" part. Requiring payment at all adds friction, as does
requiring human contact.

~~~
jasonkolb
I think this is related to what I commented about, which is that you get this
mostly from old-school enterprise companies. Many of their setup and
configuration systems are much too complex to do it on the fly. It would be a
huge internal project to even think about it.

------
markm248
With all due respect, that is a terrible way to determine the payroll tool
that will impact every current and future employee. I, like most of the
commenters, agree the last thing anyone needs is another call from some
underpaid, under-polished inside sales rep who has attended to one too many
Zig Ziglar seminars, but benefit to your employees will outweigh the
inconvenience.

------
easymovet
SpaceX got it right by skipping the enterprise sale cycle when they sell their
rockets. Falcon Rocket: $10Million sales@spacex.com

------
chazandchaz
Appassure does this. It is annoying. Their pricing isn't bad, comparatively. I
didn't call them for two years. I knew there product was tits, but thought
they would through me into a boiler room sales pitch. Dell bought them,
decided to call. Turns out the price isnt negotiable and hasn't changed in 18
months. Big loss on their end.

------
webjprgm
+1000. I've run into this phone call game for other kinds of services as well,
and I hate it. Just tell me what the price is.

------
rundmc
Just had this exact experience with a company called Vindicia. No matter how
many times I asked for pricing, just getting the usual guff. Already found
other vendors of the same solution where I immediately understood their
pricing & therefore felt better about investing my time getting to know them
and their products better.

------
lnanek
Isn't call for a price a good deal for little guys? If IBM calls for a price,
they are going to get charged a huge number like 100k. If a Mom and Pop shop
calls they are either going to get told to take a hike, or given a much better
deal. Seems like the companies that can afford to pay more will be footing the
bill.

------
debacle
Along the same line, I've stopped applying for jobs that don't list some sort
of salary. That shows me that either you're ashamed of the salary you're
offering or you want to exploit candidate ignorance in order to get them to
work for a salary that isn't competitive.

It's deceptive, and it's not fair.

------
ctdonath
I once responded to a SolidWorks ad offering a trial copy. For years they
mailed & emailed & phoned sales pitches, but not once - even when I pointed
this out to multiple persistent reps - did they send the promised trial copy.

Funny, I never bought a copy.

------
larrys
"but I will never get sucked into some big company’s CRM and get hounded by
commission-seeking salespeople/vultures."

Exactly what is the OP problem?

All salespeople are "vultures"???

And anybody on commission "hounds" you?

That's right only YOU have a right as an entitled person to earn a living.
Everyone else is superfluous and there to serve you efficiently and at the
lowest possible cost.

I have news for you. There is nothing that I like better than a salesperson
that hounds me and is on commission. That's the way you sometimes get your
best deal. Based on my many years of experience buying things. They are hungry
to make quota and if you play it right you save money.

Go deal with clerks and order takers if you want. I'd rather deal with people
hungry for my business.

------
usaar333
On OP's particular issue: I'm surprised he didn't mention paycycle (now part
of intuit). I went with it due to similar concerns (as well as it clearly
being the cheapest).

------
Shenglong
I've worked with Ceridian before, and their people are pretty good as well.
And hey, if you ever need a workforce performance system, InView/Dayforce is
right there too :)

------
loner4555
how this story got 199 points so far remains to be understood.

