Why Do Some Sellers Ask Your Budget?
 

This is a huge Pet Peeve for me.

If you run a service company, you already know what your time is worth, yes? Why not just tell me what you charge and let's move on from there?

Why do you need me to tell you my budget in order to provide a quote? I don't get it. I mean, they must do it for a reason for asking, but it seems very dishonest, like they're trying to get you to say how much you're willing to spend and then go up from there.

Does anyone else see this as a red flag?

I don't see it as a red flag at all. I get inquires for project builds where the client needs $10,000 worth of development but only has a $500 budget. Sometimes it helps me determine if I'm able to work with their budget and make suggestions accordingly.

I don't want to spend several hours or days pricing something if they don't have the budget.

Some people's budgets are not worth my time. I imagine I am not alone.

That bothers me too. I can understand why people do it, but it doesn't sit well with me.

When I want to buy something, I almost never walk in with a fixed budget in mind. And if I do, I may be tempted to spend out of my budget, if the company gives off the right vibe, like they know what they're doing. But if one of the first questions out of a seller's mouth is "What's your budget" it almost feels like they're trying to hustle me. Or, like the user above me said, like I'm not worth their time. It's not even worth it to reply.

Yeah, of course. But you might never find out if one of your first questions is "How much money do you have?"

I'm honestly curious if you actually believe anyone on this forum actually believes the nonsense you write.

In what world would any budget not be enough to hire you for anything?

100% this. I think I'm really easy to sell stuff to, but a lot of salesman type tactics turn me off completely. Sometimes even when dough is burning a hole in my pocket, especially for business expenses where, if the pitch is great return on investment, it's better to spend and i want to buy and then i get un-sold.

It's not a question that I have asked very often, but in some scenarios it can be helpful to know, and here's why:

By knowing your budget, the seller can also find out where you are willing to wiggle on. If you are willing to sacrifice in one area, you may be able to pick up some slack in another area based on the restricted budget.

Let's use housecleaning as an example. Standard service is $200 per trip. You want your stovetop deep cleaned because you are a heavy cooker, but that's only included in the $300 package. You don't use your 2nd bedroom though so that can be removed from the package, allowing some wiggle room in the standard package which gets you the deep cleaned stovetop.

Not everyone uses it in an "honest" way and I can't remember the last time anybody has asked it of me, but it's not necessarily nefarious.

I sometimes ask budget as well but only when quoting large projects, and it is to see if we're more or less "on the same page" as the client. A large project takes a long time to quote, and if it's $100k in development work and the client is expecting to spend $1500 and simply doesn't have the budget to realize their project, then there's no sense spending hours figuring out how long something will take to code.

On the other hand, if they have a $100k project but a $50k or $70k budget for i nstance, then we can often talk about features they might not really need and cobble together a deal.

I agree with some of the above. I think its better for the service provider to ask for a detailed requirement proposal. Read that and decide a rough budget. When I hear "What's your budget", right off the bat, I smell something bad.

Its like going to a car dealership and a customer asks how much a car is and the seller asks, "How much can you pay?

If you are talking about seo then you will get what you pay for. If it is a car yard then the stitch up will be the finance my guess you see it as their opportunity when you can still back out after giving your budget.

There's a difference between a product and a service. A car costs what a car costs, you can check online what car X costs roughly and you can establish an approximate market value. For a service like design, coding, seo, etc since each project in individual, it requires reading through documentation, thinking how long stuff will take etc. This can take even hours on larger projects and then it turns out the guy was expecting to pay like 5% of what it will cost to do it.

I sometimes give a ballpark, and say "if that's within your budget let me know and i'll work out a more exact quote".

All of this :thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Probably cause they wanna check its not me, pretending to be someone else...

Everyone knows i cunt a4d nuffin... :(

My pet peeve is potential clients asking me my fees before giving me a clue wtf they actually want done.

Usually because they dont know.

I see that. I like your idea about how to do it. It seems fair. Cuts wasting your time and gives them a reality check.
:thumbsup

I can relate to that and it's also annoying for sure. It's probably the equivalent of the "What's your budget" question from sellers.

Totally agree that giving a ballpark and asking if you should work it out in more detail is the much better approach. Smart way to see if you are on the same page, without seeming shady.

I think advertising and sponsorships are the place where salespeople are worst with this. It is not a car where the shopper probably already ballpark knows the price, nor is it necessarily a super customized service. So buyers know they could be getting a drastically different price than the next buyer, which is stressful and leaves folks very attuned to any hint they are getting an extra bad price.

If someone asks you what your budget is and you say $1k/month, then that's what they are going to try to get from you.

That's the way I see it. :2 cents:

I couldn't agree more. You'll be spending 11k or more for sure.

I had a potential client contact me today. After chatting for a while on Skype, I realized he wanted to spend about 20% less than what I charge. But we agreed to work together on something else. I could have saved time and brushed him off with a rude "How much are you willing to spend" question right away, but why do that? Makes no sense to me. Is your time really that valuable that you can provide a quote?

What do you think the first question should be?

My first questions relate to details of what the client needs, not how much they are willing to spend.

Ok, Once you will get details and if their requirements are big and you have to spend more time to analysis their requirements in this case what should you ask them?

If user/client has small requirements, normally all companies will give them quote. No one ask for their budget. But if requirements are big and company ask budget just for get idea like how much client is aware. They not try to insult them.

We have seen some clients who want more features in their site but they are not proper aware about how much time will take that company to fulfill their requirements and thus because they can't calculate how much budget they want for that project.

Of course there are moments during negotiation when it's perfectly normal to discuss budget. My problem, as stated in the OP, is when it's one of the first questions I get from a seller. Sometimes the very first question.

If I shop for a house, I'm going to tell the seller what my budget is before they ask.
I don't want to waste time being shown houses that are way out of my range or so
far below my budget that it's trash.

I will do research of market rates for what I'm looking for and therefore have a reasonable
idea of what I need to spend to get it.

If I want a job done, I'm going to already have a good idea of what it will cost me to get
the quality that I want.

$100 budget = Wordpress install on Hostgator

$5000 budget = Super fast Custom code on fully managed dedicated server at Mojohost.

"How high are you trying to fly?" is a valid question.

If you don't know how high you want to fly then you can't present a clear picture to the seller.
So they have to ask you "Do you want a hang glider, glider plane, helicopter or Learjet?"

Do you know which one, and the market rate for each in your area?


:2 cents:


Disclaimer : The $5k budget is mostly code. Mojohost has decent prices. :1orglaugh

.

Shouldn't they have told you that when they contacted you?

OP, what were you trying to buy when you experienced this problem?

I guess it's a bit rude if it's the first question, but I think it's a fair question in some cases, to prevent the seller's time being wasted by someone with insufficient budget.

Its negotiating 101 to get the other guy to say his price first.

And they will undoubtably try to sell you a house twenty percent over your budget. They always do.

I made a post about updating my blogs and every single person has said " what is your budget ? " Or " how much are you willing to pay ? "

I'm only asking for blogs to be updated not splitting the atom. Surely they know how much this is going to cost ?

I hate that shit.

I think it depends on what business or service we are talking about. Like for example, this just happened a client is looking to get into adult and wanted domain suggestions, so of course my first question is what sort budget did he have in mind? There's no point in showing him Million dollar domains if his budget is $500 and there's no point of showing him $500 domains if he's looking to spend millions.

it's kind of like bidding. they say a number and if you don't like it you lower it. i guess obo would be a better term

If there were a specific domain someone is trying to buy, they already have an idea what it is worth and what they'd like to pay.

For "surprise me," why wouldn't you open with: you can get (one example of x) for $500 or (one example of y) for a million bucks. Do you have a sense of where in that range you are looking? Educate the buyer on what the range is and how wide it can be.

Otherwise it looks like pricing for what is in their wallet, not what you think the thing is worth. Especially with domaining where prices can vary wildly on kind of the same value of domain.

I disagree. There's too many sellers that are convinced their shit domain is worth a fortune :2 cents:

Anyone can ask anything. Choosing who frames your conversation is your choice.

While the scale of a project can be helpful to the service provider, even so, instead of a volunteering dollar figures as a buyer, a conversation focused on the magnitude of project should be enough for the seller to offer a group of options.

You can't escape having to talk numbers forever, but the seller should be able to map out a thumbnail sketch of different pricing brackets and what it involves.

It's OK to want to know what "Entry Level" and "High End" means to a seller. If they can't present their services in those terms, in an initial conversation, I am sure you will be able to find someone else who can, and does.

:2 cents:

I feel the same as this guy here. It feels like they are fishing for the quote they are going to give.

People in here are acting like they have 30 messages a day for their services. It takes 30 seconds to give a rough ballpark of your pricing to let the buyer know your rates.

If it’s that big of a problem that your “time is being wasted” you can create something you can copy and paste whenever the topic comes up. With examples of previous projects, scope of work, and pricing. Then they can see if you are within their budget.

Whenever I hire people for anything from construction, architects, trades people - if they start off with asking my budget I feel they are basically asking me how much they can get out of me regardless of what the job/service actually costs.

:2 cents:

It's really not like that at all. For programming I can tell roughly how long a small project will take and give a ballpark or even a firm quote, but once you get into a larger project like someone approaching you for a cam site or an onlyfans clone or something
and have like 30-40 pages of specifications written up (or worse, you don't and have to figure out a million questions to ask) the quote does take some time. Factor in that sometimes the specifications write something like 'messaging system' and you don't know if they are expecting a simple text chat or a clone of whatsapp.

As we all know, time is money - if I spend a day analyzing some long-ass specifications, quote $50k and it turns out the guy was expecting to spend $1500 max, then that's a day I could have spent doing something else.

As I wrote earlier - if someone comes to me with a larger project and it's someone I don't know (so not previous clients or "established porn people") then I will often give a wide ballpark range to see if we're even on the same planet let alone neighborhood.