What’s the best way to find out what our competitors are charging if they keep their pricing off their website? Any tips for gathering competitor pricing information without directly contacting their sales?

Below is a direct answer based on the themes from our saas pricing book, Price to Scale:

Direct competitor pricing isn’t always easy to pin down if they prefer keeping prices off their website. Instead, our book suggests gathering pricing intelligence through indirect methods. For example, you can:

Analyze competitors’ pricing pages as “mini case studies” to see how they present value even if they don’t fully disclose prices (as discussed in Chapter 4).
Track how pricing is discussed in their marketing materials, product demos, or case studies, which may hint at the range or structure they follow.

Use customer and market feedback:

Leverage feedback from prospects or current customers who may have interacted with competitors. As our book explains (see page 81), customers can share unprompted feedback on what they were offered or what they expected.
Consider structured surveys or interviews that force rank benefits or pricing perceptions. The process of anchoring responses (detailed on page 147) can help you derive approximations even if the competitor’s exact numbers remain hidden.

Investigate third-party research and industry benchmarks:

Use tools and market research to gather data on estimated traffic, conversion rates, or other performance metrics. Such proxies can often be tied back to estimated pricing models.
Combine these estimates with standard industry assumptions to benchmark against what you know about similar products.

In summary, since many competitors hide their exact pricing to focus conversations on value delivery, it is effective to combine careful analysis of their public materials with indirect customer and market feedback. This multidimensional approach not only provides insight into their pricing but also sharpens your own pricing strategy by emphasizing where your product’s value lies.

By using these tactics from our book, Price to Scale, you can build a clearer picture of the competitive landscape without directly contacting their sales teams.