Because the customer will then argue that it shouldn't cost what it does. Example - you charge $100 an hour for the job, job is 2 hours away, you charge $300 round trip travel fee for the 1.5h in each direction outside of your typical service area. "But you're not even working during those 3 hours!". Exactly, because I'm driving out to your event while I could be working another job.
That's when you hang up and move onto another customer.
Also this has nothing to do with posting prices. A person who will nickel and dime you over a posted price will do the same thing when you tell them the price.
I was speaking specifically to itemizing. Itemizing opens up opportunities for people to be a PITA. The price is the price, take it or leave it.
And it does have to do with posting prices, because people don't want to pay over the posted price. Knowing what their ask entails before giving them one accurate price results in a yes/no situation, rather than them asking you to explain the cost difference to the posted price.
Because it creates an anchor point for the customer to argue against. If you post "my rates are $120-300/hr" and the customer gets quoted $300 for their job they can argue "but why is MY job special" and then you get to have that whole argument, rather than not posting and just giving them a number. Yes you can have that argument and convince them that x, y and z make their job harder, but better to just avoid!
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u/Gold_Concern2305 4h ago
That would just piss off anyone quoted over the median rate.