“Sorry, the price is too high.”

Every salesperson has been hit with this sales objection at least once in their career. Money is a decisive factor in many situations.

But this sales objection is more complex than many others. The truth is, there are different things that could be hiding behind the statement “the price is too high”…

  • We can’t afford it at the moment as there’s no cash flow
  • We have the money, but we want a discount
  • We don’t understand the value of your product
  • Your competitors are selling it for less
  • We don’t need half of the functionality you offer

As a salesperson, you have to determine the type of the price sales objection your lead is hitting you with, before effectively countering it.

Read this article for 9 actionable tips and 27 rebuttal examples to handle pricing sales objections.

How to handle price objections: Best practices, tips, and sales objection rebuttal examples

There are several tips and tricks that will help you dodge the price-based sales objection and close the deal. Let's look at the nine best practices.

Don’t bring up the price too early in the conversation

For many potential customers, the price of your product is an important factor when deciding whether or not they will be willing to make a purchase.

This is particularly true for leads on a budget. They’ll try to figure out the price of the product or service you’re trying to sell as early as possible. They don’t want to waste their time discussing something they can’t afford.

However, if your product’s price isn’t a unique selling point to hook the potential customer, it’s best not to reveal it too early in the conversation. Otherwise, you risk raising pricing concerns.

If you know that your product isn’t the cheapest, you should structure your dialogue with the lead in such a way to learn more about their needs. Talk about the benefits of your solution first. It’s important to convince potential customers of your service's worth before they start doubting it.

The idea is to hold off on discussing price until the prospect fully understands your product and the value they’ll get out of purchasing it.

After analysing over 25,537 sales calls, a study by Gong found the best times to discuss pricing is when you're around 20% and 65% of the way through a call.

That’s between 13 and 20 minutes, and 40 and 49 minutes of your call.

Points during the call when the price gets discussed — Source
Points during the call when the price gets discussed — Source

Ask questions to understand your lead’s real concerns

"A lot of the time, price is not the only issue, and it's merely being used as a smoke screen."

🗣️ Tom Searcy

In the intro, we discussed that there could be a lot of different sales objections hiding behind the price sales objection. As a salesperson, it’s your job to get to the root of the problem and understand what’s holding your prospect back from buying your product.

The best way to do this is to ask questions.

Start off with something straightforward:

💬 “What makes you think the [product] is too expensive?”

💬 “Is price the only thing keeping you from buying the product?”

💬 "So you're confident in the value being offered, it's just the price is too high. Correct?"

Once that is out of the way, try to dig a little bit deeper and find out if the prospect understands your product and its value well.

💬 “Thanks for your honesty. But let’s imagine the price wasn’t an issue. Do we have the product you’d want to purchase?

💬 “What are you looking for in a product?”

💬 “Are there any boxes we left unchecked?”

💬 “Which issues does your business face at the moment? Which functionality could help you [achieve X]?”

You won’t only learn more about your prospect’s current needs and business aspirations, but you’ll divert their attention from the price and get them to think of the functionality they need.

NetHunt’s Hot Tip

Never assume you understand your prospect’s concern without clarifying it first.

Mirroring is an effective way of obtaining extra information from the prospect. Rephrase the objection as a question directed at them. This will give a consultative approach more context.

Empathise with the lead, but hit on the pressure points

While it’s understandable that you want to close the deal and secure payment, it’s important to put yourself in the consultative position. It shouldn’t be you against the prospect.

Instead, it should be you and the prospect against the problem they’re facing - whether it’s price-based or not.

To show that you’re on your prospect’s side and want nothing but the very best for them, empathise with them; put yourself in their shoes. Agree that the price concerns are valid and hit on the pressure points to shift the perspective.

💬 “Without a doubt, upfront, it's a significant purchase. But when you break it down and look at [weekly/monthly/yearly] ROI, you’ll see that purchasing [your product/service] will actually save you money.”

💬 “I understand your concerns. In fact, I recently talked to another lead from your industry, and they, too, felt uneasy about the price. But think of the ROI [your product] has over time.”

💬 “I agree, it’s not the cheapest on the market. But what will the impact on the business 6 months from now be due to inaction today?”

💬 “That’s fair, but can your business afford not to fix [the issue]? I understand it might seem expensive, but how much will doing nothing cost your business?”

Tap into your leads FOMO

We’ve already talked about the effectiveness of painting the gruesome scenario a business can find itself in, if it doesn’t invest in your product or service today due to price concerns.

However, you can take it a step further and tap into your lead’s fear of missing out.

There are several ways of doing it.

First, if you’re working with a prospect’s competitors, you can bring up the advantage they’ll have over your prospect in just three/six/nine months' time:

💬 “I get you, but I don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity to remain a competitive business. Your competitors X, Y, and Z have already invested in the [product], which means they’ll be able to solve [problem] and [problem]. In the long run, it’ll help them achieve [a goal]. What about you?"

Alternatively, you can hit them with the following objection:

💬 “Does this mean we’ll never be able to work together?"

Make sure to put emphasis on the word “never”.

"When it comes to handling sales objections, 'never' is the most powerful word in the English language. Most people hate it. As a result, the vast majority of prospects will respond by saying, 'well, no… not never!'"

🗣️ Colleen Francis

If your prospect understands your product’s value, their FOMO will kick in and they won’t want to sever this relationship for good. They’ll be more likely to consider the options you offer.

Turn price-based conversations into value-based conversations

Often, prospects say that the price is too high when they can’t see the value your product has for them.

The key is to look for issues where you can offer help. For example, some prospects might face problems where only your solution can change the situation.

But remember, there’s a difference between talking about your product’s features and the value it could hold for the customer investing in it.

Here’s an example…

Imagine you’re trying to sell a CRM system.

The lead will have little-to-no interest in hearing that it integrates seamlessly with Gmail, has a duplicate prevention feature, and offers sales automation functionality.

However, it will be essential for them to know that it operates within a familiar environment, so employees won’t struggle to find their way around the system. They’ll appreciate the fact that the customer database is clean and complete. They’ll love the boost in team productivity it offers.

To place your product’s value at the centre of the conversation, you need to match its features with the prospect’s specific needs and goals.

“It's crucial to find out their challenges and goals during the initial stages of the sales process. Try to gather enough information during discovery calls. Doing so will provide enough incentive to tackle the customer objections.”

🗣️ Paul Mallory, Co-Founder of ConsumerGravity

Here’s an example of a pricing sales objection rebuttal from Paul Mallory:

💬 “I agree it could be quite a commitment to make. But if I remember correctly, you previously brought up that your business is facing [issue].

💬 I took the liberty to research and read a few of your customer reviews on [site name]. They were unhappy about [the problem]. If you fail to resolve this issue quickly and efficiently, you can experience a decrease in customers; and [their company name] will also face difficulty reaching this year's revenue goal.

💬 Investing right now can save you from losing your valuable customers. So, do you want to give it a second thought?”

If you’re selling to a fellow B2B businessperson, you can further reinforce the importance of the product's value over the price by leveraging B2B solidarity:

💬 “In [their business], is your [product/service] always the most affordable option available?”

There’s a high chance that their product or service is, too, in line with or above the market average. Yet, they’re still making sales because of the product’s or service’s superiority and the value it brings to their customers.

Delivered correctly, this gets customers thinking about your product's value - pushing price concerns to the back of the queue.

Explain how you’re better than your competitors

We’ve already talked about bringing the topic of competition into the conversation. But remember, it’s not just a lead that’s competing for customer attention. You’re in a similar position — factor that in!

Unless you’re selling a unique product or service that doesn’t have an analogue on the market, your leads will likely judge your price against your competitors' prices.

See if that’s the case…

💬 “Too expensive compared to what?”

💬 "Are you saying that our prices are high in comparison to our competitors?"

💬 “Have you researched the market? In your opinion, what is the typical investment for a product/ service like this?”

💬 “Have you ever purchased a similar product/ service before?”

Once you understand what your product or service is being compared to, you can more precisely differentiate value…

💬 "I see. The thing is, there’s a reason why [ product or service] is priced above that of [competitor’s]. We offer [feature], [feature], and [benefit], which can help you [achieve a goal] more effectively.”

💬 “Yes, but there’s a difference between [your product/ service] and [competitor’s product/ service]. With [competitor’s product/ service] you won’t be able to [achieve a goal] (as quickly), while [your product/service] allows you to do it thanks to [feature] and [feature].”

Be flexible

Keep in mind that your role is to sell and help. A true interest in people will lead you to learn their interests and if your product is needed by them.

It’s possible that your lead only finds some details of your product or service irrelevant or unattractive, while not being opposed to the offer in general. In this case, you need to step back and consider the bigger picture:

💬 “Right, so which part of the offer don’t you like?”

💬 "Which features aren’t a priority to you right now?"

Once you figure out what’s stopping your lead from signing, you can look for some workarounds:

💬 “I understand that budget constraints make X features not a priority now. However, I’d love to know more about [their current business workflows], so I can see if I can cook up something that will work best for you.”

Ask which components would be most important to their business if they just can't afford your entire product or service. By developing à-la-carte pricing is an option, you'll have a grateful client:

💬 “It does sound complex but I can assure you that we customise our solutions packages to fit your basic needs and budget.”

Come armed with plenty of proof

When trying to counter your lead’s pricing objections, you need to strengthen your rebuttals with data. Ideally, you should have a couple of case studies, testimonials, and stats ready before the conversation.

To make sure your social proof is there when you need it most, it’s best to use CRM. Before you hop on a call with a potential customer, go through your won deals and find clients that are similar to your lead.

For example, NetHunt CRM allows you to add an unlimited number of custom tags to contact records, such as company size, industry, location, goals, problems, workflows, etc. You can then create custom views to see all the deals that fit certain criteria.

Refer to this data when talking to your lead.

“I come armed with proof to demonstrate that we’re the best suited to solve the client’s problems. We have good data on our customer satisfaction rates, retention rates, ticket response times, system reliability, and much more. We also have “soft” proof of our reputation including client referrals and a decent library of customer testimonials.

The key is matching the proof point to the customer’s pain points. Are they not getting good service from their current provider? Have they had a recent cybersecurity scare? Are they concerned our technicians don’t have the right experience to support their environment? The 10 – 20% premium we have over discount providers becomes much less significant when we can prove how we can solve the client’s challenges more effectively.”

🗣️ Shayne Caffrey, LeeShanok Network Solutions

Here’s an example of proof-backed pricing sales objection rebuttal from Caffrey:

💬 “I appreciate this might be a little higher than what you were thinking, it might even be a bit higher than what our competitors are quoting. But there are a couple of reasons why our pricing is where it is. You mentioned your biggest challenges were [client’s problems], right?

To address those properly, you need [PROOF POINT 1: A team with X certifications, business-grade hardware and someone to support it, guaranteed ticket response time in X hours, etc.]. There’s a reason [PROOF POINT 2: CEO of existing client took half a day to film a testimonial for us, our YOY client retention rate is over 95%, etc.]

Our pricing reflects what it takes to get the job done right. What you save on the front end with other providers is often negated by [slower response times, lower service quality, lower system reliability etc.]”

Offer a free trial

Your prospect might have enough money to buy your product or service. They might just not have enough money to waste on buying a cat in a bag.

If that’s the case, you should offer your prospect to test the product, see if it’s a good match for them, and allow them to make an informed decision after the trial period:

💬 “I understand that it’s quite a lot of money to spend on something you aren’t sure will be a perfect match for your business.

How about we give you a free trial of [product/ service], so that you could see it in action, test all the features, and understand whether or not it’s a good fit?

No commitments, I just don’t want you to miss out on a great product/service that can help you [achieve a goal].”

If all else fails, you can always go va banque and offer your lead a discount.

But remember, the more discounts you give out, the less money you make, and the less valuable your product is perceived as.

Treat this as your last resort and be selective with who you offer discounts. It should be profitable in the long run.

If it’s not, you might as well accept that this lead won’t convert and move on to other deals.

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