When a Client Says Someone Else Charges Less

Imagine a specialist realtor named Marguerite Olsen who sells only houses built before 1920. She meets Mr. and Mrs. Whitcombe in the front parlor of their 1890s house, which they want to sell in the spring. She has walked every room with them and told them what she would ask for it. Her fee is 3% of the sale price.

Mrs. Whitcombe sets down her cup. “The agent we met on Monday would list it for 2%,” she says. “Why would we pay you more?”

Marguerite has a showing across town at four. “I’d be careful with a 2% agent,” she says. “At that rate, they put it on the listing service and hope. You get what you pay for.” Mrs. Whitcombe says that the agent sold her sister’s house last year. Marguerite feels the listing slipping away. “I don’t want to lose you over 1%,” she says. “I could do 2.5%.” The Whitcombes say they will talk it over. On Friday, they list with the agent from Monday.

Suppose instead that Marguerite hears a fair question. “That’s a fair comparison,” she says. “On a house like this, 1% is a lot of money, and you should weigh it.” Then she says what is different about working with her. “I sell about six houses a year, all of them from before 1920. Forty buyers on my list have asked me to call when one like this comes up.” She pauses, and then she says her fee again. “My fee is 3%.”

Mr. Whitcombe asks how many of the 40 could buy a house at this price. Marguerite guesses about a dozen, and she offers to send him the list that evening without the buyers’ names. The next week, the Whitcombes sign with her at 3%.

Marguerite offered the same work at the same fee both times. In the first version, she answered the comparison with a dig at the other agent and then a discount. The dig was aimed at an agent the Whitcombes’ family had chosen. The discount told them that her 3% had room in it. Neither one told them what they would get from her.

In the second version, she agreed that the comparison was fair. She named what was different about working with her, in two sentences about her own work. Then she said her fee again and left the choice with the Whitcombes. So when a client says someone else will do it for less, make those three moves. Here is why each one works.

A client who has a lower quote is making a fair comparison

A client who tells you about a lower quote has a real number from a real person. From where the client sits, two professionals have offered to do the same job, and one of them costs less. Weighing that is what a careful client does. It is a concern the two of you can look at together, not a challenge.

The client cannot see what is different about the two jobs, because the work has not started. Both agents will put the house on the market, and both will hold showings. What one agent knows about old houses, and who is on her list, does not show in a first meeting. So the client compares the two prices, because the prices are what they can see.

That leaves you three ways to answer, and two of them go wrong. You can say that the other professional is worse. You can lower your price. Or you can name what is different and keep your price. The three moves below are the course’s suggestion, and each one has its reason.

Say that the comparison is fair. Say it in one sentence, before anything else. It tells the client that you heard the lower price and that it does not rattle you. Leave out any word about the other professional, because you do not know them and the client might. A claim about someone the client knows is one they can check, and they might find it wrong.

Name what is different about working with you. Give one or two facts about your own work, in a sentence or two. How many clients you take and what your fee covers are facts of that kind. Each is a fact the client can use. Make every fact about you and none about the other professional. The client can set your facts beside the other quote and decide. If you do not know what the other quote covers, ask, the way you would ask what an old price covered.

Keep your price, without a dig or an apology. Say your price again, in the same words, and stop. A match or a discount tells the client that your first price had room in it. So it adds a doubt instead of settling one. Leave out the apology, such as “I know I’m more expensive.” Leave out the boast too, such as “You get what you pay for.” A boast puts you above the client, and an apology tells them you expected to lose.

After the three moves, the client decides. Some clients will choose the lower quote, and some of them will be right to. If what the cheaper professional offers is all the client wants, say so. If the client is weighing whether your result will be better, lower the risk instead of the price.

A Massachusetts agent kept her fee and lost the listing

Kathryn Acciari was a listing agent in Worcester County, Massachusetts. In 2008, she wrote on ActiveRain about a listing appointment from the year before. The sellers had been referred to her, and they “seemed eager for me to list and market their home.” Then they asked whether her commission was negotiable.

“My rate is fair and it is not negotiable,” she told them. The sellers answered that other agents would list their home for less. They “wanted all of my services but not at full price.” Acciari went through the listing services she offered, “which the other agents did not provide.” The sellers said that they could not afford her. They asked her to cut some of the services, and the price with them.

“I stood my ground, thanked them for all of their time, and ended the meeting,” she wrote.

She did not get the listing. The sellers hired an agent at a lower commission, then canceled the listing because they were unhappy with that agent. Next, they tried a flat-fee listing, and it expired. “The sellers contacted me numerous times to ask if I would reconsider lowering my fee,” she wrote. “I declined.”

In her account, Acciari names the services the other agents did not offer, and she keeps her fee. She ends the meeting with thanks, not an argument. One sentence from that meeting goes too far. When the sellers said that they could not afford her, she told them, “In this market, and with the exposure that your home needs, you can’t afford to not hire me.” That sentence decides for the sellers what they can afford, which was theirs to decide. Keep her named services, her fee, and her thanks, and leave that sentence out.

A UK food photographer helps some clients find someone cheaper, and some come back

Scott Choucino is a food photographer in the UK. In 2019, he wrote for Fstoppers about how potential clients react to his quotes. Some of them expect to pay $200 for a job that will cost $2,000. “Sometimes, they realize that their expectations were miles out and either align them with my fee,” he writes, “or I often help them find someone who I think could do a good job for less money.”

Some of those clients come back. “I have found these people three years later,” he writes, after a cheaper photographer gave them “no return on that small investment.” By then, “they are happy to spend money on something that will actually help.”

Other clients ask Choucino to match a photographer who charged a quarter of his price. His view is that a fee comes with the work behind it. “If someone booked me because I was cheaper than Annie Leibowitz and for no other reason, they would be extremely disappointed when they received my work,” he writes.

Choucino keeps his fee, and the client who cannot pay it still leaves with help. So when a cheaper professional can do what a client needs, say so, and give a name if you have one.

A Washington designer names how the cheaper piece differs, and clients usually keep hers

In 2019, Business of Home asked eight interior designers what they do when clients shop around for a lower price. Andrea Small is a designer in Washington, D.C. Sometimes a client of hers finds a piece she chose for less somewhere else. Then she tells the client about “the quality difference of the product they are buying (or have bought) versus the one I’ve specified.” “This usually deters the purchase,” she said.

Small also leaves the choice with the client, in writing. Her contracts say that if a client can get a better price on certain products, she will tell them. “They can buy it directly,” she said, “but they are assuming responsibility for those purchases and all that comes with it.”

Small is talking about furniture during a project, not her own fee in a first meeting. What carries over is the order. She names what is different about the two pieces, and then the client chooses. She says nothing about the other seller. So when a client finds a lower price, say what they would get from you. Say what they would take on without you, and let them decide.

Why naming the other professional’s faults goes wrong

Imagine a private chef named Anselm Ruiz who meets Mrs. Delahaye about a dinner for 16 in October. His fee is $3,200, plus the food. Mrs. Delahaye says that another chef quoted her $2,400.

Anselm knows not to offer a discount. He is due at a client’s house at six, so he names what is different, as he sees it. “That’s a fair comparison,” he says. “But a lot of chefs at that price buy their desserts in and use frozen stock.” Mrs. Delahaye says that the other chef cooked for her friend’s party in June and made every dessert there herself. She books the other chef.

Anselm agreed that the comparison was fair, and he kept his price. His mistake was naming what was different as faults in the other chef. Mrs. Delahaye had eaten that chef’s food, so she could check his claim, and it was wrong. His words about the other chef also asked her to doubt her friend’s choice.

The version that works keeps Anselm’s first sentence and puts the facts on his side. “That’s a fair comparison,” he says. “I make everything in your kitchen that afternoon, down to the bread. I bring a server for every eight guests, and it’s $3,200.” Then he stops. Mrs. Delahaye asks whether he could cook the fish course she had in Lyon. Anselm says that he could, and she books him for October 12.

Keeping your price is not handing the client to someone cheaper

When a lower quote is on the table, keeping your price can feel like handing the client to the other professional. Acciari writes that “there was a moment when I considered caving in,” because the sellers needed a full-service agent and she wanted to help them.

Some clients will choose the lower quote, whatever you say. Acciari’s sellers wanted all of her services at the other agents’ price, and a match would have given them exactly that. A client who leaves may also come back. Acciari’s sellers called her again after the cheaper listings failed. Choucino’s clients came back three years later, ready to pay. When you name what is different and keep your price, a client who comes back knows what your price buys.

How to answer a client who says someone else charges less

1. Before your next first meeting, write two facts about how you work that a client could set beside another quote. Make both about your own work. For example, a home organizer writes, “I work in one house at a time, and I bring the bins and the shelving myself.”
2. When a client says someone else charges less, say first that the comparison is fair. For example, a coach can say, “That’s a fair comparison, and the lower fee is worth weighing.” Say nothing about the other professional, good or bad.
3. If you do not know what the other quote covers, ask before you say anything about yours. For example, a caterer can ask, “What does their price include? The servers, the rentals, the cleanup?”
4. Name what is different about working with you, in a sentence or two. For example, an event planner can say, “I take one party a month, and I visit every venue with you before we choose anything.”
5. Say your price again, in the same words, and stop. For example, a tutor can say, “It’s $160 a session, twice a week until the exam.” Do not match the other price, offer a discount, or apologize for yours.
6. If the cheaper professional can give the client everything they want, say so, and give a name if you have one. For example, a personal trainer can say, “If you mostly want company on your runs, Dana at the club would suit you, and she charges less.”

Next: You will see how to tell whether a client who needs to think it over means it. Then you will see what to say to each.