The question every client has and most sites duck
Fees hidden behind a quote is one of the most common complaints clients make about professional websites. The visitor has one question the site will not answer, so they either ring to ask, which costs you a call and them their nerve, or they go to the practice that did answer.
You do not have to publish a price list to answer it. You have to answer the question the client is really asking, which is not "what is the number" but "roughly what am I in for, and how will I find out for certain". A fees page that explains the quoting process honestly beats a page that says "contact us for a quote", and it beats it with the regulator too, since fee transparency is a direction of travel in most professional regimes rather than an optional extra.
Four ways to answer, in order of preference
1. A fixed fee. Company accounts, a will, a document notarised, a certified translation per page, a standard visa application. If the fee is fixed for a defined scope, publish it and publish the scope.
2. A range with what moves it. "Residential conveyancing, £950 to £1,600 plus disbursements, depending on tenure, price band and whether there is a mortgage." The range is honest and the drivers tell the client which end they are at.
3. A rate plus a typical shape. An hourly rate with a typical number of hours for common matters, or a monthly retainer with what is included. "Most first year clients are in the six to ten hour band for this."
4. The quoting process, described. Where the work genuinely cannot be priced without facts: what you need from the client, how long the quote takes, whether the first conversation is free, whether the quote is fixed once given, and what happens if the scope changes. That is a real answer, and it is the one most practices should give for their complex work alongside fixed fees for their simple work.
Most practices use all four across different services. The mistake is using only the fourth.
The Fees page
One page, in the main menu, never a PDF. It carries:
- A one paragraph statement of how you charge, in plain words.
- A table of fixed fee services with what is included and what is not.
- Ranges for the services that vary, with the drivers listed.
- Hourly rates by seniority where you bill that way.
- What sits outside the fee: disbursements, third party costs, taxes, court or land registry fees, expenses.
- Whether the fee is inclusive of VAT or sales tax, stated once and clearly.
- Payment terms, payment plans, card and bank options, and when you take money on account.
- The quoting process for everything not listed.
- An effective date, and a booking button.
The effective date matters more than practices expect. It tells the client the page is maintained.
Fees on every service page
The Fees page is where clients go to compare. The service page is where they are already standing. Put the fee for that service on the page, drawn from the same field, so the two can never drift apart. A service page without a money line sends the reader back to the menu, and a good share of them do not come back.
Where each profession lands
- Accountants: monthly packages with what each includes, plus fixed fees for accounts and returns. A switching page that answers whether changing accountant costs anything.
- Law firms: fixed fees for wills, conveyancing and uncontested work, hourly rates by grade for the rest, plus the quoting process for litigation. Check what your regulator now requires published for particular work types.
- Mortgage brokers: how you are paid, in a section of its own. Fee, commission, both, or fee refunded on completion. This is the sentence clients most want and most sites bury.
- Financial advisers: initial and ongoing charges, percentage or flat, with a worked illustration of what that means in money on a stated portfolio size.
- Insurance brokers: how you are remunerated and what the client pays directly.
- Notaries and translators: a straightforward table by document type, per page or per word, with certification and courier extras.
- Estate agents: the selling fee, whether it is a percentage or fixed, the letting service levels, and what is in each.
- Consultants and coaches: engagement models and programme prices, or the band a typical engagement falls in.
Regulated wording
Several regimes have expectations about how charges are presented, whether commission or remuneration must be disclosed, and how illustrations may be worded. Treat this section as orientation and not as legal advice. The safe pattern is the same everywhere: state the charge accurately, state what it excludes, avoid implying a total that is not one, and have your compliance lead read the page before it goes live and again whenever a number changes.
Build it as fields
Fees belong in the service records, not typed into a page. Each service holds a fee value, a fee note, an inclusion list and an exclusion list. The Fees page renders the table from those records; the service pages render their own line from the same field. The practice manager edits one field and both change. Nobody needs a developer, and there is no second copy to forget.
A short test
Open the site on a phone as a stranger. Pick the service you sell most. Can you find out, in under thirty seconds, what it costs or how you would find out? If not, that is the highest value work on the site.
Where this sits
Fees or the quoting process, stated plainly, is one of the things every practice website we build has to do before it launches, and it is handled per profession on pages like financial advisers and tax preparers, where the shape of the answer differs. Our own build prices sit on the pricing page for the same reason.