Depending on the business, that could be a customer you wouldn't want anyways. Customers looking solely for lowest price tend to be nightmare customers that would in the long run be more expensive as a customer than just not having them as a customer at all.
Companies that seek to convert every single potential sale and feel a non-sale is a net loss tend to be the companies that I as a potential customer do not want to be a customer of. They tend to have shite customer support anyways.
At the end of the day, the "contact us" pricing clearly is not something that ends companies, otherwise nobody would use it.
I'm confused; you seem to be arguing opposite things. A few comments above, you say:
> ["Call for pricing"] also means that the price isn't fixed, and that a good negotiator might be able to get a lower price than someone else.
But you also say:
> [A potential customer who doesn't want to talk to sales] could be a customer you wouldn't want anyways. Customers looking solely for lowest price tend to be nightmare customers...
So the potential customer who does call for pricing -- possibly with the intent to negotiate that price down -- is also potentially that nightmare customer who is just looking for the lowest price and will be a drag on your time and resources.
To me, the potential customer who just wants to get started without needing to suffer through a call with a sales person... well, that customer sounds at least as likely to be someone who will be a nice, quiet customer who uses your product and doesn't call or write in with inane complaints and issues all the time.
I don't think this is a good signal. I do agree that a potential customer who calls is probably more likely to sign up, but it's still an extra barrier to customer acquisition, no matter how you slice it.
In my experience, "call for quote" type places are way more expensive than $5.99/month type of things. It's usually for the plans that for more than 2,000/perX that get those. At that point, it is definitely a negotiation. These places feel like just because your website receives X hits per hour/day/week translates to you being able to pay for a higher rate to do something like license a font/image/music.
The places that are using 'call for quote' on things available on Walmart tend to be people that don't want people of Walmart listed as a customer. However, again, in my experience, I haven't seen one of these. It's been for things that are going to have sticker shock level pricing.
The problem is this discussion is too abstract. There is a big difference between a 10 pack of cheap pens and a custom made pen - depending on which we are talking about different things make sense. Likewise it could be a sheet of paper or replace all the printers in the office. Some things call and we will figure out pricing make a lot of sense, while for others it doesn't. When you realize all of the above exists with call us prices but they are sold differently it starts to make sense why the signal is both good and bad to different people - we are thinking of different situations and so the signal means different things.