Booking, price calculators & co: when your site should do more

There are two kinds of websites: those that inform about your business, and those that work in it. The second kind calculates prices, takes bookings, sells at three in the morning. When is that step worth it? Honest answers with real examples.

The principle: ordering instead of enquiring

The classic route costs both sides time: the customer enquires, you reply, the customer asks a follow-up, you send an offer, the customer thinks it over … Every stage loses prospects. A website with functionality shortens the path: the customer gets what they want right away, a price, an appointment, an order.

A real example: For a digitisation service we built plaene-scannen.ch: choose the format, enter the quantity, the price appears live, order directly, in four languages, around the clock. Orders arrive already calculated; answering price enquiries disappears completely.

The three most common features, and when they pay off

The online price calculator pays off when your prices follow understandable rules (area, quantity, options). It filters as a side effect: anyone who has used the calculator already knows the price, so only genuine prospects get in touch. By the way, you are using an example right now: our own price calculator follows the same principle.

Appointment booking pays off when appointment ping-pong by phone and email eats up your day, practices, consultations, viewings. The customer books whenever it suits them; your calendar fills up without your involvement.

Ordering and selling pay off when your service can be standardised, from a product to a subscription. How far that can go is shown by FM360°: a trade magazine whose website sells subscriptions, takes ads and places job listings, three revenue streams on one site.

The honest cost-benefit view

A website with functionality costs more than a brochure page, orders of magnitude in the article website costs. The counter-calculation: what does one hour of answering enquiries per day cost you over a year? What is an order worth that gets placed at three in the morning instead of going to the competition? Features pay off when they replace recurring work or enable deals that would otherwise never have happened.

When it does not pay off: If your prices are purely a matter of negotiation, if every job is one of a kind, or if you win a handful of customers per year, then the personal conversation remains the better route, and an informative website with a good contact path is enough.

A word on the technology

This is where a website parts ways with a website builder: calculators, booking logic and order flows are exactly the requirements at which off-the-shelf systems bow out or end in patched-together workarounds. This is programming craft, our home turf. Whether your idea is feasible and what it costs: two minutes in the price calculator, honest assessment included.