One Technique That Turns "Too Expensive" into "I'll Take It"
By Ayan Smagul, Growth Marketing Manager at Pleep
When a customer says "too expensive," the fix is not a discount or justification — it's reframing the conversation to show the cost of inaction, which shifts focus from price to the value of solving their problem now.
"Too Expensive" Isn't About the Money
When a customer says "too expensive" — 80% of reps do one of two things: offer a discount or start explaining why "it's actually not expensive because of the quality."
Both are traps.
A discount devalues the product. "Fine, we'll knock 20% off" — the customer thinks: "so the original price was inflated." Trust drops.
"We offer quality" — sounds like an excuse. The customer hears "we're expensive and we're trying to justify it."
The real issue is that "too expensive" isn't about the absolute price. It's about the perceived gap between price and value. The customer doesn't see enough value for the amount you're asking. The solution isn't to lower the price — it's to raise the perceived value.
The Technique: Reframe to the Cost of Inaction
Instead of justifying the price — show how much it costs NOT to buy.
Example from financial services:
Customer: "$500 for your services — that's expensive."
Bad response: "We can set up a payment plan over 3 months."
Good response: "I understand. Can I ask — how many times have you been turned down for a loan in the past month?"
Customer: "Twice."
"Each rejection knocks your credit score down. After 3-4 rejections, getting approved will cost significantly more — or become impossible for six months. $500 now vs. six months of being locked out entirely — how would you weigh that?"
You're not justifying the price. You're showing the price of the alternative — doing nothing.
How This Works Across Industries
Beauty salon: "The treatment costs $150." → "That's expensive." → "I understand. If you don't mind my asking: how much do you spend per month on creams and products trying to fix this on your own?" The answer is usually $80-100 per month. "So in two months, you're spending more — without results?"
Education consulting: "Application support costs $1,800." → "That's expensive." → "If you apply independently and the documents are done incorrectly — can you reapply this year?" → "No, only next year." → "A year of waiting means a year without a scholarship, a year of rent at home, a year without the degree. What's that worth in dollars?"
IT services: "CRM setup costs $2,000." → "That's expensive." → "How many leads does your team handle per day?" → "About 40." → "And how many get lost because someone forgot to follow up or didn't log it?" → "Maybe 20%." → "8 leads per day × your average deal size × 20 working days. What does that add up to per month?"
Why This Works
The technique is based on Prospect Theory by Daniel Kahneman (Nobel Prize, 2002). People feel losses 2-2.5 times more intensely than gains. "Losing $1,000" hurts more than "gaining $1,000" feels good.
When you show a customer the cost of inaction — you activate loss aversion. Which is stronger than the pain of spending money on a purchase.
You're not manipulating. You're showing reality. Inaction has a cost too — it's just that nobody calculates it.
How to Apply This in 5 Minutes
- Identify: what does the customer lose every day/week/month by not using your product
- Translate that into money or concrete consequences
- When the customer says "too expensive" — ask about their current losses
- Let them do the math
Don't say "you're losing a million a month." Ask questions so they arrive at that number themselves. A number someone calculates on their own is 10 times more persuasive than one you hand them. For the full question-based selling method, read How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves.
Pleep's AI agent uses cost-of-inaction reframing automatically when customers say "too expensive" — you can fine-tune this through behavior correction. See how it works or create your AI agent in 5 minutes.
