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The real-world example you show when even a range doesn't work
You'll know how to swap an impossible range for the most typical job on your schedule, backed by invoice numbers instead of adjectives.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
There are businesses where even a range isn't honest. A custom furniture maker installs a floating shelf for $90, and two weeks later builds a ten-foot built-in closet for $3,800. If his website says "$90 to $3,800," that's not a range, it's an admission that he has no idea which group the reader will fall into. The spread is so wide it scares off anyone who just wanted the shelf, and gives no direction at all to anyone who needs the closet.
The same thing happens to anyone who caters events: an appetizer spread for fifteen people and a wedding banquet for a hundred and fifty have nothing in common except that the same kitchen makes them. When jobs differ in size, materials, and time, a single number, or two numbers with a dash between them, describes nothing. It describes an average that represents no one, and readers can tell: nobody trusts a price that sounds like it was calculated to fit everything.
The real example instead of the impossible number
The way out isn't to stretch your price range wider until it covers both the shelf and the wardrobe at the same time: the wider you make it, the less it tells people. The way out is to stop showing a number and start showing a job. Take the job that's most typical of what you usually do, not the one you enjoyed most, not the one that paid the most, and describe it the way you'd explain it to a neighbor standing at your shop door: what they asked for, what you did, how long it took. That's what Jakob Nielsen, of the US consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, recommended back in 2006, mostly thinking about websites that sell to businesses, but also about services for individual customers, like a landscaping company: if you can't show exact prices, show a handful of representative cases with their price. The reader doesn't know exactly what theirs will cost, but they know whether their job is similar to the one they just read about. That's the only thing they need to decide whether to write to you or keep looking.
A real example anchors better than a price range that wide, because it doesn't force anyone to place themselves between a minimum and a maximum they don't understand or know how to read. All they have to do is compare their job to the one you described, and anyone can do that without knowing your trade. It's the same logic as the yardstick from the second lesson in this block: you're not listing everything that changes the price, you're showing what to measure against. Here, the yardstick takes the shape of a job, not a loose sentence.
- Works when jobs are similar to each other and only the size changes
- Gives a minimum and maximum that anyone can place themselves within
- Falls short as soon as a job comes along that's well outside the norm
- Works when jobs vary so much that a range says nothing
- It doesn't promise a number, it promises a resemblance
- Needs concrete details, size, material, time, so it doesn't stay just a story
- Not needed if your jobs are nearly all the same, a range reads faster there
Which one do I pick: If the gap between your cheapest job and your most expensive one is so wide that a range no longer orients anyone, forget the price range and share an example instead: a range that wide lies in one direction or the other. If your jobs are similar and only the size changes, the price range from the previous lesson is still the fastest tool to read, and there's no need to replace it with anything.
Which example to share, and which not to
This is where it's easy to make a costly mistake. People pick the cheapest example so they don't scare anyone off with the first number they read, or the flashiest one to show off their best work. Neither one represents what you'll actually be doing most weeks of the year.
The cheap example attracts exactly the people looking for that: the bare minimum, the simplest option, the least commitment. They'll write to you asking for the shelf when what fills your calendar every week is the wardrobe, and you'll end up explaining over the phone that that job was the exception, not the rule. The expensive example, the one you'd proudly show off at an industry trade show, does just the opposite: it drives away the people who actually were a good fit, because they assume that's the entry level for talking to you, and they never even write. Nielsen Norman Group saw something similar in a 2016 user study: cleaning companies that only showed photos of luxury homes or large offices scared off people who lived in smaller houses, who weren't sure whether the company worked with homes like theirs.
So the example that works is the typical one: the job that comes up most often on your calendar from the last few months, not the one you remember most fondly or the one that made you proudest to finish. If you're torn between two, count how many times you've done each one this quarter, and the one with the most tally marks wins.
How to tell it
Write a real case with the same details you'd put on an invoice, not with adjectives. Name the item, the measurement or quantity, the material if it affects the result, and how long it took from start to finish. The more concrete details you include, the less you need to add anything else to make it sound credible: "a beautiful, carefully finished job" doesn't tell a customer anything they can compare to their own project, but "a ten-foot oak wardrobe, four weeks" does. In a study by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen from 1997, with 51 users, the same website written in an objective style, without exaggeration, personal opinions, or self-promotion, scored 27% higher on measured usability than its promotional version.
If you can, give the case a price: that's what orients people the most. If you do, make it the final price, taxes included: Spain's consumer protection law requires this when you offer individual customers a service along with its price, and when the nature of the service means the price can't be set exactly, it requires you to state the basis for the calculation so it can be checked. If you'd rather not include it, the case still does its job just by describing the size of the job: the reader understands whether theirs is bigger, smaller, or similar, and that's enough for them to write to you with a reasonable expectation in mind. That said, if what you sell is a service, anyone who asks has to get the price, how it's calculated, or a detailed estimate from you, as required by Spain's Law 17/2009 on the free access to service activities when you don't have a price set in advance; that law leaves out some services, such as healthcare.
The example isn't set in stone. If six months from now the job that comes up most often isn't the closet anymore but a full kitchen remodel, swap in that example instead. Don't change it on a hunch or because a recent job was more fun, look at what you've done most often over the last three months on your calendar, and that, and only that, is the one you tell.
- When jobs vary too much for a range, tell a real example instead
- The example you pick is the most typical one on your calendar, not the cheapest or the most expensive
- You tell it with invoice-level details, item, size, material, time, not adjectives
- You review it every few months and swap it out if it stops being your typical job
Test yourself
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. A physical therapist treats everything from a neck strain that clears up in one session to a fifteen-session knee rehab. Should they use a range or tell a real example?
Tell a real example, because the gap between one session and fifteen is so wide that a range that broad doesn't orient anyone. Pick the treatment that repeats most often on your calendar, neither the one-session neck strain nor the long rehab, and describe it with the sessions and weeks it usually takes.
2. An interior designer has only done two big projects this year, two complete home renovations worth more than $40,000 each, even though her day-to-day work is two-hour consultations. Which case should she feature?
The two-hour consultation, because it's the one that repeats week after week. The two big renovations are this year's exception, and featuring them as the typical case would attract jobs of a size she can't take on that often.
3. A bike repair shop can't decide whether to feature a brake adjustment, its cheapest job, or a full tune-up, its highest earner. Which one should it write about?
Neither one: look at which of the two it repairs more often each month and write about that, even if it's neither the cheapest nor the most profitable. The case has to represent what happens most often in the shop, not what's most convenient to show off.
Choosing the most typical case keeps you from lying about the price, but it won't stop someone from reaching out who you'll never be able to take on. You need to filter that person out ahead of time, with a written condition next to the case or the price range.
Sources
- Show Prices for Common Scenarios. Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 2006.
- Trustworthiness in Web Design: 4 Credibility Factors. Aurora Harley, Nielsen Norman Group, 2016.
- Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web. John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 1997.
- Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, approving the consolidated text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, Article 20. Spanish Official State Gazette, consolidated text, last updated February 28, 2026.
- Law 17/2009, of November 23, on free access to service activities and their exercise, Article 22. Spanish Official State Gazette, consolidated text, last updated November 12, 2020.
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