This was kind of interesting as I was comparing rates of some local consultants and for one person he had a frequently asked question section. The question was essentially asking why so many people charge such different prices for what seemed like the same type of work. The person explained it by saying a lot of people in his field price their rates based on volume. For example, they can either choose a model where they price very low and do high volume or price very high and do low volume.
I guess the most interesting part of this for me is that he did this specifically as he believed that this will actually bring him more business. The train of thought is that people reading from the outside will have a perception that he is open and honest for displaying information like that and therefore you should be able to trust him more. In many ways I would say that does indeed work as even I usually trust businesses a little more if they educate me about an aspect of their industry that I was unaware of before.
I guess the danger from a business side in doing this is that most people are negligent about the costs of running a business behind the scene without looking at the full details. Not only that, people usually don’t immediately recognize that what you charge is to help yourself make a living. Therefore, this can make some people cynical if you made say a decent amount of profit on the transaction. Everyone wants things for free of course. But, I believe explaining things in a very broad way like what the person did work wonders.