How to Handle Price Objections: When the Prospect Loves Your Product but Not Your Price
The demo went perfectly. He nodded at every feature, asked the right follow-up questions, told you he could "see his team using this." You allowed yourself to imagine the commission. Then Marcus called and opened with eight words that turned your stomach: "We have a pricing issue we need to talk through." A competitor — name withheld, which means he's protecting them — came in 40% cheaper. $12,000 less per year. Your product is better and you both know it. But Marcus doesn't sign the checks. His CFO does. And the CFO has never seen your demo. She's only going to see two numbers on a spreadsheet.
Why This Conversation Goes Wrong
You immediately offer a discount. The fastest way to lose respect in a price conversation. Marcus didn't ask for a discount — he asked you to help him understand the value. Dropping your price tells him you were overcharging all along. Worse, it teaches him that objections are a negotiation tool, not a genuine concern.
You trash the competitor. "Well, they don't have our AI features" is a feature fight you'll lose on a spreadsheet. Marcus already knows the feature differences. What he needs is a story about outcomes. Attacking the competitor also insults his judgment — he was seriously considering them.
You get defensive about the price. "Our pricing reflects the value we deliver" is a nothing statement. It sounds like a press release. Marcus is a data person who needs concrete numbers — cost of implementation, time saved per rep, revenue impact. Platitudes about value land with the force of wet paper.
You ignore the internal politics. Marcus isn't your adversary — he's your champion. If you treat this conversation as a negotiation between you and him, you miss the real audience: the CFO who will never be on this call. Every word you say needs to be ammunition Marcus can carry into that room.
The ROI Anchor
Price objections are never about the price. They're about the gap between what you cost and what the buyer can prove you're worth. The ROI Anchor closes that gap by shifting the conversation from monthly cost to annual return — and by giving your champion the exact words to sell internally.
Validate without flinching
"That's a real gap — $12,000 a year is meaningful. Let's dig into what that difference actually buys you." Don't minimize the number. Don't apologize for it. Acknowledge it plainly and then reframe what the conversation is actually about. Composure under price pressure is the single strongest trust signal in B2B sales.
Reframe to total cost of ownership
"What does implementation look like with the other tool? How many hours of configuration? What about ongoing maintenance for your team of eight?" Most cheaper tools cost more over 12 months when you factor in setup time, training hours, and feature gaps your team will build workarounds for. Make the hidden costs visible.
Quantify the delta
"If our AI feature saves each of your 8 reps 3 hours a week, that's 1,248 hours a year. At your team's loaded cost, that's roughly $75K in recovered productivity against a $12K price difference." Concrete math. Specific to his team size. The kind of number that survives a CFO meeting.
Arm the champion
"Would it help if I put together a one-page ROI summary your CFO can review? I've done these before — I know what finance teams actually look at." You just made his life easier. You're not selling anymore. You're building his business case, which is what he wanted from this call the entire time.
The future anchor
"Where does your team need to be in 12 months? Because the $1,400 tool will get you through this quarter. The question is whether it gets you where you're going." Plant the seed that cheaper is not cheaper if it means switching again in a year. Long-term cost beats short-term savings in every CFO conversation.
The moment that changes everything
He's not negotiating. He's recruiting you.
Marcus personally prefers your product. He has been using the competitor's proposal as a stress test, not a threat. What he actually needs from this call is ammunition — concrete, defensible numbers he can put in front of his CFO to justify the higher spend. If you offer a discount, he doesn't feel relieved. He feels deflated. Because a discounted price is harder to defend than a premium price backed by ROI math. The reps who lose this deal panic and slash margins. The reps who win it recognize that Marcus just handed them the roadmap: "Help me build the business case." The moment you shift from defending your price to arming your champion, the deal dynamics change completely. You're no longer on opposite sides of a negotiation. You're on the same side of a whiteboard.
What to Say (and What Not To)
Instead of
"We can probably work on the pricing a bit."
Try this
"$12,000 is a real difference. Let's figure out what that gap actually buys you."
Instead of
"Our competitor doesn't have our AI features."
Try this
"If each of your 8 reps saves 3 hours a week with our automation, that's $75K in recovered productivity."
Instead of
"Our pricing reflects the value we deliver."
Try this
"Let me put together a one-page ROI summary built for your CFO — I know what finance teams look at."
Instead of
"What if we did a 15% discount?"
Try this
"What does your CFO need to see to approve a budget increase? Let me help you build that case."
Instead of
"We're the market leader in this space."
Try this
"The cheaper tool will get you through Q1. The question is whether it gets your team where it needs to be by December."
Instead of
"I think you're comparing apples to oranges."
Try this
"Let's compare total cost of ownership over 12 months — including setup time and workarounds — not just the sticker price."
The Bigger Picture
A study by Corporate Visions found that 74% of B2B buyers choose the vendor that was first to add value and demonstrate insight, not the vendor with the lowest price. Yet most sales reps, when faced with a price objection, immediately reach for the discount lever. It's reflex, not strategy. The reps who hold their price while building a value case close at higher margins and — counterintuitively — at higher rates.
Marcus represents a common archetype in B2B deals: the internal champion who already wants to buy but lacks the political ammunition to get it done. Gartner research shows that the average B2B purchase now involves 6-10 decision makers. Your champion is one voice in a committee. If the only thing they can bring to the table is "I liked the demo," the cheaper option wins by default. Your job is to give Marcus a spreadsheet-ready argument, not a feelings-based one.
Here's the number that should reframe every price objection: the average cost of switching B2B SaaS platforms mid-contract is 2.5x the annual subscription price when you factor in migration, training, lost productivity, and the political capital spent justifying the original purchase. The "cheaper" option is almost never cheaper. But no one calculates that unless you make them.
Practice This Conversation
8 minutes · AI voice roleplay with Marcus Chen
Reading about this is step one. Practicing it changes everything. Sonitura lets you rehearse this exact conversation with Marcus Chen, a realistic AI head of revenue operations at a b2b saas company who reacts to your words in real time. It takes 8 minutes. When a real prospect tells you a competitor is 40% cheaper, you'll already know the math that wins.
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