{"id":1239,"slug":"gating-as-conversion-lever-vendor-marketed","title":"Calculator-builder vendors explicitly market the gate as a conversion lever — \"blur or hide the total price to generate more leads\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["customer-facing-tools","lead-capture-gating"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Calculator-builder vendors explicitly position the gate as a conversion lever — instructing SMBs to *blur or hide the total price to force a contact submission before reveal*.\n\n**Quote:** Stylish Cost Calculator: \"blur or hide the total price to generate more leads.\"\n\n**Source:** Stylish Cost Calculator https://wordpress.org/plugins/stylish-cost-calculator/\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source / vendor-incentivized.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The pattern is real and works in some verticals, but it inverts the trust-building rationale of putting the calculator there in the first place. A customer who is *forced* to submit before seeing the result will substantially under-perform a self-qualified contact. See [[rule-default-to-directional-range-ungated]].","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"gating-vs-ungating-tradeoff","title":"The gated-vs-ungated trade-off: gated produces measurable form-fills but reduces reach; ungated builds trust + SEO but captures fewer direct leads","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-customer-facing-calculators-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: customer-facing calculators & tools for SMBs — the honest case (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-default-to-directional-range-ungated","title":"R2 — Default to a directional range, ungated, with a loud \"this is a ballpark\" — not a precise gated quote","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-20T16:50:09.578Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T16:50:09.578Z"}