AI praises a clear price more than a low one

Short answer: when AI recommends a local business, it does talk about price, but not the way most owners expect. A clear, upfront price comes up in 32% of answers; a low price in 23%. Across 3,600 answers from ChatGPT and Gemini in four countries, the assistants praise “transparent pricing”, “flat-rate quotes” and “no hidden fees” more often than cheapness - and in plumbing, electrical, locksmith and heating answers, in 68% of them. Your own price, on the other hand, they almost never give: Gemini quotes the going rate of a market in 158 answers, ChatGPT in none, and only two answers attach a price to a business they name.

AI does not tell your customer your price. It tells them the going rate, and to distrust anyone far below it.

What was measured

The same corpus as yesterday's edition: our four studies, buyer questions (“the best plumbers in Austin”, “a good dentist in Lyon”) put to ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Gemini through their programming interfaces, without web search, in the United States (13 September 2026), the United Kingdom (31 July), France (30 July) and Brazil (6 August) - 3,600 answers. In each language we counted three things. A clear price: a word of clarity (transparent, upfront, clear, detailed, no hidden fees) within 60 characters of a word of price, or a formula that is clear in itself (free quote, flat rate, fixed fee). A low price offered as a reason: affordable, cheap, competitive prices, good value. And an amount: a figure with its currency. Each of the 158 answers carrying an amount was then read, to see whose price it was.

A clear price comes up more often than a low one - except in Brazil

The gap is widest in France: 37% of answers praise a clear price, 15% a low one. The United Kingdom and the United States follow the same order. Brazil is the exception, and a clear one: there the low price leads, 32% against 23%.

Where the job is urgent and the bill unknown in advance - a leak, a lockout, a broken boiler - a clear price comes up in two answers out of three. It is also where the AI warns most about the opposite: 83 answers describe a very low price as a trap (“$29 tune-ups”, “the $19 locksmith”, “ouverture de porte à 49 €”), 81 of them from Gemini. Car repair and driving schools are the one family where a low price and a clear price run level.

AI quotes the market, not you

Of 3,600 answers, 158 contain an amount with its currency. All 158 come from Gemini; ChatGPT did not write a single figure in 1,800 answers. We read every one. Almost all give the going rate of a whole market - “a fair lockout price in Seattle generally ranges from $90–$150”, a cut and colour at Bordeaux's top salons “between 60 € and 120 €” - a warning, or a threshold. In France, 47 answers repeat the same rule: above 150 €, a written quote is compulsory. Only two attach a price to a business they name: a flat fee “often around 5,900 €” for an online estate agent in Paris, and “$20 worth of assorted buns” at a Houston bakery.

What it means if you are the business

The customer who asks AI arrives with two things you did not give them: a price range, and a suspicion of anyone far below it. What the AI praises by name is not the lowest bill, it is the bill a customer can read in advance. For a local business that is a concrete brief: write your prices down, in text, on your own site - a range for your common jobs, what the call-out or the first appointment costs, what is included, what the guarantee covers. A line such as “lockouts from £80, no call-out fee in the city centre” gives the assistant a sentence to repeat; “call for a quote” gives it nothing, and leaves the going rate to someone else's page. In the trades where the AI warns most - home repair, heating, locksmiths - a price nobody can explain is exactly what its advice tells the customer to avoid.

What this measurement does not prove

• It counts wording, not intention. A clear price needs a word of clarity within 60 characters of a word of price; the “low price” category also catches a few mentions made to deny it or warn against it - 2 of 12 in a random rereading.
• Answers from memory: both assistants were queried through their interfaces without web search, as in yesterday's edition. With search switched on, Gemini might cite real price lists.
• One model per assistant, at one date per country (United States 13 September, United Kingdom 31 July, France 30 July, Brazil 6 August 2026); ChatGPT's answers come from gpt-4o-mini, and a larger model might write amounts.
• The 158 answers with an amount were read by hand; a price attached to a business named without bold type could have escaped us. Two is what we found, not proof that there are no others.
• We did not check the ranges the AI gives (does a Seattle lockout really cost $90 to $150?) and observed no customer: what an announced going rate does to what people pay is not measured here.