"Mahango bhayo" - it's too expensive. As a personal trainer I heard that sentence more than any other. What I eventually understood is that it is not one objection. It's three different ones wearing the same words, and each one needs a completely different answer. Give a discount to all three and you lose money on the one customer who would have paid full price anyway.
Businesses hire me to fix their marketing and sales, and this is one of the questions I get asked most. So: the three reasons a customer says your price is too high, and exactly what to do about each one.
My own price objection story
I worked as a personal trainer for four years before I understood any of this. My first paying client set my own price for me - I was new, getting a client at all felt like the win, so when he offered me Rs 1,500 a month, I took it. From there I raised my price to Rs 3,000. The objection never went away. What changed was what I said back to it.
Reason one: he genuinely cannot afford it
This is the one owners assume every time, and it's rarer than you think.
If someone's income genuinely does not stretch to your price, no amount of selling changes that. You'll know it when you see it - they feel bad saying no, not defensive about it, because the limit is real and not a choice.
Here's the part worth sitting with: most people who say "mahango bhayo" do have the capacity to pay. They are refusing for a different reason and using price as the easy way to say no. Confusing the two is the single biggest mistake in handling this objection - you either waste time pushing someone who genuinely cannot afford it, or you give up on someone who could.
Reason two: he doesn't understand the value yet
This is the objection you created yourself, usually by answering a price question too fast.
Think about why a customer even asks "what's the price?" before they've heard anything else. It's almost never because they're ready to buy. It's because they want to decide whether to keep listening to you at all. Give them a number immediately and you've handed them the exit - too expensive, thanks, bye.
One habit fixes most of this: never send your price in a DM or a message before a real conversation happens. If someone gets your price cold, with no context, no relationship, no sense of what they're actually getting - of course they price-shop it against everything else in their head. Get them in front of you first.
Sales rule number one: answer a question with a question. Whoever asks the questions controls the frame. When someone asks your price, don't answer it - ask what their goal is. What are they actually trying to achieve? Keep asking, keep listening, until the customer understands the value themselves. I call this the machine gun - you don't stop asking until they get it.
There's a technique I picked up from Brian Tracy's book The Art of Closing the Sale for the customer who won't stop pushing for a number: tell them not to worry about the price yet - if the product isn't the right fit for them, they won't have to pay for it anyway. That reframes the conversation from "can I afford this" to "is this right for me," and that's the conversation you actually want to be having before a number ever comes up.
When it's fine to give the price upfront
Not every business works the same way, and this matters: business runs on demand and supply, and which one is constraining you changes the right answer.
When I'm fully booked and don't have spare capacity, I state my price immediately and let it filter people - stating a high number honestly does the filtering for me.
A gym I've worked with runs the same logic differently: membership starts at Rs 5,000 and tops out around Rs 36,000. State the minimum price upfront - a gym is a supply-constrained business too (there's a real limit to how many people can be in the room at once), so it actually helps to filter out anyone who can't clear even the entry price before they take up staff time.
If your business is demand-constrained instead - people aren't lining up to buy - the order flips. Build value with questions before you ever say a number.
Reason three: he's bargaining, and bargaining is a habit
Bargaining in Nepal is close to a cultural default - a lot of people won't feel good about a purchase unless they've asked for something off. Handling it is a full topic on its own, but the shortcut is one idea: the anchor offer.
Before you show your actual price, show something more expensive first. A jewellery shop does this by showing a couple shopping for an engagement ring the most expensive ring in the store first - one they know the couple won't buy - before showing the ring that's actually in budget. It's straight out of Robert Cialdini's book Influence: he describes an experiment where people who dip a hand in cold water first find lukewarm water feel warm, and people who go straight to lukewarm find it unremarkable. Contrast changes perception. Show the expensive option first, and your real price feels like the reasonable one.
If someone still asks for a discount after that, don't cut the price - remove something from the offer instead. Take away the guarantee, or the fast delivery, or some other term - and offer that as the "discount." Most people who genuinely want the guarantee or the service level will pay full price rather than give it up. And one rule that has to hold regardless: never quote two different prices to two different customers for the same thing. Discounting selectively is how you lose the customers who paid full price the moment they compare notes.
Why I don't give discounts
My own rule, for what it's worth: I don't discount. Someone who is only chasing a lower number usually isn't valuing what you're offering in the first place - and the customer who does value it will pay for it. If you want to go deeper on this, two more books worth reading: Robert Cialdini's Influence, and Alex Hormozi's Gym Launch Secrets, which has its own take on handling price objections.
Which of the three do you hear most in your business - "I can't afford it," "why is it so expensive," or a straight ask for a discount? Tell me in the comments - I read every one.