Should your AI agent give prices?

Several businesses asked us the same thing this fortnight: should the agent quote at all? It depends on the question, not the business. Most businesses need all four answers:

• An exact price. The price is fixed and written down: a set fee, a catalogue item, a standard service. The agent reads it and gives it.
• A range. The price depends on one or two facts the customer knows. The agent gives the range and says what moves the price within it.
• A “from” price. Only if a real customer can get that price, and the agent says what it buys. A “from” that almost nobody pays is worse than no price.
• No price, and a person. The price depends on an inspection, a judgement or a formula only one person knows. The agent says so plainly, gathers what that person needs and says when they will reply.

For consumers in Spain, the law points the same way. When, because of the nature of the product or service, the price in an offer cannot be fixed exactly, the business must give the basis of calculation that lets the consumer check it (article 20.1.c of the consumer law, the TRLGDCU). When the price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance or depends on a quote, the business must explain how the price is set (article 60.2.c).

A line we have seen more than once in price lists: two figures, a slash and the word “from”. Even the people who wrote it need a moment to explain it. If the person who set the price has to stop and think, a customer will guess, and an agent repeating it passes the confusion on.

A price answer a customer reads right has five parts:

1. One number, not two side by side.
2. What it includes, and what it does not.
3. VAT. For consumers, Spanish law asks for the total price including all taxes and charges, with any increases, discounts and extra charges set out (article 60.2.c). For business customers, say “VAT included” or “plus VAT” every time.
4. The deposit, if there is one: how much, when, and whether it comes off the total. Payment procedures are part of the information a consumer must get before the contract (article 60.2.d).
5. What would change it, and until when the price holds.

An example, with invented figures: “The standard check is €120, VAT included, parts and labour for one visit. A €30 deposit when you book comes off the total. It only goes up if a second visit is needed, and we tell you first. Valid until 31 December 2026.”

One more rule matters if the price itself is set by software: in distance or off-premises contracts, if a price has been personalised by automated decision-making, the business must say so clearly (article 20.1.c).

Prices do not belong in the agent’s instructions. A price typed into a prompt is a second copy nobody remembers to update. Several owners told us they want to change prices themselves, without calling anyone. That is the right instinct, and it decides the design:

• One table or system the business already edits: a spreadsheet, the catalogue, the management software.
• The agent reads it every time it answers, so a change made at ten is in the answer at five past.
• Each row says what the price includes, whether VAT is in, the deposit, and the date it took effect.
• Anything not in the table is not a price the agent can give. It hands over.

Keep old rows with their dates. When a customer says “your agent told me €90 last month”, you can check what the table said that day.

Some prices are not in any table. In many businesses the price comes from a formula one experienced person carries in their head, and quote requests keep arriving after hours. Owners then weigh publishing prices against keeping the sales conversation. You do not have to choose: the agent keeps the conversation, the person keeps the price.

• The minimum. The agent asks only what the quote needs, and confirms it back in one message.
• A person prices it. Or, if the business writes its formula down, a calculator the business owns and checks does the sums and the agent passes on the result. The AI model never does the arithmetic from memory.
• After hours. The agent replies at once with a real time (“your quote will reach you tomorrow before 11”), and the request waits in the morning queue with everything attached.

At Fixlab, 55% of conversations start outside office hours (Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 15:30), and most handovers to a person are price questions, which the assistant passes to the team by design (Fixlab case study, field metrics from 26 June to 24 September 2026).

The objections we heard most were not about prices. When owners tried out an agent, they pushed back hardest when it asked a customer for a pile of photos and documents while the customer was only enquiring, and when it assumed what the customer needed instead of asking.

• While someone is enquiring, ask the one or two questions that change the answer. Nothing else.
• Ask, do not assume. “Is this for your home or your business?” beats a confident answer about the wrong one.
• The full checklist comes only once the customer says yes to the price, one item at a time, with the reason for each.
• Say it is an AI agent from the first message. Some owners told us customers already ask whether their staff are bots; an agent that says what it is, and offers a person, ends the suspicion.

A handover is only as good as the person on the other side. Name the person or role for each kind of case, their hours and how fast they reply. The conversation goes across with its history, and the agent tells the customer who will answer and when. If nobody owns price questions, the agent should not promise a reply.

In Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149 (14 February 2024), British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal heard a customer who, in November 2022, used the chatbot on Air Canada’s website. It suggested they could apply for a bereavement fare retroactively; the airline did not allow that. Air Canada argued it could not be held liable for the information the chatbot gave. The tribunal called this “a remarkable submission”, found Air Canada responsible for all the information on its website, and added: “It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.” It ordered the airline to pay $812.02 in total.

A Canadian small claims decision is not Spanish law, but the reasoning travels: customers should not have to check one part of a website against another (paragraph 28). Treat every price your agent gives as a price your business gave.

Before launch and after every price change, run the price questions as test cases: each row of the table, a price that changed this week, “does that include VAT?”, “can you do it cheaper?”, and a job not in the table, which must go to a person. See how to test an AI agent for building the set and judging the answers.

1. Sort your price questions into exact, range, “from” and hand over.
2. Put every price the agent may give in one table you edit, with VAT, deposit and date.
3. Rewrite each price as one number with what it includes.
4. Write the minimum questions for a custom quote, and keep the full checklist for after a yes.
5. Name who answers handovers, and by when, after hours included.
6. Test the price answers before launch and after every change.

When we build an AI agent on WhatsApp, prices come from a table you edit, quotes go to a named person with the conversation attached, and the agent says it is an AI. See our WhatsApp customer service AI agent.