People ask for prices in DMs and then disappear — were they ever serious?

Every business with a DM inbox knows the pattern: "hey, how much for—", you answer, and the thread dies. Repeat it enough and a theory forms: DM people aren't serious. The theory is comforting, and the measured data disagrees with it.

What asking for a price actually signals

A price question is late-stage shopping behavior — nobody asks the cost of things they've decided against. The sender is usually comparing two or three options, and your answer just became one column in that comparison. In a live business we measure, inquiries that engaged and then went quiet closed at 67% when someone re-engaged them — better than fresh inquiries. Quiet wasn't "no." Quiet was a decision still open.

Why the thread went quiet anyway

Three mundane reasons, none of them disinterest. They're comparing, and the competitor's thread is also open. Life interrupted — the price arrived while they were at work, and your thread sank below the group chats by evening. Or your answer ended the conversation: a bare number ("$150") gives nothing to reply to, no next step, no reason to keep typing. The thread didn't die of rejection. It died of nothing-happens-next.

The second message almost nobody sends

Two or three days after quiet: "Hey — still thinking it over? Happy to answer anything, and here's the booking link if you want to grab a spot." That's the whole technique. It's kind, it's low-pressure, and it lands while the decision is still open — which the 67% number says it usually is. Almost no business sends it, because quiet threads have no owner. The businesses that systematize it are re-engaging warm, price-aware, already-interested people at the exact moment competitors' threads have also gone quiet.

Fix the answer, too

Prices carried with a next step keep threads alive: "$150 for the first session — here's the link if you want to grab a time, and I'm happy to answer anything first." Number, path, door left open. The free score scores your follow-up habit along with the rest; the $500 discovery measures what your price-askers actually receive, timestamped.