How numbers kill deals, being fast and getting them on the line. If you’re making sales as a founder in South Africa, you know the email. “Hi, can you share your rates?” “What’s the cost?” “Can you send through pricing?”

Most founders default to one of two responses: Either they send a clean number (and the prospect ghosts because the number landed without any context), or they refuse to answer (and the prospect ghosts because it feels evasive).

There’s a third move that works far better, and almost nobody in South Africa is doing it.

It comes from Heinrich Swanepoel, who has spent years building partner networks and sales teams across 24 African countries — first at Sage, then as Head of Business Development for Africa at Deel Local Payroll (powered by PaySpace), and now as Chief Commercial Officer at Matrix Software.

Here’s his workflow for answering “What’s your price?” questions in sales, over email and without losing the deal.

The instinct is to either give them what they want (a number) or stall. Both are wrong. The right move is to acknowledge the question, redirect to a call, and explain why the call is in their interest — not yours.

As Heinrich puts it: “If you send the email and go ‘it’s 30,000’ and they think it’s a lot, the deal’s over. They’re going to blue tick you forever. But if it’s a conversation, you can find out where the mismatch is.”

The number on its own carries no context. On a call, the same number with the right context lands completely differently — and you get a chance to actually close the deal instead of watching it die in someone’s inbox.

The faster you respond, the warmer the deal stays.

It’s not about being available 24/7; it’s about treating pricing requests as the high-intent signal they are. Someone asking for your price is doing more than browsing — they’re actively considering. Don’t let that energy go cold.

This is the move most founders get wrong. You can’t be evasive, but just the number has no context, so the right move is to accept the question, but then try to get them on a call to answer it, without making the prospect feel like they’re being managed.

Heinrich’s framing: “You’re going to answer the question, but you prefer to do it when you speak to them.” That’s the whole tone. You’re not refusing. You’re just answering live.

Heinrich’s recommended response, refined live during a coaching session with a founder: “Let’s jump on a call and discuss a pricing strategy that works for you, and see if there’s a way for us to work together.”

Three things make this work:

Send it. Don’t over-explain. Don’t apologise for not sending the number. Just propose the call.

Once they accept the call, get them on a phone if you can. Phone calls are warmer, faster and harder to hide behind than video calls. Heinrich’s strong preference is voice.

“Can we quickly jump on a call and chat about it? Or just phone them. Phone them on their phone.”

If a phone call feels too direct for the relationship stage, a quick video call is your second choice. The point is to get them in a live conversation where you can read their reaction to the number, find out where any mismatch is, and adjust in real time.

Once you’re on the call, get to the price reasonably quickly. Don’t waste their time on a 20-minute discovery before you’ve even confirmed the budget is realistic.

Heinrich’s technique is simple: state the number, then say nothing.

“Say the price, and then just shut up. And create the awkward moment — let it bake.”

If the number is comfortable for them, they’ll say so or move on. If it’s not, the silence forces them to react, and you get to find out exactly where the mismatch is. “That’s a bit more than I expected” is gold — now you can ask why they expected less, and the conversation becomes a real negotiation instead of a dead email thread.

Once the call is done and you’ve discussed the price, send the follow-up email with the number in writing. This is non-negotiable. Verbal pricing is fine for the conversation, but it creates problems later when the prospect remembers it differently.

The email should reference the conversation, confirm the number, and outline the next steps. By this point, the price isn’t a surprise — it’s a confirmation of something you both already discussed. Completely different dynamic from sending a cold number out of nowhere.

Firstly, SA business is more relational than transactional. The American playbook of “put the price on the website, let it qualify” works in markets where buyers expect that. SA buyers, especially in B2B, expect a conversation. Skipping that conversation feels cold and price-shops your offer before you’ve had a chance to show value.

Heinrich on this: “Money is personal. Even if it’s company money, even if it’s your company’s money you’re spending on their behalf, it’s personal. If I look someone in the eye and tell them, ‘give me this amount of money because I’ll add that amount of value’ — it’s just way more confident than here’s an email with a price.”

Secondly, SA founders typically don’t have the brand recognition that lets them charge confidently in writing. Salesforce or HubSpot can publish prices because the brand carries the value. SA founders almost always need to do the value-framing live, in a real conversation, before the number lands. The pricing email workflow buys you that conversation.

Done right, this workflow turns the highest-risk moment in your sales process (the pricing question) into a deal-progression moment.

Handling pricing emails is one tactic from a much longer session. In Heinrich’s full Founder Collab masterclass on Founder-Led Sales: How to Close Without Feeling Pushy, he walks through his complete system for:

You can get access to Heinrich’s full playbook, plus 40+ other masterclasses from South African operators, founders and experts when you join The Founder Collab.

This workflow first appeared in our 29 April ‘26 edition, featuring the Launch Oracle pre-launch platform.

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