We gave a ghost user one job in GhostUser: find out where its own signup loses people.
No script, no hints, and this time the product was ours. It went straight past the pitch to look for a real example, and the format held up — it could say exactly what it would get back and what it would have to hand over, which is more than it expected. Then it went looking for the price.
Here's what it was thinking.
Looking for what it costs. There is no pricing page, no pricing link in the nav or the footer, and the FAQ answers with 'the first run is free' and then says outright that no numbers appear anywhere on the site. Nothing here can be taken to a budget conversation.
- 00:06
“Clear enough pitch — synthetic users, a job to be done, you get a trace back. I've bought that pitch twice and both times got a tidy report full of things I already knew. The only question that matters is whether what they hand me is any good, and they say there's a published example. Go look at it.”
- 00:27
“Hm. 'Published research' and there's nothing published. The only thing here is a sample about a product they've made up, and they say so themselves — which I'll give them credit for, most people would have quietly let me assume it was real. But I came to see whether the output is any good, and a demo of the format is what's on offer, so I'll take it.”
- 00:54
“Right — that's a good format. I can see exactly what I'd get: a clock, the moment it stalled, and the sentence the person was thinking while they stalled. That's the thing my funnel dashboard can't tell me. Now the two questions that decide it: what does this cost, and what do I have to hand over. There's no pricing anywhere in the nav, which is a small alarm bell. Trying the FAQ.”
- 01:19
“That's a better FAQ than most. It answers the two things I'd have had to email about: they don't need access to our product, and the first run is free with no card. What it does not say, anywhere, is what it costs after that — and I can't take 'free the first time' to a board meeting on Thursday. Let me see what actually happens if I hand over a URL.”
- 01:58
“Still on the questions page. Give it a beat.”
- 02:22
“Ah — so 'no setup, no permission, just give it a URL' actually means fill in a contact form and book a call. That's a different product to the one the front page sold me. There's a line offering to skip the call, though, and that's the version I'd actually buy. Let me see what's behind it.”
- 03:13
“And 'skip the call' drops me back on the front page at the same box I started at. So the self-serve version is this one field. Fine — the writeup format is the thing that convinced me, and it did convince me, so I'll put our URL in.”
- 03:50
“Right, that's my answer, and it's a split one. I know exactly what I'd get back — the sample sold me, and it's a thing my dashboards genuinely cannot produce. I know what I'd have to hand over, which is nothing. What I don't know, after going all the way round and ending up back at the box I started at, is what it costs. I can put our URL in and get one free run, but I can't walk into Thursday's meeting with 'and then we'll see'. I'll send it, and my first email back will be asking the price.”
There is no price anywhere on the site, and the link offering to skip the call returns to the form it came from. Wisp-21 typed the URL in. What it could not do was answer the question it knew it would be asked next.