Whether prices and policies are readable as text

The decision

Decide which prices, fees, stock levels and policies you publish as plain text on the page, so an agent comparing for a customer can read them.

Who decides: The head of ecommerce or product decides what is public; the web team makes it text.

The options

1. Publish full prices and policies as textAgents can compare you on facts from your own site; Ora's lab found pricing answers from the site were right 60 percent of the time against 37 percent from elsewhere. Ora research: AX is the new AEO (8 Oct 2026), read 4 Nov 2026.
2. Publish starting prices, keep totals for checkoutAgents compare on a partial number; Google's AI Mode hotel flow shows the cancellation policy before payment, so hidden terms surface late. Google: How to book travel with AI Mode (27 Aug 2026), read 4 Nov 2026.
3. Keep prices behind contact salesAgents report the price as unavailable and fill the gap from other sites. Ora research: AX is the new AEO (8 Oct 2026), read 4 Nov 2026.

What we found

• 19 Oct 2026

  The AgentReady guide lists pricing on a first-party page (AR-READ-11) among its practices, as text rather than an image, calculator or sales form.

  AgentReady.org guide, read 4 Nov 2026
• 8 Oct 2026

  Ora's lab found (8 Oct 2026) that missing facts in agent answers grew from 29 to 45 percent when evidence came from the web instead of the business's own site.

  Vendor claim. Ora research: AX is the new AEO (8 Oct 2026), read 4 Nov 2026

How to decide

• List the facts a buyer's agent needs: total price with fees, availability, delivery or cancellation terms, returns and who to contact.
• If a price must stay private, say what an agent can still read, such as a starting price and what moves it.
• Put the list on the page itself as text. A PDF or a pop-up counts as unreadable to many agents.

Where this shows up

• Self-check question 6Are prices, availability, opening hours and delivery or cancellation terms written as text on the page, not only inside images, PDFs or pop-ups?
• Self-check question 13Is the full price, including taxes, fees and delivery, shown before the final step?
• Self-check question 17Are your returns, cancellation, privacy and terms pages public, current and readable without logging in?
• The ecommerce guideShopping surfaces, default-on channels, and the split between Amazon and Shopify over Meta's Muse.
• The bookings and travel guideHotel booking inside Google AI Mode, restaurant availability, and airlines that still finish on their own sites.
• The financial services guideComparison and quote apps inside ChatGPT that hand off to the firm's own site.