I'm curious to hear from a SaaS which moved from a public to a non-public pricing (or vice-versa). Why did you do it? Did it work better?
As much as people love to blame vendors, this is mostly due to dysfunctional nature of the large enterprise buyers. They are addicted to discounts. First the buyer contacts you asks for one then after everything gets said and done done, procurement gets involved and ask for more discounts (seen as their job). Having listed pricing becomes a problem when going through such process, so most vendors either choose not to publish their prices, or have a tier for the enterprise that is not published.
1. ... Weed out non-serious prospects such as students, freelancers, small businesses, etc.
2. ... NOT deter serious prospects (enterprise users). They are used to this process and even expect it.
There certainly is, and it's a bigger problem than potentially turning away people who are uneasy about sharing contact info. Just to name one: A SaaS company may be willing to undercut a competitor's price for a sufficiently big prospect, but advertising a high price at the outset may turn that prospect away before you have a chance to talk to them.