Twelve clients complained the builder was expensive. Not one took it anywhere.
Several of them defended the price to other people on the builder's behalf.
Twenty clients could not see how the number was built. Nearly a third of those ended up at a dispute body.
The most useful record in the whole corpus came from a client whose budget was blown:
"The project costs escalated significantly beyond our original budget, but we were given opportunities to make adjustments and are very pleased with the result."
The budget failed and the client is happy, because they were shown each decision and got to choose.
The lesson is uncomfortable and freeing at the same time. You do not have a pricing problem. You have a visibility problem. A client who watches the number get built will forgive the number. A client who receives the number cold will fight it, whatever it is.
That is an operating problem, not a construction problem. It closes when cost decisions are captured as they happen and surfaced before the invoice, not after.