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independence4 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 4 claims against 1

applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

assumes $20 to $100

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

16 claims · 10 articles · 4 receipts

window

2012-11-12 → 2025-09-30

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Give the tier you want sold the visual advantage

Once there is more than one option the page is doing the selling, so make the intended choice twice the size, give it the primary button, name it so anything below implies missing out, and make its discount proportionally the deepest. Recommend one plan outright rather than letting a left to right table default people to the cheapest. Two operators tested the ordering itself and reached opposite conclusions, which is worth running on your own page rather than copying.

What both sides agree on

  • Give the tier you want people to buy visual dominance: twice the space, bigger type, and the primary button colour, so choosing the cheaper one feels wrong.
  • Make the discount on the expensive tier disproportionately larger, so the tier you want sold is also the better deal.
  • Name the top tier so that anything below it implies missing out, rather than naming it after the extras it contains.

Where this splits

Dry reports a tested lift from putting the most expensive tier first so buyers anchor high, while Bourgoin argues the highest margin option should be last so recency and anchoring stack.

4 claims against 1

Harry Dry · Nathan Barry

Put the most expensive tier first to anchor

  1. 01Reverse the usual order of pricing tiers and put the most expensive one on the left, against the convention of ascending left to right.
  2. 02Test the tier ordering rather than assuming: reversing it produced a statistically significant lift in overall conversions.
the objection · 1 claimKatelyn Bourgoin

Place the highest margin option last for recency

Order your product line-up so the highest-margin option is the last one the buyer sees, with a cheaper one placed before it as the anchor.

  1. 03The reasoning is that buyers scan left to right and anchor on the first figure they see, so a high number first makes the next one look cheap.
  2. 04Recommend one plan as the default rather than letting a left-to-right table make the cheapest plan the default, and make the recommendation stronger than a highlighted box

What it returned

  • $149

    The $149 tier was presented this way against the $79 tier

  • $100

    The top tier was cut by $100, about 40%, while the lower tier was cut by $20, about 25%

  • 78%

    78% of 6,765 purchases went to the higher tier as of January 2019, and Refactoring UI grossed over $1.35M

  • Wine List's founder Josh Lachkovic tested this

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in pricing

all pricing plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

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