Your Price Is Only Half the Story
Most small business owners set a price, put it on the product page, and hope it looks reasonable. But price perception is not about the number itself. It is about what sits next to it. Pricing anchoring is the technique of placing a reference point near your actual price so the buyer’s brain does the math and decides it is a good deal before they even think about it.
This is not manipulation. It is how human perception works. A $50 shirt looks expensive on its own. The same $50 shirt looks like a bargain next to a $120 jacket. You are not changing the price. You are changing the context. Here are four anchoring tricks you can set up today.
Trick 1: Show the Original Price Even When You Are Not Running a Sale
If your product has an MSRP or a standard retail price, display it crossed out next to your selling price. This works because the crossed-out number becomes the anchor. The buyer sees the higher number first, then your lower price, and their brain registers savings automatically.
You do not need to be running a discount to do this. If your price is genuinely below MSRP, showing both is honest and effective. Just make sure the original price is real and verifiable. Inflated anchors that no one actually charges will erode trust fast.
How to set it up: In your product page editor, add a strikethrough price field. Shopify, WooCommerce, and most platforms support this natively. Enter the MSRP as the “compare at” price and your actual price as the selling price.
Trick 2: Put Your Most Expensive Option First
When you show pricing tiers or product options, list the most expensive one first. This sets the anchor high. When the buyer scrolls down to the mid-tier or the single-product option, it feels affordable by comparison.
This is why SaaS companies always show Enterprise first, then Pro, then Starter. The $299/month plan makes the $49/month plan feel like pocket change. The same principle works for physical products. Show the bundle first, then the individual item.
How to set it up: Reorder your pricing sections or product variants so the highest price appears first. If you sell gift sets and individual items, put the gift set at the top of the collection page. If you offer service packages, lead with the premium tier.
Trick 3: Use a Decoy Option to Make Your Target Price Look Right
A decoy is a pricing option that exists primarily to make another option look better. The classic example: a small popcorn for $4, a medium for $7, and a large for $7.50. Nobody buys the medium. It is there to make the large look like a no-brainer.
You can apply this to any product with tiers. Say you sell a basic plan at $29 and a premium plan at $79. Add a mid-tier at $69 with only slightly fewer features than premium. The jump from $69 to $79 for noticeably more value makes premium the obvious choice, and it makes basic look like a budget option rather than the default.
How to set it up: Look at your current pricing. Identify which tier you want most people to buy. Then add or adjust a middle tier so the gap between it and your target tier feels small for the value gained. The decoy does not need to sell. It needs to make the target look smart.
Trick 4: Frame the Price Against a Daily or Weekly Cost
A $365 annual subscription sounds like a lot. A $1/day subscription sounds like nothing. Same price, different frame. You can apply this to any product by breaking the cost into a smaller unit of time or usage.
This works especially well for subscriptions, courses, and tools. A $97 course becomes “less than $2 per lesson.” A $49 skincare set becomes “under $1.60 per day for better skin.” The math does the selling because the daily number triggers a mental comparison with trivial daily spending: coffee, a snack, parking.
How to set it up: Add a small line near your price: “That is less than $2/day” or “Under $1.60 per use.” Do the math honestly. Round in the customer’s favour. This is a five-second edit on any product page and it consistently lifts conversion.
One Warning: Do Not Stack All Four at Once
Pricing anchoring works because it is subtle. If you cross out a price, show a decoy, list the expensive option first, and frame the daily cost, the page starts to feel like an infomercial. Pick one or two techniques per product. Test them. Keep what works. Drop what feels forced.
The goal is not to trick anyone. The goal is to present your price in the context that makes it easiest to say yes to. When the anchor is honest and the framing is fair, both you and the customer win.
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