There are about 50 documented ways to make a price feel different without changing the actual number. I pulled them from this article into the table below.
A caveat: not all of these will work in every context. The price shortening trick (dropping currency signs and commas) was only tested in restaurants. But it’s a useful starting point if you’re stuck on how to present a price.
Psychological pricing principles table
| Principle | Example | Further reading |
|---|---|---|
| Positive Focus | “Save” instead of “Spend Less” | Gamliel, E. (2010). Message framing of products causes a preference shift in consumers’ choices. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 9(4), 303-315. |
| Free Product | “Buy X, Get Y Free” | Shampanier, K., Mazar, N. & Ariely, D. (2007). Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products. Marketing Science, 26, (6), 742-757. |
| Multiple Unit Pricing | “$3 for 3 Units” instead of “$1 Each” | Chen, Haipeng, et al. “When More Is Less: The Impact of Base Value Neglect on Consumer Preferences for Bonus Packs over Price Discounts.” Journal of Marketing 76.4 (2012): 64-77. |
| Anchors | “Buy 5 and Save a Trip” | Wansink, B., Kent, R. J., & Hoch, S. J. (1998). An anchoring and adjustment model of purchase quantity decisions. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 35(1). |
| Quantity Limits | “Limit 4 per Household” | Jeffrey Inman, J., Peter, A. C., & Raghubir, P. (1997). Framing the deal: The role of restrictions in accentuating deal value. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(1), 68-79. |
| Scarcity | “While Supplies Last” or “Limited Edition” Products | Verhallen, T. M., & Robben, H. S. (1994). Scarcity and preference: An experiment on unavailability and product evaluation. Journal of Economic Psychology, 15(2), 315-331. |
| Price Salience | “We Accept Credit Cards and Gift Cards” | Prelec, D., & Simester, D. (2001). Always leave home without it: A further investigation of the credit-card effect on willingness to pay. Marketing letters, 12(1), 5-12. |
| Spare Change Effect | “Only Costs Four Quarters” | Raghubir, P., & Srivastava, J. (2009). The denomination effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(4), 701-713. |
| Pennies-a-Day Pricing | “Just 50-Cents per Day” | Gourville, J. T. (1998). Pennies-a-day: The effect of temporal reframing on transaction evaluation. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(4), 395-403. |
| Explicit Comparisons | “Less than a Cup of Coffee per Day” | Gourville, J. T. (1999). The effect of implicit versus explicit comparisons on temporal pricing claims. Marketing Letters, 10(2), 113-124. |
| Multidimensional Pricing | “$39 and 66,000 miles” | Dreze, X., & Nunes, J. C. (2004). Using combined-currency prices to lower consumers’ perceived cost. Journal of Marketing Research, 41(1), 59-72. |
| Trade-in Pricing | Highlight and Raise Trade-in Value, Raise Item Price | Srivastava, J., & Chakravarti, D. (2011). Price presentation effects in purchases involving trade-ins. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(5), 910-919. |
| Emotional Pricing | Use Installment Payments that Decrease Over Time | Peine, K., Heitmann, M., & Herrmann, A. (2009). Getting a feel for price affect: A conceptual framework and empirical investigation of consumers’ emotional responses to price information. Psychology & Marketing, 26(1), 39-66. |
| Perceived Fairness | “Prices Frozen for 3 Months” | Wang, Y., & Krishna, A. (2012). Enticing for me but unfair to her: Can targeted pricing evoke socially conscious behavior?. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 433-442. |
| Typeface and Terms | “Low Price” in Smaller Font | Coulter, K. S., & Coulter, R. A. (2005). Size does matter: the effects of magnitude representation congruency on price perceptions and purchase likelihood. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 64-76. |
| Phonetic Symbolism | Use Sale Prices with Front Vowels and Fricatives e.g. $7.66, $2.33 | Coulter, K. S., & Coulter, R. A. (2010). Small sounds, big deals: Phonetic symbolism effects in pricing. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 315-328. |
| Package Design | Change Packaging Material, Let People Touch Item | Peck, J., & Shu, S. B. (2009). The effect of mere touch on perceived ownership. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 434-447. |
| Label Design | Adjust Terminology and Photos, Use Larger Numbers | van Rompay, T. J., de Vries, P. W., Bontekoe, F., & Tanja‐Dijkstra, K. (2012). Embodied product perception: Effects of verticality cues in advertising and packaging design on consumer impressions and price expectations. Psychology & Marketing, 29(12), 919-928. |
| Package Dimensions | Emphasize Longest Dimension (Usually Height) | Chandon, P., & Ordabayeva, N. (2009). Supersize in one dimension, downsize in three dimensions: Effects of spatial dimensionality on size perceptions and preferences. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(6), 739-753. |
| Price Expectations | Identify Environmental Cues that Buyers Use | Bagchi, R., & Cheema, A. (2013). The effect of red background color on willingness-to-pay: The moderating role of selling mechanism. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(5), 947-960. |
| Compromise Effect | Adjust Product Line to Sell Middle Option | Simonson, I., & Tversky, A. (1992). Choice in context: Tradeoff contrast and extremeness aversion. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 29(3). |
| Consistent Pricing | Maintain Price and Show Market Value | Boothe, J., Schwartz, J. A., & Chapman, G. B. (2007). Preference reversals resulting from a market value heuristic. marketing theory, 7(1), 27-38. |
| External Reference Price | “Regularly $35, Now $29” or “Elsewhere $35, Our Price 15% Less” | Chandrashekaran, R., & Grewal, D. (2006). Anchoring effects of advertised reference price and sale price: the moderating role of saving presentation format. Journal of Business Research, 59(10), 1063-1071. |
| Price Thresholds | Watch for Thresholds (Crossing has Large Effects) | Gaur, V., & Fisher, M. L. (2005). In‐Store Experiments to Determine the Impact of Price on Sales. Production and Operations Management, 14(4), 377-387. |
| Primacy and Recency | Give Buyers Intended First and Last Impression | Englund, M. P., & Hellström, Å. (2012). If you have a choice, you have trouble: Stimulus valence modulates presentation‐order effects in preference judgment. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 25(1), 82-94. |
| Price De-emphasis | List Units in Large Transactions before Price | Bagchi, R., & Davis, D. F. (2012). $29 for 70 items or 70 items for $29? How presentation order affects package perceptions. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(1), 62-73. |
| Product Sequence | Reveal Most Attractive Items First | Sitzia, S. & Zizzo, D. J. (2012). Price Lower and Then Higher or Price Higher and Then Lower? Journal of Economic Psychology, 33, (6), 1084-1099. |
| Price Sequence | Show High-Priced Products First and Adjust Message | Suk, K., Lee, J., & Lichtenstein, D. R. (2012). The influence of price presentation order on consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(5), 708-717. |
| Premium Surroundings | Show with Premium Items from Other Categories | Adaval, R., & Monroe, K. B. (2002). Automatic construction and use of contextual information for product and price evaluations. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(4), 572-588. |
| Category Perceptions | Add Product that Makes Target Item More Attractive | Khan, U., & Dhar, R. (2010). Price-framing effects on the purchase of hedonic and utilitarian bundles. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(6), 1090-1099. |
| Assortment Variety | Show More Variety with High Quality Items | Bertini, M., Wathieu, L., & Iyengar, S. S. The Discriminating Consumer: Product Proliferation and Willingness to Pay for Quality. |
| Discount Location | Move and Reformat Sale Tag to Match Strategy | Choi, P. & Coulter, K. S. (2012). It’s Not All Relative: The Effects of Mental and Physical Positioning of Comparative Prices on Absolute versus Relative Discount Assessment. Journal of Retailing, 88, (4), 512-527. |
| Full Bundle | “Load” Model and Let Buyer Drop Options | Levin, I. P., Schreiber, J., Lauriola, M., & Gaeth, G. J. (2002). A tale of two pizzas: building up from a basic product versus scaling down from a fully-loaded product. Marketing Letters, 13(4), 335-344. |
| Bundle Discounts | Adjust Discount Attribution within Bundle | Yadav, M. S. (1995). Bundle evaluation in different market segments: The effects of discount framing and buyers’ preference heterogeneity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 23(3), 206-215. |
| Decoy Pricing | Change Individual Item Prices to Sell Bundle | Schwartz, Z., & Cohen, E. (1999). The perceived value of value meals: an experimental investigation into product bundling and decoy pricing in restaurant menus. Journal of Restaurant & Foodservice Marketing, 3(3-4), 19-37. |
| Partitioned Pricing | Separate Shipping and Handling from Price | Morwitz, V., Greenleaf, E., & Johnson, E. J. (1998). Divide and prosper: consumers’ reaction to partitioned prices. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 453-463. |
| Asymmetric Competition | Strive to be Premium Brand in Category | Sivakumar, K. (2000). Price-tier competition: an integrative review. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 9(5), 276-297. |
| Odd-Ending Prices | Use Nines at the Right-End of Price | Bizer, G. Y., & Schindler, R. M. (2005). Direct evidence of ending‐digit drop‐off in price information processing. Psychology & Marketing, 22(10), 771-783. |
| Price Color | Use Red Prices instead of Black when Targeting Men | Puccinelli, N. M., Chandrashekaran, R., Grewal, D., & Suri, R. (2013). Are men seduced by red? The effect of red versus black prices on price perceptions. Journal of Retailing, 89(2), 115-125. |
| Symmetric Prices | Make Price Vertical Mirror Symmetric | Dobson, J., Gorman, L., & Moore, M. D. (2010). Consumer choice bias due to number symmetry: evidence from real estate prices. Journal of Research for Consumers, 17(1). |
| Precise Pricing | Use Non-zeros to Suggest Price Precision | Thomas, M., Simon, D. H., & Kadiyali, V. (2010). The price precision effect: Evidence from laboratory and market data. Marketing Science, 29(1), 175-190. |
| Shorten Prices | Drop Commas and Dollar Signs in Prices | Yang, S. S., Kimes, S. E., & Sessarego, M. M. (2009). Menu price presentation influences on consumer purchase behavior in restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(1), 157-160. |
| Unpredictable Pricing | Reduce Buyer Forecasting of Price Change Timing | Krishna, A., Briesch, R., Lehmann, D. R., & Yuan, H. (2002). A meta-analysis of the impact of price presentation on perceived savings. Journal of Retailing, 78(2), 101-118. |
| Tactical Price Increases | Increase Prices in Small Steps | Kalyanaram, G., & Little, J. D. (1994). An empirical analysis of latitude of price acceptance in consumer package goods. Journal of Consumer Research, 408-418. |
| Just Noticeable Pricing | Reduce Price Enough, But Not Too Much | Büyükkurt, B. K. (1986). Integration of serially sampled price infromation: Modeling and some findings. Journal of Consumer Research, 357-373. |
| Reduced Recall Pricing | Choose Prices with More Syllables | Luna, D., & Kim, H. M. C. (2009). How much was your shopping basket? Working memory processes in total basket price estimation. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(3), 346-355. |
| Price Complexity | Describe Most Discounts with Percentages | McKechnie, S., Devlin, J., Ennew, C., & Smith, A. (2012). Effects of discount framing in comparative price advertising. European Journal of Marketing, 46(11/12), 1501-1522. |
| Relative Pricing | Maintain Relative Price Spreads versus Competitors | Azar, O. H. (2011). Do people think about absolute or relative price differences when choosing between substitute goods?. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(3), 450-457. |
| Prestige Pricing | Increase Prices as a Quality Signal | Erdem, T., Keane, M. P., & Sun, B. (2008). A dynamic model of brand choice when price and advertising signal product quality. Marketing Science, 27(6), 1111-1125. |
| Price Placebo Effect | Raise Prices to Boost Perceive Performance | Shiv, B., Carmon, Z., & Ariely, D. (2005). Placebo effects of marketing actions: Consumers may get what they pay for. Journal of marketing Research, 42(4), 383-393. |
Fifty ways to make a number feel different. It’s a little unsettling how much of pricing is theater.