17 – Increase Your Course Sales using Price Deception

Newsletter · 2022-07-25

This method comes from Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational).

I have tested it and it works more often than not.

​Let’s say you have two pricing options:

• Course ($299)
• Course with coaching call ($399)

On average:

• 80% of customers will choose option 1
• 20% of customers will choose option 2

The average order size – $319

You are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Here’s what you want instead

• Course ($299)
• Decoy Pricing (Course $399)
• Course with coaching call ($399)

The middle one needs to make the third one feel like a no-brainer​

Look at this example from the Economist

2 ways I like to do this

1. Insert a new weird option in middle

• Course – Lifetime access ($299)
• Course – Lifetime access with bonus ($349)
• Course – Lifetime acesss with bonus and coaching ($399)

2. Insert a new bad option as the first and make the pricing of middle weird.

• Course – 6 month access  ($299)
• Course – Lifetime access ($349)
• Course – Lifetime acesss with bonus and coaching ($399)

Now here’s the change I’ve seen happen

• 20% of customers will choose option 1
• 0% of customers will choose option 2
• 80% of customers will choose option 3

Bringing the average order size to $379

18.8% increase