The Anchor
"A price feels reasonable — even generous — when moments ago it felt out of reach."
The first number you see becomes the reference point your brain uses to judge every number that follows. Show a high price first; the next price feels small by comparison.
Same hack. Three very different choices.
Show your enterprise tier first so the standard plan looks like fair value.
Strike through an inflated 'original' price you never actually charged.
Invent a fake MSRP designed only to make the real price look discounted.
A formula you can steal
Show [BIG NUMBER: enterprise price / total value / competitor cost] → reveal [YOUR PRICE] → frame the gap as the win.
Where you've already seen this
- Apple opening Vision Pro pricing at $3,499 before mentioning monthly financing.
- Tesla showing the cost of gasoline saved over 5 years above the sticker price.
- Amazon's strikethrough 'List Price' next to the Prime price.
When your audience has no internal reference for what the thing should cost, or when a true higher-tier option exists that re-frames mid-tier as a deal.
When the anchor isn't real (invented MSRPs, never-charged 'original' prices) — regulators and review sites are getting very good at catching this.
Try the trick today
Open your pricing page. List the three most prominent numbers in order of appearance. If the largest doesn't appear first, you're leaving anchoring on the table.
Free Marketing Hacked module included. See more cautionary tales and learn the playbook from the inside.
5 teardowns use this trick
An anchor, a decoy, and a default — three tricks that make the middle plan feel inevitable.
How a single carousel ad layers urgency, anchoring, and pattern interrupt to stop the scroll on the busiest ad day of the year.
A $89 ticket becomes $164 across four screens — anchoring, sunk-cost, and drip pricing weaponized in sequence.
A B2C app's onboarding stacks small-yes commitments with forced continuity to convert curiosity into an annual charge — without the user noticing.
Sportsbook ads promised 'risk-free' bets that returned site credit, not cash, with rollover requirements buried in 8-point type. NY AG forced rewording; multiple states now ban the phrase outright.