The Decoy
"One option suddenly feels like the obvious smart choice."
Add a third option that's strictly worse than the option you want them to pick. The target plan now looks like a no-brainer next to its inferior twin.
Same hack. Three very different choices.
Genuinely useful tier that some customers do choose; comparison is honest.
Decoy tier exists only to flatter the middle option.
Misleading feature comparison that hides what the cheaper plan actually includes.
A formula you can steal
Plan A (cheap, limited) · Plan B (target, great value) · Plan C (decoy: priced near B, gives less).
Where you've already seen this
- The Economist's famous Web/Print/Web+Print pricing where Print alone matched the bundle.
- Movie theaters' small/medium/large popcorn where medium is priced two cents below large.
- SaaS pricing where the second tier is $79 and the third is $89 with 5× the seats.
When you have a clear plan you want most customers to pick and feature differences that can be honestly demonstrated.
When the decoy hides material limits the customer only discovers after paying. That's bait-and-switch, not pricing strategy.
Try the trick today
Show your pricing page to five non-customers. Ask which plan they'd pick and why. If 'middle' wins for the right reasons, your decoy is doing honest work.
Free Marketing Hacked module included. See more cautionary tales and learn the playbook from the inside.