3 ms·

In the B2B space, it really bothers me when pricing is listed for a service where the expectation is to be a long-term customer, but pricing is listed per month

In the B2B space, it really bothers me when pricing is listed for a service where the expectation is to be a long-term customer, but pricing is listed per month. It's doubly aggravating when the price isn't rounded to the nearest $10 (e.g. don't price the iPhone SE as $399 b/c that's $400). Cloudflare, while far from the only perpetrator, is the my most recent experience with this crap. If I'm evaluating CDNs, it's not like I want to switch such a service monthly. I have to believe we are all trying to please the bean-counters w/in our own orgs, but it is almost insulting.

tixocloud 11y ago
Prices ending in 9 are mostly a psychological play on buyers. Coupled with the fact that most of us read from left to right, we're more likely to believe $399 to be much less than $400. Something like a Jedi mind trick if you will. As for monthly pricing, I'd say it's more to make buyers perceive affordability and deemphasize the much larger annual price even if annual contracts are available. Whether it works better, I'm not too sure.
- vram22 11y ago
  >Prices ending in 9 are mostly a psychological play on buyers. Right, always thought so. Find it a bit irritating, in fact. Though, to be fair, I don't think that all of the people/companies who sell products, and use prices ending in 9, do it for that reason. Pretty sure many of them just use it out of habit / conditioning, due to seeing that kind of pricing everywhere they look. E.g. Recently saw, on a blog I read often, another regular reader commenting that they would buy some product or service if it was available for $99. Did a double take for a minute - why would anyone deliberately say 99 when 100 (a round figure) is the more obvious choice? Then realized it must be for the reason I surmised above.

3 ms·

In the B2B space, it really bothers me when pricing is listed for a service where the expectation is to be a long-term customer, but pricing is listed per month

by narrowrail 11y ago

tixocloud 11y ago
Prices ending in 9 are mostly a psychological play on buyers. Coupled with the fact that most of us read from left to right, we're more likely to believe $399 to be much less than $400. Something like a Jedi mind trick if you will. As for monthly pricing, I'd say it's more to make buyers perceive affordability and deemphasize the much larger annual price even if annual contracts are available. Whether it works better, I'm not too sure.
- vram22 11y ago
  >Prices ending in 9 are mostly a psychological play on buyers. Right, always thought so. Find it a bit irritating, in fact. Though, to be fair, I don't think that all of the people/companies who sell products, and use prices ending in 9, do it for that reason. Pretty sure many of them just use it out of habit / conditioning, due to seeing that kind of pricing everywhere they look. E.g. Recently saw, on a blog I read often, another regular reader commenting that they would buy some product or service if it was available for $99. Did a double take for a minute - why would anyone deliberately say 99 when 100 (a round figure) is the more obvious choice? Then realized it must be for the reason I surmised above.