Evidence #70: Least Or Most Expensive Plans First
Thanks to Kuba Koziej from uptowork.com for sharing Evidence Test #70. This simple experiment reorganized three plans on a pricing page from least to most expensive first.
What Can We Learn From This Test?
The variation showed a possible +14% increase to premium (most expensive plan) sales while suffering from a slight -1.1% decrease in overall sales. There was a net revenue gain from this change. Two causes for this might include:
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Recommendation
By showing the most expensive plan first (on the left), it was more firmly and visibly recommended. Perhaps more people clicked the first choice and just went ahead with it.
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Loss Aversion
By organizing plans from most to least expensive ones, it could also be that a slight feeling of "loss" was projected. Perhaps when people are first show additional features of the most expensive plan, as they move to the right, those features are undesirably "taken away".
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Any Other Explanations? Share Your Comments Below
Posted by 
Jakub Linowski on Jan 02, 2017
Comments
Tracy Godding 7 years ago ↑1↓0
Was this tested purely on desktop? Interesting to see if it's a responsive site how it performed on mobile devices with a (presumably) stacked layout.
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Remko Smid 7 years ago ↑0↓0
I agree, this would be interesting. The vertical order on mobile brings in a new dynamic and would make for an interesting test.
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Carl 7 years ago ↑2↓0
Anchoring
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Jakub Linowski 7 years ago ↑0↓0
Carl. I thought the same, but then you have to factor in that the variation had more premium plan sales, and fewer lesser/cheaper plans. If anchoring was truly acting out here, then wouldn't you expect the more expensive price first to cause more sales of the least expensive plan? That did not happen.
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Gerjet Efken 7 years ago ↑2↓0
Do you know of any research checking for the "tendency towards the middle" phenomenon? With 3 plans in place this could also lead towards having the favorable plan in the middle, second best option on the left and the cheapest on the right...
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Ivan Burmistrov 7 years ago ↑1↓0
Similar research: https://conversionxl.com/research-study/pricing-plan-study-order/
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