The anchoring effect: how to present your prices on a landing page

In 1974, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published a foundational paper in the journal Science, "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases," which describes, among other things, the anchoring heuristic: faced with an uncertain estimate, people start from an initial value — even an arbitrary one — and then adjust insufficiently around it (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Applied to a landing page, this has a direct consequence: the first price a visitor sees becomes the reference point against which every subsequent price is judged, whether it's a strikethrough price, a higher-tier price, or a competitor's price mentioned in passing.

Why the order of display matters more than the amount

Two pages can display the exact same final price and produce very different conversion rates depending on what appears just before it. A price of €89 preceded by a reference price of €149 reads as a good deal; the same €89 shown alone gets judged in absolute terms, with no anchor — and the absolute is a much harder ground for a decision than for doubt.

The strikethrough price, the most direct anchor

A strikethrough price is the most literal application of anchoring: it deliberately sets the comparison point before revealing the real price. Its effectiveness depends entirely on its credibility — a reference price that never actually existed destroys trust the moment a visitor checks it. On our own pages, the rule is strict: no strikethrough price appears until the reference price has been applied without interruption for 30 days, so it stays an honest anchor rather than a fake promotion.

The order of tiers in a pricing table

When a page shows several tiers side by side, the reading order (usually left to right) creates a successive anchor: showing the most expensive tier first makes the following ones feel more affordable by comparison, even though their absolute price hasn't changed. That's why many SaaS pricing grids place the "Enterprise" tier on the right rather than the left: it serves as a high anchor without becoming the first number read.

The limits: anchoring without misleading

Anchoring works because it exploits a real mental shortcut, which sets a clear ethical limit: anchoring on a price that never existed, an invented discount, or a fake countdown works in the short term and destroys trust in the medium term, especially the moment a visitor compares two visits a few weeks apart. The levers worth using are the ones that stay verifiable: a genuinely time-limited launch price, a bundle that's genuinely cheaper per unit, an annual plan that's genuinely cheaper per month than the monthly plan.

The same principle protects the urgency and scarcity shown on a page: see our guide to urgency and scarcity for where the line sits between honest anchoring and manipulation that backfires on the brand.

Building a pricing block that uses anchoring correctly

1. Decide first which price should serve as the reference — the regular price, a higher tier, or a market rate cited with its source.
2. Show that reference price before the final price in reading order, not after.
3. If you use a strikethrough price, make sure it matches a price that was genuinely charged, not a number picked for visual contrast.
4. Limit the number of visible prices to two or three at once — too many numbers cancels out the anchoring effect by drowning the comparison.
5. Reuse the same anchor in the CTA ("Get the €59 rate instead of €89") so the comparison stays present right up to the final click.

Our guide to presenting prices covers the full structure of a pricing block; anchoring is the first setting to get right, before the amounts themselves.