You’ve probably heard the story of better sales when you sell the item for $3.99 instead of $4, right?
Selling is convincing a person that they can afford to buy it. That’s why they keep the number before the dot small.
Well, the same thing goes for B2B, B2C, PaaS, SaaS, all kinds of online sales.
In this article, we will dig into the details of how you can direct the sales rates arrow upwards.
But first:
Why is the pricing page important?
The pricing page is the last step before a potential customer becomes a customer.
At least, that’s what it is like most of the time.
The point is: the design of the pricing page is equally if not more important than the pricing itself.
"Pricing is actually pretty simple...Customers will not pay literally a penny more than the true value of the product."
Ron Johnson
And the pricing page is your last chance to convince the potential customer that you provide the value they will pay for.
12 Proven Practices to Boost Up Conversion Rates
So here are the best practices to have a successfully converting pricing page.
I also included examples from well-known companies and undiscovered gems to give you an idea.
Let’s start with our first practice:
1- Make The Design Simple
If you know a bit about UX, you probably already know that no one likes to be lost in detailed visuals and small texts.
The same goes for the pricing page. No matter how interested someone is in your product, they won’t trust you if they can’t get the pricing information clearly.
You will just seem like an Instagram business that hides the prices as if it’s the biggest secret on earth.
Let’s see what Netflix did with its pricing page:
A simple background, check ✔️
No unnecessary text, check ✔️
Minimum amount of color, check ✔️
Well, what else is there to make a design simple and understandable?
2- Offer Fewer Plans
Some products have a limited sum of features that were made for one simple purpose. It’s probably easier for them to create a simpler pricing page.
But what if that’s not the case?
Canva, for instance. Canva offers different prices for different sizes of teams.
Let’s first see their pricing page:
Can you imagine what this page would look like if they wrote all the prices side-by-side?
It would be a hot mess for sure.
That’s why they came up with the adjustable bar at the top of the page to keep the simplicity on point.
Also, letting people choose between 10 options has proven to be less effective than providing fewer options. People like having clear options to choose from.
Lots of options only mean lots of confused faces.
3- Use More Visuals and Fewer Words
The only problem with many pricing pages is that they are not fun enough. They are mostly understandable, but not eye-catching.
Paying and money issues are stressful enough, so, adding whipped cream and sprinkles on top of your simple design will elevate it with some sweetness.
There’s only one thing to keep in mind, try not to overuse the visuals.
You wouldn’t want to lose the simplicity for the sake of some fun.
UserGuiding’s pricing page is a perfect example of how to use colors and visuals while still looking simple enough.
You can also see that the word count within the pricing plan columns are kept at a minimum.
People scan writings; they don’t read them. That’s why overexplaining and detailed explanations will only make it harder to scan.
So how do you know what’s included in the plans?
Well:
4- Provide Additional Information About Your Features
As I mentioned before, a pricing page has to be simple and shouldn’t include too much text.
At least, not within the plan columns.
UserGuiding did a great job separating the details from the main idea.
Here’s what comes after the plans section:
Notice how clear the table is?
Even with that amount of white space, they managed to provide in-depth explanations about the features they provide, using hotspots.
This way, the reader can scan the page easily and choose how much detail they want to take in.
They kept the design very eye-friendly while being colorful, fun, and clear.
That’s, what I call, genius.
If you want to go simpler, sure, here's an example from Atlassian's pricing page:
5- Include Testimonials of Trusted Customers
Another disadvantage of these years is that nobody trusts no one.
Especially someone (or some company) that doesn’t have any social proof of how good they are at delivering value.
The easiest and quickest way to provide social proof to your customers is to include existing customers’ testimonials on your pricing page.
Speech bubbles, boxes, huge quotation marks, it doesn’t matter how you include those testimonials in the pricing page design, as long as you make sure it doesn’t look too complicated.
This is what is at the bottom of Pipedrive’s pricing page.
Simple, yet effective testimonials. Not to overexplain, but to build trust.
Just how the customers like it...
6- Point Out Your Best Deal
Did you ever find yourself calculating the unit price while doing grocery shopping?
What you do there is the same as comparing different SaaS tools to see which one provides the most for the least amount of money.
So why not specify the best deal on your page to make it easier for the customers?
Little things matter the most when you are dealing with details. That’s why you should draw attention to one specific point instead of just letting the user figure it out from the big picture.
No one will do that.
And as you can see, it’s not really a complicated process to draw attention to one point.
See how Mailchimp added only one different line to make the whole column stand out?
7- Offer a Free Trial
This might be the most important practice of all.
Make sure you let the potential customers know that you do have a free plan at every single step they take.
People don’t really turn down free things - even if it’s a free sticker.
That’s why pointing out the free trial on the pricing page is the most crucial pricing page element of all.
That’s why Zendesk put a „free trial” button under each plan.
8- Offer Annual Payment
Let’s assume that the potential customer is only this close👌 to choosing you.
What can be your triumph card to lure them into becoming your loyal customers?
- Provide a discount
- Make the plan last longer
- All of the above!
I choose C because why not?
Even a giant company like Hubspot is using this method to become even more successful.
Not only Hubspot, almost all of the companies I have mentioned and will mention have annual plans.
Is it only a trend, or is it really working?
There’s only one way to find out. Here’s how.
9- Include a Live Chat Option
What if people have only one question left before making a purchase?
There is a treasure trove of reasons why you must have a live chat tool on your webpage, which also shows up on the pricing page.
As communication technologies improve, people change their preference of getting knowledge. For example, did you know that 73% of people prefer live-chatting with a company?
Even though almost every company has the live-chat option nowadays, I wanted to show you ProfitWell’s pricing page design.
That’s because they have an outstanding design, perfectly pointing out that their tool is for free (except for enterprise use), yet, they needed a live-chat tool.
So, is live chat the only way to answer questions?
Do even small businesses really have to pay for chat-bots or 24/7 available support members?
10- Include an FAQ Section
✅ The advantages of having an FAQ section:
- You will look more professional
- You will seem more reliable
- You won’t have to worry about a live-chat tool
❌ The disadvantages of having an FAQ section:
- It’s not easy to include one on a pricing page
- It’s not easy to make an FAQ section look pretty
- Sometimes, it’s difficult to sound convincing on an FAQ page
Without further ado, let’s look into one of the best pricing page FAQ sections I have ever seen:
If pricing page FAQ’s were a competition, Lusha would be the winner, because:
- Their design is simple, yet clear and comprehensive
- They only included price and pricing related questions
- They thought of mentioning the help center.
11- Make the CTA Stand Out
Congratulations! You have proven that you are the best, and the customer wants to make a purchase.
So, what now?
Where do they click?
Is the CTA visible, or did it get lost in the crowd of information?
People are looking for mistakes while researching you, they want to prove that you are not worth the money.
Not because they are evil, but because they want to pay you only if you are perfect.
A clear CTA is the last step towards complete perfection.
So, do you have to include all 11 practices at once, no matter your company size or how many plans you offer?
12- Test, Test, and Test Again
Not every pricing page is the same, nor are the companies.
I’ve listed the most important elements you should include in your pricing page design, but, this doesn’t mean you have to stick to all of them.
Just like metrics, trying to stay true to all of them is near impossible.
That’s why you should test out different practices and only use the suitable ones for your webpage.
Conclusion
The devil is in the details, they say.
So is success, I say.
I hope you understand how important even the pricing page is. A user goes through a highly long phase before becoming a customer, and the pricing page is usually one of the breaking points.
Don’t lose the chance of having better revenue, just because you missed the most recent trends of tricking human psychology.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is a pricing page important?
The pricing page is one of the most significant breaking points in the customer’s journey. Even the littlest details can be significant.
How do you design a pricing structure?
While designing a pricing structure, you should not forget to include the plan’s coverage, a big, bold CTA, numbers that end with a 9, listing a few plan options, and highlighting the best deal.
What are the factors affecting pricing decisions?
The most important factor that should affect your pricing should be your most valuable feature. If you are selling value, charge more only if you provide more value.