Marketing

Decoy Pricing

What it is

Adding a clearly inferior option to make the target option look better by comparison.

How it works

The decoy is not meant to be chosen — it exists to make one specific option appear superior. A small popcorn for $3, large for $7, and medium for $6.50 makes the large look like an obvious deal. Without the medium decoy, customers might choose the small. The decoy shifts preference without changing any real value.

Real-world examples

•The Economist offering web-only for $59, print-only for $125, and web+print for $125 — the print-only decoy makes web+print irresistible.
•Movie theater popcorn sizing where the medium is priced almost as high as the large.
•Subscription tiers where the middle tier is deliberately unattractive to push people to the premium.

Ethical guidelines

●Decoy options are designed to manipulate choice, not serve customer needs.
●Transparent pricing means every option should represent genuine value at its price point.
●Deliberately bad options waste customer decision-making energy on manufactured comparisons.

How to defend against it

►Evaluate each option independently against your actual needs — ignore comparisons between options.
►If one option seems obviously terrible, ask why it exists — it may be a decoy.
►Decide what you need and what you are willing to pay before seeing the pricing page.

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