Decoy Pricing Calculator
Price a third option between what you already sell, so the pricier one looks like the obvious choice. Shows the two gaps that make it work, not a number pretending to be a formula.
Runs on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhereDrag it to zero for the boldest version — the same price as your expensive option, the one The Economist used. Otherwise, smaller reads as a stronger nudge to upgrade; too large and the decoy starts competing with your cheap option instead of making the expensive one look generous.
A decoy earns its keep by being genuinely worse at something your customers care about, not just cheaper-looking. Try it on your own price list and watch what actually happens — that beats guessing every time.
How it works
Three steps, and the arithmetic runs in your browser.
Enter what you already charge
The cheap option people default to, and the pricier one you would rather they picked.
Set the gap
Drag it to zero for the boldest version — the same price as your expensive option — or leave some space below it. Your call how much.
Read the two gaps, not just the price
The distance up to the expensive option has to look small next to the distance already covered getting to the decoy. That relationship is the whole mechanism.
When this comes up
A software plan nobody upgrades from
Two tiers and everyone picks the cheap one. A third tier, priced close to the plan you actually want sold, gives people a reason to compare upward instead of just picking the smaller number.
A menu with one dish that barely sells
Restaurants have used a version of this for decades: a mid-priced item exists partly to make the item beside it look like better value.
Bundles and add-ons
A "just the base product" and a "everything included" option, with a middle option that has most of the extras but not all — priced close to the full bundle.
Testing a price change before committing
See the gap arithmetic before picking a number, rather than guessing and checking against real customers first.
Getting the most out of a decoy
There is no formula for a decoy price — ask an AI overview and it will tell you the same thing. What this calculator does instead is show you the relationship a decoy needs to have with your other two prices: real arithmetic on the numbers you typed, not a number invented to look precise.
The mechanism, in two gaps
A decoy works by asymmetric dominance: it has to be worse than your expensive option in some real way, priced close enough to it that the difference looks small, while sitting far enough above your cheap option that it does not just compete with that instead. Two gaps, and the second should look small next to the first.
That is what the two numbers on this page show — the cost of upgrading from the decoy, and the distance already covered getting to it — and it is why setting the gap to zero is the strongest version: with no gap left to the expensive option at all, there is nothing left to weigh against upgrading.
What the evidence actually shows
Huber, Payne and Puto demonstrated this back in 1982, and it is most famous from Dan Ariely's experiment with Economist subscriptions, where adding a decoy option pushed most students toward the pricier bundle instead of the cheap one. Worth knowing before you build your own: a 2014 attempt to reproduce it across 23 real product categories, with real photos and descriptions rather than bare numbers, found a reliable effect in only a portion of the tries. The guide on this page has the exact figures from both studies, including how the original researchers responded. It costs nothing to try on your own price list — add the option, watch what actually happens.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere
It is arithmetic running in your browser. There is no account, nothing stored, and no request carrying your prices anywhere else.
Common questions
How do you calculate a decoy price?
There is no fixed formula — the calculation this page does is the relationship, not the price. Enter your cheap option and the pricier one you want sold, then set how far below the expensive option to price the decoy — all the way down to zero for the same price. The page shows both gaps: the cost of upgrading from the decoy, and the distance already covered getting to it from the cheap option.
Does decoy pricing actually work?
It can, and it costs nothing to find out — no development, no inventory, just a third listed price. Worth knowing: a 2014 attempt to reproduce the classic result across 23 real products found it reliable in only a portion of the tries, so treat any price this page suggests as a starting point to test on your own audience rather than an assumed win.
Should the decoy cost the same as my expensive option?
That is the strongest version on record — Dan Ariely’s Economist subscription experiment used exactly this. Drag the gap slider on this page down to zero and that is what you get. It only works if the decoy is genuinely worse in some real way; otherwise it is just two products at the same price, with nothing pulling anyone toward the one you actually want to sell.
Is a decoy the same thing as a fake "was" price?
No. A decoy is a genuine, currently purchasable option. A crossed-out former price that was never an actual selling price is a different tactic entirely, and in the United States and the European Union it can be illegal advertising. The guide below covers the specific rules.
How much lower should the decoy be than my expensive option?
There is no proven ideal gap. A smaller gap reads as a stronger nudge to upgrade; too small and the decoy starts competing with your cheap option rather than making the expensive one look generous. This page defaults to 10% below as a reasonable starting point and lets you adjust it.
Do I need an account?
No, and there is nothing to store. It is arithmetic running in your browser, with nothing transmitted at any point.
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