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Tell HN: Dark patterns you should not use on your pricing page

6 points by speakfreely ↗ HN
This is an extreme example of the sneaky pricing pattern that's used on many pricing pages these days: https://screen.studio/#pricing

It shows a "monthly price" for if you pay annually, but doesn't show what the annual price is. This particular product jumps from $9/mo to $29/mo (322% increase!)... pretty absurd.

I get it, you want to bootstrap and getting more revenue upfront allows you to do that. But stop trying to obfuscate what the person has to pay. I'm sure your CRO tools are saying this is a good idea because conversions go up, but you're also devaluing your brand by associating it with sneaky tricks.

5 comments

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bnchrch
I'd rebrand this as "Tell HN: Dark patterns I don't want you to use on your pricing page"

While they're sneaky and dis-ingenuous, I imagine the slight possibility it impacts your brand is outweighed by the large chance it meaningfully increases your ARR.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like it either, but I also wouldn't tell another entrepreneur not to do it.

JohnFen
You wouldn't encourage another entrepreneur to avoid being unethical because it might have an impact on their ROI?
bnchrch
Everything's a grey area and this seems light grey at best. Unethical is a stretch.

In this case I'd recommend they'd push users to annual.

JohnFen
The unethical part is obscuring the annual prices. If they plainly said what the price was, there'd be no ethical issue at all.

Trying to avoid having potential customers realize the actual price is the behavior of scam artists.