Website Anatomy

How to create a pricing page that converts

What does it take to make an effective pricing page? Join us as we cover everything from methods of attack to best practices.

A pricing page is a crucial element of your website - after all, it's the source of your sales! So it's important to give it the thought and effort it deserves. We're going to dive in to how to go about putting together your pricing page so that it clearly explains your pricing options and converts customers.

Keep the goals of your pricing page in mind

Ultimately, your pricing page is a converting page and you want to keep all your efforts focused on that outcome. To achieve this, your pricing page should be, clear, easy to understand and make it obvious which plan is right for the user.

The next step is then presenting a clear path of the visitor, whether that be choosing a plan and signing up or submitting a form to contact sales.

Pricing pages should also be informational without being overwhelming. Try and streamline content both copy-wise and visually (We have some tips for this in our 'Best Practices' section below).

Finally, your pricing page needs to pick up the baton of the rest of your site and continually build trust and assure the visitor that they're in the right place and your offering is the right solution. Incorporate social proof, FAQs and opportunities to contact a real human for help (without being too much of a distraction!).

Methods of attack

How you approach your pricing page will depend on your pricing model itself. One thing to keep in mind is that it is always best to be upfront and transparent with your pricing.

Pricing shouldn’t be hidden without good cause. Being open about it helps build trust around your business and can avoid potential users trying to haggle plans or pricing.

1. Pricing table

A pricing table is the most popular approach to a pricing page and for good reason! They are a very effective way to convey the necessary details about your pricing tiers including price, features and a specific CTA per tier.

This is also what people expect when they land on a pricing page and while that doesn't mean it's the only good option,

(Example from Dovetail)

Where your website is selling different products (or products within products!), it can be helpful to use tabs. This saves any complications from having a single overloaded pricing table or hard to find, separate pricing pages for different products.

Mailchimp is a good example of this, creating different pricing tables for their marketing platform, email solutions and website builder which each have their own tiers and volume based pricing.

(Example from Mailchimp)

2. Calculator

Some pricing models are dependent on multiple variables - this is when a calculator might come in handy.

It takes the burden off the visitor trying to understand how much the product/ service will cost them and is more transparent than taking the arguably easier approach of just asking them to book a demo or talk to sales about their individual case.

(Example from Ruul)

3. Slider

If your pricing is dependent on volume a slider can be a handy tool to point people in the direction of the right plan or give them an accurate account of how much their plan will be.

(Example from Proof)

4. Build your plan

If you have a complex product with a lot of features, you may want to consider a build your plan approach like Beacon CRM has done. This means users can pick their initial plan based on, in this case, number of contacts and then choose their additional features dependent on need.

Allowing users to build their plan can help build trust in that they’re not paying for features they don’t want and don’t feel like they're being pressured into a super high plan for one very useful feature, although this can come with trade-offs, so approach with thought.

Side note: This is something I’m sure a lot of people would love to see companies like HubSpot offer but I can’t imagine they’d be making THAT switch any time soon... Please give us the options of workflows on the Starter plan!

(Example from Beacon CRM)

5. Contact sales / book a demo

In cases where you don’t show your pricing up front (like we said, not ideal but sometimes necessary), it’s still advised to present your pricing in a familiar format.

There’s nothing people hate more than clicking on pricing and just being slapped with a big ole’ form.

Thirdfort has taken this approach, showing their pricing plans and allowing Starter users to sign up directly while advising clients with more demand to Request a Demo and speak to their sales team. This is balanced with the promise of discounted or bespoke pricing for their higher tier-plans, inviting the user to enter into negotiations.

(Example from Thirdfort)

Best practices for a top-tier pricing page

Naming your pricing tiers

How you go about naming your tiers is one of your top pricing page considerations.

A popular angle is to align each one with the persona who would be best suited for this tier e.g. Individual, Team, Business, Enterprise. This is powerful approach that can help in appealing to smaller teams or individuals (who most likely have smaller budgets and less stringent requirements) as well as attract enterprise level companies who have a greater willingness to pay for key features that cater to larger organisations.

You can also get fun with it and give your tiers names that are uniquely on-brand e.g. Student, Yogi, Guru.

Some common terminology for pricing tiers:

  • Lower tiers: Lite, Starter, Free, Essential

  • Mid-tiers: Plus, Business, Standard, Team, Pro

  • High-end tiers: Enterprise, Platinum

Highlight the recommended tier

Sort of like ordering the second-cheapest wine at a restaurant, it's popular for pricing pages to highlight a mid-tier plan as their 'recommended' or 'most popular' plan. This is helpful at drawing the eye of the visitor to this plan to check out it's features, and often is the plan that really contains that key 'a-ha' feature that has brought them there in the first place! Simple, but effective at getting people to upgrade.

Where you have a product which is based on volume, be it number of contacts or contracts, emails or invoices, you can combine your suggested plan with a slider or calculator to help the visitor make their choice.

Convertkit has incorporated a slider into their pricing page to show the variable pricing for each plan dependent on number of subscribers as well as the recommended tier to go alongside it.

(Example from Convertkit)

Offer some discounts

The best kinds of discounts are either:

  • Discounted annual pricing

  • Limited time sign up for cheaper subscription price

Each of these has a different effect: annual pricing locks users in for longer (assuring they won't leave after one month) and the limited-time offers are your FOMO approach to encourage faster decision-making.

Annual pricing is a common approach that most SaaS products adopt, usually saving the user a month or two of subscription value. Often this is the default pricing that is shown on a pricing page and users have to toggle to see monthly pricing. This works as long as it's obvious that it's annual so that the user doesn't feel tricked!

Limited-time pricing is more popular for newer products, appealing to the 'early-adopted' audience, but can still work as a promotion.

Jump straight in

A pricing page needs it's own unique design and doesn't need to follow the conventions of the rest of a site. Don’t waste real estate with a big hero, show your pricing tables above the fold and give the people what they want!

Keep visitors on the page

It can be tempting to add links to product pages, case studies or demos but as much as possible, it's best to keep your visitor on the pricing page.

Use snippets of case studies rather than linking to the full story, and if you need to explain features, maybe consider drop-downs or pop-outs like Asana has done. This is a smart way to give the visitor the information they need to help with their decision without distraction.

(Example from Asana)

Popular elements of a pricing page

Pricing table

When people are looking for pricing, they are expecting to land on a page with a pricing table, not paragraphs of text or a form.

Here's some of our top tips for your pricing table:

  • Only highlight your top features in your main pricing table. To go into more details, create a comparison table further down the page.

  • Use tooltips or pop-ups to explain features that may be included instead of taking the visitor to a product page.

  • Highlight the recommended or most popular plan.

  • Offer monthly and annual pricing and make it clear which one is selected.

  • Include a short subheading for each plan as an intro to the persona it suits and the key features it unlocks.

(Example from Toggl)

Even if you only offer one pricing option, it's still best to display this in it's own element, mimicking a table without having the need for a multi-column table.

(Example from Onfolk)

Social proof

It's key to keep building trust and reassuring the visitor that they're making the right choice by going with you. Show your star-studded reviews, industry awards and customer ratings.

(Example from Notion)

FAQs

Once someone has reached your pricing page, they're really weighing up your solution and odds are, they'll have some lingering questions before going ahead with any buying decisions.

Cut these questions and concerns off at the pass and earn the trust potential customer by being open and transparent about pricing, plans and features.

(Example from Ruul)

Plans comparison

It's always best to keep your main pricing table streamlined and simple to avoid any analysis paralysis. Cover the headline features that differentiate your pricing tiers/ plans and if you need to dig a little deeper, include a separate plans comparison table further down the page.

This allows users to see a full breakdown of the difference in plans without distracting from the main purpose of your pricing table, getting people to buy into your product.

(Example from Rows)

If you have a particularly long comparison table, it's best practice to make the plans along the top sticky for readability and keeps CTAs visible. You can also collapse feature groups with accordions so avoid overloading the visitor with information.

(Example from Contentful)

CTA to contact sales

As a bit of a back up, it's always good to include the secondary CTA of contacting sales about any questions. This can help you avoid losing the sale as a result of confusion or uncertainty.

Live chat

If your company leverages live chat on their site, consider adding it to your pricing page! This can be an incredibly powerful tool in helping people convert on your pricing page by getting their questions answered fast.

You can also get more complex and provide prompts if it seems like the user is spending a lot of time on the page, maybe indicating that they are confused or need help.

(Example from Intercom)

Measuring the success of your pricing page

A pricing page shouldn't just be set and forget. Keep an eye on how it's performing by checking up on the analytics. This includes how long people are spending on your page, how many are converting and if you want to take it a step further, using heat maps to understand how visitors are behaving on the page.

Conversion rate

Ultimately what is most important is your conversion rate, which is the percentage of people landing on your pricing page are taking the desired action of signing up or booking a demo.

If you're not happy with your conversion rate, it might be time to do some experimenting or conducting some user surveys to find out what's holding people back. Live chat can be a handy resource for this!

Bounce rate

If you're seeing a high bounce rate, that is people landing on your page and then immediately closing your site, it indicates that they're not finding what they're looking for (or they don't like what they see...).

Time on page

There are two sides to this, you don't want to see a high bounce rate or that people are only spending a half a second on your pricing page. On the flip side, it's not great if people are spending 20 minutes on your pricing page trying to make sense of your product's features and pricing tiers.

You want to see a happy medium and if you're not, maybe look at incorporating some behaviour analytics like Hotjar or Fullstory to see if there are elements causing frustration or testing some changes for a better experience.

Looking for more inspiration?

Visit Awesome Marketing Websites to see more examples of great pricing pages -->