You can spend six months on conversion rate or you can restructure how the buying choice is presented. The second is faster, cheaper, and in our experience moves revenue more.
The choice needs a middle
A single price gives the visitor nothing to evaluate against, so they evaluate against your competitor. Three options and the comparison happens inside your page.
Most people take the middle. Which means the middle is the one you design around — the margin you want, the quantity that gets a real result, the option you would recommend to a friend.
Per-unit pricing does the arithmetic for them
Show the cost per serving, per wash, per unit, next to every option. Most customers will not do this maths, and the ones who would are the ones most likely to buy the larger pack.
This single change is the most reliable AOV lever we deploy. On the InStrength product page, restructuring the pack choice with per-unit clarity took add-to-cart from 12.94% to 20.38% in a live split test.
Name the recommendation
"Most popular" or "Best value" on one option. It is permission to stop deliberating, and most visitors are looking for exactly that.
Put it on the option you actually want sold. If it is on the cheapest, you have optimised against yourself.
Anchoring, used honestly
A higher-priced option makes the mid-tier read as reasonable. This works and it is also where pricing shades into manipulation, so the line matters: the expensive option has to be genuinely available and genuinely worth it to someone.
A decoy that nobody could sensibly buy is a trick, and customers who notice do not come back.
Thresholds, not percentages
Free shipping over a number does more for AOV than a percentage discount, because it pushes basket size instead of cutting margin on every order.
Set the threshold about 15 to 20% above your current average order value. Far enough that it changes behaviour, close enough that it is reachable.
Thresholds too high read as a joke and get ignored. Too low and you are paying shipping on orders that were coming anyway. The number should move as your AOV moves.
Subscription pricing
The discount for subscribing must be worth the commitment but not so large that it cannibalises one-time buyers who would have paid full price repeatedly. In most consumable categories 10 to 15% is where this lands.
Flexibility matters more than the discount. Skip, change frequency, pause — all visible before signup. The fear being managed is being trapped, not price.
Charm pricing
£49 versus £50 still works, modestly, in impulse categories. It works less well — and can read as cheap — in premium positioning, where a round number signals confidence.
Talk it through
Send us the product page with your pack options.
Pricing structure is usually the fastest thing we can change with a measurable result, and we test it rather than asserting it.
Pick a page to testA real read within one business day — not a sales call.
About the author
Manpreet Singh
Founder of Proscube. Leads the studio's Shopify, headless and CRO engineering, and works directly with founders rather than through account managers.
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