As rising costs squeeze margins, behavioral pricing techniques offer leaders a way to increase revenue without pushing prices beyond what customers will accept. Unsplash+
According to Bank of America’s recent Business Owner Report, 77 percent of business owners say their costs have risen—by an average of 18 percent—yet they’ve only raised prices by 12 percent. That six-point shortfall is quietly eroding margins, worrying investors and forcing leadership teams into reactive decisions. In many industries, raising prices enough to offset rising costs isn’t feasible. Competitive dynamics, customer expectations and economic uncertainty all cap how far and how fast prices can move.
This pressure has only intensified as core inflation remains stubborn, labor shortages drive up wage bills and consumers grow more price-sensitive after increasingly elevated living costs. Retailers are reporting customers trading down; subscription businesses are seeing higher churn; even traditionally resilient sectors like beauty and home goods have noted slower discretionary spending. These shifts mean that pricing is now a strategic capability tied directly to resilience.
So if companies aren’t raising prices enough to cover rising costs, how do they capture the value they’re losing? One answer lies in the behavioral side of pricing, or the psychological mechanisms that influence how customers perceive and evaluate price. These insights can allow companies to boost revenue without pushing prices beyond their limits.
Customers rarely make purchase decisions based on the number alone. Instead, they quickly and intuitively run a mental algorithm that weighs price against perceived value, forming a judgment shaped as much by emotion and context as by cost. Budget expectations, prior experiences and subtle cues all affect how a price feels. Because of this, there are variables businesses can adjust at the point of purchase that meaningfully shift perception. Below are three of the most powerful behavioral levers
Price anchoring: What comes before the price
The first number a customer sees becomes the subconscious reference point against which all subsequent prices are judged. Lead with a higher-priced option, and everything that follows feels more affordable by comparison. Restaurants do this when they place their most expensive dishes at the top of the menu. Digital subscriptions rely on “Pro” or “Enterprise” tiers to make mid-tier plans look like good value. Even supermarkets use anchoring when they place premium and store-brand products side by side to guide comparisons.
Price anchoring works because customers instinctively evaluate new information relative to what came before. Adding a clear benchmark—a previous price (was $80, now $40), a premium option or a larger reference pack size—shifts willingness to pay without changing the number itself. The price stays the same, but what it means changes.
Choice architecture: How choices are structured
The way options are presented shapes how customers interpret value. Think about the last subscription you bought, whether it was for software, streaming or even your gym. Chances are, you were presented with the choice of a low-cost, bare-bones plan; a high-end, feature-rich option; and a middle tier that struck a balance between the cost and benefits.
That structure is by design. When there’s a clear “good, better, best” ladder, customers instinctively use the middle option as a benchmark. The Goldilocks effect makes it feel neither too basic nor too indulgent. That’s why many airlines have created an entry fare that strips back benefits and a premium fare with fully loaded options. The mid-tier suddenly feels like the sensible and proportionate choice. While the structure is coherent, customers quickly identify which option aligns with their needs, and businesses capture a greater share of the value they create.
Choice overload: How many options are shown
Giving customers a choice helps them feel in control, but once the number of options becomes too high, that sense of control quickly turns into cognitive overload. One study found that while shoppers were more likely to approach a tasting table with 24 jams, they were far more likely to buy when offered only six options.
Too many options force customers to work harder to understand the differences, compare trade-offs and justify their decision. When the cognitive load rises, confidence drops and hesitation creeps in. That often leads to one of two outcomes: buying the cheapest option as a “safe bet,” or not buying at all.
Choice overload is everywhere, from telecom bundles with endless add-ons to retailers offering dozens of near-identical product variants. Simplifying the decision, highlighting a recommended choice or removing low-value options reduces friction and allows businesses to capture value that would otherwise be lost.
Start small, learn fast, scale what works
Unlocking the full value of behavioral nudges requires disciplined experimentation. Teams should test these behavioral cues with real products, channels and customers to see which shifts genuinely influence behavior. Treat pricing experiments like any strategic decision: start small, learn quickly and scale what works.
Targeted, live experiments can reveal which adjustments meaningfully change how a price feels. Begin by modifying one variable at a time—how an option is framed, where it sits on a page or what it’s compared against—and observe how purchase patterns shift. For high-volume online businesses, that might be an A/B test; for others, it could be testing two different versions of a proposal or menu. The goal is the same: build the evidence that strengthens confidence to scale what works and scrap what doesn’t.
Unlocking revenue with behavioural insights
For leaders navigating today’s market, applying a behavioral lens to pricing might be one of the most underestimated growth levers. And it’s especially critical now, as inflation cools unevenly, capital becomes more expensive and investors scrutinize paths to profitable growth rather than topline expansion. Because it focuses on how customers actually make decisions, behavioral pricing has the potential to strengthen every part of your commercial strategy, from positioning to packaging to customer communication.
For one recent healthcare client, simply improving how prices and value were presented on their website for a best-selling product led to a 23 percent uplift in spend per session for new customers. That was before changing a single price point. Using business data and behavioral nudges, three changes were implemented that led to meaningful impact: reducing the number of options from seven to five, thereby removing the least popular variants and reducing unnecessary noise, shifting the default to a larger pack size that data indicated customers preferred anyway and reframing the price from a “per pack” to a “per tablet” cost to shift the anchor to a number that felt more practical and immediately relevant to customers. The product didn’t change. The prices didn’t change. What changed was the ease of the decision and the way the offer resonated with customers.
Is pricing your next growth lever?
With rising costs affecting both businesses and consumers, the companies best positioned to win will be those that build a pricing strategy rooted in both commercial and behavioral insight. Combine sound economics with an understanding of how people truly decide, and you are better placed to defend margins, guide customers toward better choices and convert more of the value your business already creates.
Ann Padley and Jenny Millar lead Untapped Pricing, a consultancy specialising in behavioural pricing strategy, and are co-authors of The Pricing Sprint, to be published by Bloomsbury in May 2026.
