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3-Tier Pricing Decoy Calculator

3 tiers. Decoy effect. And the price your customer is hiding.

A 3-tier price ladder isn't just packaging. It's an anchor strategy. The middle tier should feel like the obvious choice, the top tier should make the middle look reasonable, and the bottom should be the door for skeptics. Tune the spacing to maximize blended ARPU.

2.5x
Avg premium-to-entry ratio
55%
Target mix in growth tier
3-7
Features differentiating tiers
+18%
Avg ARPU lift from anchor tuning
Blended ARPU (Per Customer, Per Month)
$0
Weighted across all three tiers. $0 / mo recurring
0
Monthly Signups
0%
On Premium Tier
0x
Entry to Premium Spread
SaaS

Sets sensible starting prices, mix, and signup volume for the inputs below.

80

New paying customers added per month across all tiers (any plan).

Model default: 50-120 /mo
Decoy spacing recommendation. Auto-snap your three tier prices to the anchor-optimized ratio (entry = 40% of premium, growth = 65% of premium). Turn on to test what the math suggests, then toggle off to fine-tune by hand.
Tune your three tiers.
Price + Mix per tier
Entry
Tier A
$ 49 /mo
Contribution to ARPU
$0.00
Decoy Target
Growth
Tier B
$ 149 /mo
Contribution to ARPU
$0.00
Premium
Tier C
$ 399 /mo
Contribution to ARPU
$0.00
Recommended Spacing for SaaS

For your industry, the anchor-optimized ratio places entry at 40% of your premium price and growth at 65%. That spread makes growth feel like the rational center while premium makes growth look reasonable, and entry catches skeptics without cannibalizing.

Entry suggested
$160
40% of premium
Growth suggested
$259
65% of premium
Premium (anchor)
$399
Your top price
Current pricing vs. anchor-optimized.
Your pricing Anchor-optimized
Your current ladder
$0
Blended ARPU per customer / mo
Monthly revenue
$0
Annualized
$0
Premium mix
0%
Anchor-optimized ladder
$0
25% entry, 55% growth, 20% premium mix
Monthly revenue
$0
Annualized
$0
Premium mix
20%
Estimated Monthly Revenue Lift
$0
From re-pricing alone, no new acquisition.
Anchor effect: growth-tier uptake as premium rises.
Modeled against your current premium price
Growth tier % Entry + premium %
Peak growth mix at $0
How your prices compare with the model defaults.
You
Entry tier price Door price for skeptics
$49
Growth tier price The decoy target. Most customers land here.
$149
Premium tier price The anchor. Makes growth feel reasonable.
$399
Blended ARPU Weighted across your three-tier mix
$0
Sensitivity: which pricing move shifts blended ARPU most?
Modeled against your current inputs
Operator Playbook
1 The anchor isn't for sale, the middle is. Your premium tier exists to make the growth tier look reasonable. Treat premium pricing like a strategic frame, not a forecast. The growth tier is where 50-60% of your revenue should land.
2 Use the decoy effect on purpose. When two options feel close and a third is dramatically worse on price-to-value, customers reliably pick the dominant option. Add a premium tier even if you expect zero takers. The 5-15% that buy it subsidize the rest, and the other 85% feel smart for choosing growth.
3 Build price fences, not feature gates. Differentiate tiers by usage caps, seats, SLAs, or audience size. Avoid hiding bread-and-butter features behind premium. That breaks trust and pushes people to competitors instead of up your ladder.
4 Annual prepay belongs on every tier. A 17% annual discount (pay for 10 months, get 12) is the industry baseline. Customers on annual contracts churn 30-40% less and free up cash flow you can reinvest in acquisition. Always offer the toggle.
5 Re-anchor every 9-12 months. As you ship features, your premium tier should drift up. Hold price on existing customers, raise price for new signups. Most operators leave 20-30% of ARPU on the table because they never adjust the ladder after launch.

What happens next

You just built the ladder. Now meet the agent that sells the middle rung.

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01Hear it live Call 424.444.1142. An AI employee answers.

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An intro meeting with a principal. We map how leads reach you today, then configure one agent for how you actually operate. Pledge 1% give-back, no card.

Book the intro 03The playbook The Leak Report

Where revenue quietly disappears: missed calls, slow response, dropped follow-up and no-shows, with a deploy playbook for six industries.

Read it
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How this calculator works

What is the decoy effect, and why does it work?
The decoy effect is a well-known cognitive bias in how people choose between options. When customers face two options that feel close on price-to-value and a third that is clearly inferior or premium, many pick the middle one because the third option makes it look like the rational choice. In 3-tier SaaS pricing, premium is the anchor (sets the ceiling), growth is the target (where you want most revenue), and entry is the door (so skeptics still convert).
Where do the recommended price ratios come from?
The 40% / 65% / 100% ratio is our starting assumption, not a measured median. A 2.5x entry-to-premium spread is wide enough that premium frames the value, but tight enough that growth feels like a small upgrade from entry rather than a sideways jump. If your tiers are too close (say 1.5x), entry and growth cannibalize. Too wide (say 6x) and the premium tier reads as enterprise theatre and stops anchoring.
How accurate is the "55% on growth tier" target?
It's our planning assumption, not a measured median: the model treats a healthy 3-tier ladder as about 50-60% of customers on the middle option, 25-30% on entry, and 10-20% on premium. If your mix is bottom-heavy (say 70% on entry) your premium is anchoring too high or your growth tier is missing a feature that would justify the upgrade. If it's top-heavy you might be leaving money on the table by under-pricing premium or by adding too much value to growth.
Why does the calculator normalize my mix to 100%?
The mix sliders represent the share of new customers landing on each tier. We normalize the three sliders so they always sum to 100% (the blend that actually exists in your customer base). If you slide entry to 80%, the other two scale proportionally so the math stays honest. Use the sliders as ratios, not absolute percentages, and the calculator will keep them in sync.
What if my business is one-time, not subscription?
The same math applies. Treat the "monthly signups" as projects, packages, or transactions per month. Replace ARPU with average ticket. Law firms run case-package tiers (consult, full case, retainer). Real estate brokerages run lead-gen packages (starter, growth, dominator). The decoy effect works the same way regardless of whether the price recurs.
What's in the detailed PDF report?
Four pages. (1) Your current ladder, sensitivity table, and blended ARPU. (2) The anchor-optimized version with prices and feature recommendations. (3) The three packaging changes most likely to shift mix toward growth (specific to your industry). (4) Annual prepay design, fence-vs-feature tradeoffs, and a re-anchoring playbook on a 90-day cadence. No marketing fluff. You'll get it after you submit (delivery time can vary).