Price details moved into a modal on Fortum's price page: -9% CTR
Test run byConversionistaCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsConversionista redesigned the pricing blocks on Fortum's electricity-contract price page and moved the deeper price details into a modal, and click-through to the next step fell 9%.
Among visitors who opened the second level of price details, 18% moved on in the variant against 75% in the original.
Post-test analysis pointed at the modal, not the clearer pricing blocks, and was published as a Conversionista case study.
- Click-through to the next step: -9% for the variant. This was a losing test.
- After viewing the second level of price details, 18% of variant visitors continued, against 75% in the original. That gap is where the loss came from.
- Click-through was the main metric because traffic was too low to read a reliable conversion-rate result.
The change
Pricing blocks redesigned and price details moved from a drop-down to a modal
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The original price page in Fortum's purchase flow for electricity contracts. Detailed price information opened in a drop-down inside the page.
Variant
Redesigned pricing blocks that spelled out the discounts more clearly. The deeper price details opened in a modal instead of a drop-down.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A modal covers the page and has to be closed, so people who opened it were pulled out of the flow instead of being one click from continuing.
- Visitors checking detailed prices are close to a decision. Adding friction at that moment hurts more than anywhere else.
- The clearer discount layout may still have helped, but the modal interaction outweighed it. The follow-up test supports this reading.
Caveats: Fortum sells electricity contracts, a utility subscription rather than software. Sample size and test duration were not shared, and the metric is click-through to the next step, not completed sign-ups.
Who ran it
Conversionista ran this test and published the results (Conversionista case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Conversionista →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we show detailed pricing inline (for example in a drop-down) instead of a modal, then more visitors will continue to sign-up because they can check the details without leaving the page context.
- Primary metric
- Click-through from the pricing page to the next step of sign-up
- Guardrails
- Completed sign-ups
- Share of visitors who open price details
- Continuation rate after opening price details
- Who should test it
- Subscription and SaaS businesses with detailed pricing (tiers, fees, discounts) that visitors want to check before committing. Less relevant if your pricing is simple enough to show in full on the page.
Questions
Are modals bad for pricing pages?
Not always, but they add a step. In this Fortum test, visitors who opened the price-details modal were far less likely to continue than those using the original drop-down (18% vs 75%).
What should I measure when my pricing page has low traffic?
Measure the next step in the funnel, such as click-through from pricing to sign-up.
Conversionista used click-through here because there was too little traffic for a conversion-rate read.
What should I do after a losing pricing test?
Dig into how people interacted with each part of the variant.
Fortum's team found the modal was the problem, kept the drop-down in the next version and won.