Lower 'Starts at' price beside button lost: $4 beat $2 and $1
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsShowing a lower starting price next to the 'Price Guide' button did not help: 'Starts at $4' got more clicks than '$2' or '$1', at 91% significance.
PriceCharting, a site selling video game price data, ran this test itself, and it was published as a VWO case study.
Even the $4 version reached only a 0.70% clickthrough rate, below the 1.03% of the no-price button from the earlier test.
- The $4 label got more clicks than the $2 and $1 labels. The lower prices lost.
- Significance reached 91%, below the usual 95% bar, so the source says there was no clear winner.
- The $4 version's 0.70% clickthrough rate was below the 1.03% of the earlier no-price button. That is a comparison across two tests, not a direct split.
- PriceCharting did not add a starting price to its pages.
The change
Starting price label beside the button lowered from $4 to $2 or $1
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The 'Price Guide' button with 'Starts at $4' shown next to it.
Variant
Two variants showed 'Starts at $2' and 'Starts at $1' instead. The prices were for the test only and were not charged at checkout.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A very low price may have made the guide look cheap or low quality.
- Any price beside the button may add friction, which fits the no-price button doing better earlier.
- With only 91% significance, some of the gap between price points may be noise.
Caveats: The result fell short of 95% significance, and the 0.70% vs 1.03% comparison comes from separate tests. The prices were shown but not charged, sample size was not shared and the test date was not given.
Who ran it
PriceCharting ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on PriceCharting →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we show a lower 'starts at' price beside the button, then more visitors will click because the offer will look cheaper to try.
- Primary metric
- Paid conversions from the product page
- Guardrails
- Button clickthrough rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Checkout drop-off when shown and charged prices differ
- Who should test it
- SaaS and data businesses checking price sensitivity before a real price change. Only show prices you will honor, or keep the test short and internal, since mismatched prices at checkout can annoy buyers.
Questions
Does showing a lower price always increase clicks?
No. In this test $4 beat $2 and $1, which suggests very low prices can signal low value.
Should you show a 'starts at' price near a CTA?
Test it. Here every price label trailed the earlier button with no price at all.
Can you test prices you don't charge?
PriceCharting showed test prices that were not charged at checkout.
Be careful, since a mismatch can confuse buyers and break trust.