An online store with a subscription-type business model (i.e., it sells products, services, or content to its customers on a recurring basis in exchange for the payment of periodic fees, which are usually monthly) almost always has a pricing page. This is the case, for example, of our Nelio Content and Nelio A/B Testing pricing pages. The price page of a website is the last one that any visitor sees before becoming a customer. They are pages that should have just the information that the client needs to have no doubt that they should subscribe to the product you offer.
How do you manage to optimize the conversion on these pages? Here are 7 principles to follow that will serve as a starting point to improve conversion on a pricing page. But before making any changes to your pricing page, perform an A/B test to confirm that said change will improve your website.
Table of Contents
Simplify As Much As Possible
Nobody likes complicated things and your visitors even less. When someone searches for information on websites about products, they hardly read: they just take a quick glance to decide whether to continue or leave. So the easier and simpler you make everything, the better.
Go to your current pricing page and ask yourself: can I make it easier to understand? Let the visitor know exactly what they are going to buy and how much it will cost after they click. If you offer more than one subscription plan, make it clear what the main differences are between each of them.
When someone comes to your pricing page, they have probably already learned about the main features of your product or services. On the pricing page, the user basically wants to see the price, what it includes, what guarantees it has, and how to subscribe.
For example, in the screenshot of the first fold of the Nelio Content pricing page, the potential customer sees very quickly that there are 3 products, as well as their main difference: the number of websites where you can install the plugin. And although the monthly price is shown to make the plans more attractive, it is made very clear that you will be charged annually and that the price shown does not include VAT. Finally, to subscribe you just have to click on the appropriate button and you know that you have up to 30 days to get a refund in case you are not satisfied.
Specify Who It Is For
Anyone thinking of buying your product should quickly understand if that product is what they need and are looking for. When you offer a training course or a software service, don’t try to confuse the visitor to get them to buy from you, even by mistake. Yes, maybe you will get a month’s income, but you will also get a disgruntled customer if she feels cheated, and she will not only make a claim to recover what she has spent but she will also talk bad about the product or service on social media because it does not fit what she was looking for. And this type of promotion is the last thing you need to increase your sales.
Also, if you offer more than one plan, help the potential customer understand which one they need. Help them choose the one that fits their customer profile.
For example, when showing the different plans of Nelio A/B Testing, for each of the three plans we detail which is the target customer.
Show a Helpful Comparison
I have told you to simplify as much as you can and that, if you offer more than one plan, make it clear to whom each of the plans is addressed. But often this information is not enough to understand the differences between each of the options you offer. We recommend, without forgetting our first principle of simplifying the pricing page as much as possible, that you try to describe the differences in a few words (adding some kind of emoticon makes it easier to retain the concepts).
And if you think this comparison is insufficient, add a link or drop-down where the user can see the details of the differences between each of the plans. Clicking to see the detailed comparison encourages the user to take a closer look at the details.
Explain What Value You Bring
The user who goes to the pricing page, as I mentioned before, has probably visited some other page that had aroused their interest in the product you offer and, therefore, has already a pretty good idea about some or many of its features. On the pricing page you should not repeat all this information. Keep it as simple as possible. But you can add some information that will help them to make the purchase decision. Our recommendation in this case? Add testimonials from some customers specifying what value your product has brought them.
A testimonial on the pricing page will add value to your service with words that may be closer to your potential customer than any description you make of your product. A testimony invites them to want to feel the same way.
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Highlight the Call-to-Action Button
Something essential on a pricing page is to have call-to-action buttons that are clearly visible and make it clear that whoever clicks on them will be able to subscribe to your product. Add action buttons in more than one section. And of course, run A/B tests by testing different styles of action buttons to see which one converts the most.
For example, the button styles that we show on the Nelio A/B Testing pricing page and that you can see in one of the previous images are the result of the A/B test of different styles that we created a while ago.
In the A/B test we performed, highlighting the Professional plan button achieved an improvement in the conversion compared to the original plan of more than 70%.
Incentivize Advance Payments With Discounts
Offers and discounts are always an attractive way to encourage a visitor to buy. It’s not about tricking the user into buying what they did not want, but anything that involves charging in advance is always welcome. For this reason, offer a discount to those customers who subscribe annually instead of monthly. They will be a loyal customer for a year and if they are satisfied with the product you offer, you can be sure that they will repeat.
As you have see with the two products we offer, Nelio Content and Nelio A/B Testing, we have two different pricing strategies. With Nelio Content we only allow annual subscriptions and we show the monthly price by dividing that price by 12. On the other hand, with Nelio A/B Testing we allow monthly and annual subscriptions. We show the monthly price and also the annual one, in which there is a considerable discount when subscribing annually.
Why do we follow two different strategies? Once again, they are the result of performing different A/B tests on our prices page and corroborating with data which alternative works best for each product.
Offer Different Forms of Payment and Currencies
We are in a global world and if you offer your products or services anywhere in the world, make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe using the payment methods and the currency they are familiar with on a daily basis. In fact, even a customer from the United States may find it uncomfortable paying in Euros. They do not know what currency exchange is going to be applied and that generates mistrust.
The variety of payment methods you offer is another way to increase conversion: debit and credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, AmericanExpress, JCP, UnionPay), PayPal, Amazon Pay, Bank Transfer, GiroPay, etc. The more options, the more conversion you will get.
In addition, when a person arrives at the pricing page, they expect to click on a link or button that will take them to checkout. If you also reduce the steps to make this process quick and easy, without adding unnecessary friction, you will also see an increase in your sales.
For example, when a potential customer of one of our products clicks subscribe, a pop-up window opens for them to enter their payment details and that’s it. No need to go to another page to enter all the information.
Conclusion
These principles can help you to achieve a better conversion on your pricing page. But before applying any change to your website, create an A/B test that confirms that this change will result in a real improvement. Do not hesitate to create A/B tests on each of the aspects discussed in this post and you will see that small changes that do not require great effort are rewarded.
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