How to Round Numbers When Pricing Your Design Work

Walking through the aisles of your local supermarket, you will find plenty of products with odd number prices: a gallon of milk for $2.99, a loaf of fresh baked bread for $3.99, or perhaps a small bag of chips for $1.99. For decades, products have been priced this way based on something called “the left-digit effect.”

The mentality behind the left-digit effect is that using a number ending in nine rather than zero changes the left most digit. For example, if a product is priced at $2.99 rather than $3.00, then there is only a difference of $.01, but the perceived price is $1.00 cheaper because the left-digit changed from a three to a two.

One could argue that most consumers are savvy enough to see through this pricing game and clearly see the $2.99 price tag as costing $3.00. Yet, I find myself using this very same tactic when I add to my collection of digital movies on my Apple account. I tell my wife that a movie was on sale for $9.99 (the exact price), rather than saying it was $10.00 (the price when rounded up by one cent). Of course, she sees through my pricing charade, but, psychologically, we all feel a tad better about the $9.99 price.

For better or worse, most businesses make marketing related decisions based on what “feels right” to them, including the decision as to which agency to hire. The goal when pricing our work is to have the clients say to themselves, “Yes, that price feels right to me.”

All that being said, graphic designers are not selling eggs and I don’t believe in playing games by pricing creative services with nines at the end (e.g., Get your logo design, just $5,999! Today only!)

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