I've spent more than a decade reviewing and writing about all kinds of software and online tools, and it really gets my goat that companies continue to charge some people more than others. With physical products, the product maker typically sets a retail price and both that company and other retailers who sell it use that price as a starting point. Some might offer deals and discounts, sure, but it's easy to shop around.
With nonphysical software and services, often the only place to buy the product is directly from the seller. You can't buy MasterClass or Netflix from anywhere but from MasterClass and Netflix. You might think since there's only one seller, the price is consistent, but that's not the case at all.
Why Do Companies Charge Different People Different Prices?https://sanjayramjatjaat.blogspot.com/2023/02/tired-of-spam-calls-here-are-5-ways-to.html
Why do some people pay more than others? The major reasons include A/B price testing, limited-time offers, regional pricing, and grandfather clauses. Are there other reasons? Yes, but I'll explore these four since they are the biggest ones I've seen.
A/B Price Testing
Of all the reasons people get charged different prices, A/B price testing makes me the angriest. A/B price testing means the vendor wants to run a test to find out how much people are willing to pay. The company comes up with a menu of price options and pushes them to people either randomly or selectively based on some criteria. I see it most often in products that hide pricing behind a login page. In other words, you don't know how much you will pay until you create an account and log in. That way, there may be no public pricing at all and you don't have a simple point of comparison for the price you're offered. What's worse, hiding prices behind a signup page means the vendor is also harvesting some amount of data about you, even if it's just an email address or phone number you give
You won't have any idea if the company is doing A/B price testing, and you won't know whether you're getting a low offer or a high one. And while it's called "A/B" suggesting there are only two choices, that's not necessarily the case. The vendor might be testing out multiple payment schemes, like a quarterly versus monthly plan in addition to different prices.
Usually, A/B price tests run for a set amount of time. When time runs up, a marketing team may analyze the data to determine how many sales occurred at various prices to compute the odds of the highest profit. Typically, the company sets firmer pricing going forward.
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