Sticky footer of website with $25 and buy button. Price should be to the left of the button
Place Prices Toward the Left
Price Design

Place Prices Toward the Left

Prices seem cheaper on the left.

Where should you place a price?

Try the left side.

Number lines begin with small numbers toward the left, connecting these two ideas of small and left in the brain (Cai et al., 2012).

Plus, mobile users need to cross over prices that are located toward the right:

A user's thumb is crossing over a price on a mobile device

Every fixation on the price will prompt them to reconsider and revalidate this purchase.

Finally, prices feel heavy toward the right because of a downward pulling motion:

...our eyes enter a visual field from the left, [so] the left naturally becomes the anchor point or ‘visual fulcrum.’ Thus, the further an object is placed away from the left side (or the fulcrum), the heavier the perceived weight (Deng & Kahn, 2009, p. 9).

Try The Cliff Test to judge whether a price feels expensive:

  1. Center your price on a cliff
  2. If it falls, then it feels expensive
A horizontal strip on the edge of a cliff with $25 on the right pulling downward

Alternatively, you can insert stimuli on the left to counterbalance the weight.

Two UI screenshots with a price on the right. One is correctly inserting more text on the left

Caveats

  • Place Buttons Toward the Right. Prices seem cheaper on the left, yet purchase buttons feel more clickable toward the right because most people are right-handed (Casasanto, 2009). And I've validated this effect in pilot surveys: Right-handers are more likely to click buttons on the right.

  • Cai, F., Shen, H., & Hui, M. K. (2012). The effect of location on Price estimation: understanding number–location and number–order associations. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(5), 718-724.
  • Casasanto, D. (2009). Embodiment of abstract concepts: good and bad in right-and left- handers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(3), 351.
  • Deng, X., & Kahn, B. E. (2009). Is your product on the right side? The “location effect” on perceived product heaviness and package evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(6), 725-738.

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