When I raised prices this year, the default was obvious. Push every option up by the same amount. Put the full menu out. Let patients choose.
That’s how almost everyone does it.
I think it’s backwards.
Three prices that point
We price three session lengths: 30, 45 and 60 minutes.
The 45 is the one I want chosen. It’s the session I know works for most people. Enough time to assess, treat and teach, without paying for an hour you don’t need.
The other two are real. Anyone can book them. But selling them isn’t their main job.
The 30 says: not quite enough. The 60 says: more than most people need. What’s left is the 45. Patients land on it themselves, and a choice you make yourself is the only kind that sticks.
Why I didn’t price the 45 higher
I nearly did.
But the hour is priced off the 45. Push the 45 up and the 60 jumps with it. That gap doesn’t push people up to 60. It pushes them down to 30. And 30 is the option I least want someone choosing for a real problem.
So I held it. An anchor’s price is set by what it does to the options around it, as much as by what it’s worth on its own.
Isn’t this manipulation?
People hear “decoy pricing” and assume it is. I get why.
Here’s the line I hold. Manipulation is steering someone to where it serves you and not them. This steers people to the option that actually treats the problem, the one we deliver best. If the 45 were the wrong thing for most patients, the structure would be a con.
It isn’t. That’s the whole difference.
The part I didn’t plan for
Getting most people onto one session length didn’t only lift revenue. It cleaned up operations. One default is easier to schedule, staff, train for and measure than three.
Same move. Paid twice.
What I’d tell another owner
Pricing every option fairly and showing the whole menu feels generous. Mostly it hands people a decision they didn’t come to make. They came to get better. They didn’t come to do pricing architecture.
You already know which option does the job. Build the menu so that’s where people land.
The middle tier was never one of three options. It was the product. The other two are signposts.