Teardowns › Pricing & paywalls › Decoy effect
Adobe’s regular Photoshop price sits above the Photography plan
If a single-app plan costs more than a bundle that includes it, say whether that is the price today or the price after an intro.
Step by step
- 1Decoy effect
Photoshop: £21.98/mo struck through, £9.98/mo for the first 3 months.
- 2Decoy effect
Photography: £19.97/mo, and it includes Photoshop.
Prices quoted in pounds (£), exactly as shown on the page we captured. Prices vary by region and change over time.
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What to steal
- If a single-app plan costs more than a bundle that includes it, say whether that is the price today or the price after an intro.
- Put the inclusion list on the bundle, as Adobe does on Photography.
What to test next: Intro price vs regular price as the number next to Photoshop. Measure Photography’s share of plan choice.
In plain words
Why it works
Adobe uses a dominated price, but only the regular one. The Photoshop card shows £21.98/mo struck through beside £9.98/mo, and the line “Save 54% for your first 3 months. Create stunning graphics, photos and artwork on desktop, web and mobile. New subscribers only.” Photography is £19.97/mo, and its card says “Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop on desktop, web, iPhone and iPad, and 1TB cloud storage.” At the struck-through £21.98, Photoshop-only costs more and includes less than Photography, which is an asymmetrically dominated option (Huber, Payne & Puto 1982). At the introductory £9.98 it is not: Photoshop is the cheaper plan. Whether Adobe intends the regular price as a decoy, or whether it shifts people to Photography, is not public.
Honest nudge or dark pattern?
Conditional
Conditional: both plans are real and buyable. The regular Photoshop price is dominated by Photography; the introductory price is not. It becomes a dark pattern only if a plan exists only to be rejected.
Context
UK Creative Cloud plans for individuals, logged out, on 3 Nov 2026. A location prompt offered United States; this capture stayed on United Kingdom. Prices include VAT and are annual, billed monthly.
The research
The research behind it
● Mixed evidence Why mixed: Typically absent when products are experienced or shown perceptually (Frederick et al., 2014). · More on decoy effect, with sources →
Next: run it on your product
Try it on your own product
Opens your assistant with this teardown, our verdict and the steps above. It asks about your product first, then suggests tests you can run.
Read the prompt, or use another assistant
Grok and Cursor open with the prompt filled in. Gemini and Codex can’t take a prefilled link, so the prompt is copied and you paste it in.
More pricing psychology examples →
Similar tactic elsewhereSurfshark prices Starter the same as the bigger One planSurfshark · Decoy effectSources
- Our capture of adobe.com, 3 Nov 2026
- Huber, Payne & Puto (1982). Limits: Frederick, Lee & Baskin (2014). doi.org/10.1086/208899
- Captured by Nudgeswipe, 3 Nov 2026 (UK Creative Cloud individuals page, logged out, United Kingdom kept on the location prompt): adobe.com
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5 new nudges, every Friday
Five real product and marketing moments, one thing to try from each, and the psychology behind it. Weekly issues start soon. Your email is stored with our email provider (Resend) and used only for this newsletter.