Teardowns › Homepages & product pages › Anchoring

Compare the Market leads with "Save up to £566" and footnotes that 51% could achieve it

Compare the Market · Homepage · Logged-out UK visitors · comparethemarket.com · captured 16 Oct 2026

Honest nudgeAnchoring Social proof Incentive

Compare the Market Homepage, captured 16 Oct 2026 — Our capture, 16 Oct 2026, logged out. Numbers match the steps.

Step by step

1
Anchoring
"Save up to £566[1] on your car insurance".
2
The footnote: "51% of customers could achieve this saving on their car insurance through Compare the Market."
3
Incentive
"Get the app to get 2 for 1 cinema tickets – every Tues or Weds, with no purchase needed."
4
Social proof
"The #1 trusted UK comparison site" with "4.9 out of 5 from 147,632 people" on Trustpilot.

Prices quoted in pounds (£), exactly as shown on the page we captured. Prices vary by region and change over time.

The psychology

Why it nudges

A big "up to" saving sets a high anchor. Here the footnote explains it is the saving "51% could achieve", the regulator-style way of backing such a claim. A no-purchase-needed gift gives something first (reciprocity), and review counts add social proof. Whether these lift quotes for Compare the Market is not public.

Company claim: "#1 trusted" and the 4.9/5 Trustpilot score are the company's own claims, as shown on its page. We haven't verified them.

● Strong evidence · More on anchoring, with sources →

Context

A UK price comparison site; the saving figures cite independent research by Consumer Intelligence (September 2026).

Honest nudge or dark pattern?

Honest nudge

Honest nudge as captured: the basis of the saving claim is stated.

Sources: Captured by Nudgeswipe, 16 Oct 2026 (logged out)

Steal this, honestly

Back an "up to" figure with how many people actually get it, as here.
Give a no-strings perk first if it fits your brand.

What to test: "Save up to £X" vs "Half our customers saved £X". Measure quotes and trust survey scores.

Next: run it on your product

Apply this with your agent

Take the steps above into your own flow. The prompt carries this teardown, the honest-vs-dark line and the steps.

You are helping me apply a behavioural-design pattern ethically.

Pattern: Compare the Market: Compare the Market leads with "Save up to £566" and footnotes that 51% could achieve it
Bias: Anchoring: An initial number, even an irrelevant one, pulls later estimates towards it.
Why it nudges: A big "up to" saving sets a high anchor. Here the footnote explains it is the saving "51% could achieve", the regulator-style way of backing such a claim. A no-purchase-needed gift gives something first (reciprocity), and review counts add social proof. Whether these lift quotes for Compare the Market is not public.
Our verdict: Honest nudge. Honest nudge as captured: the basis of the saving claim is stated.
Source page: https://nudgeswipe.com/examples/compare-the-market-save-up-to-51-percent/ (JSON: https://nudgeswipe.com/api/teardowns/compare-the-market-save-up-to-51-percent.json)

Rules: say a brand "uses" a tactic, never that it "worked"; outcomes are not public unless the company published them; no invented uplift estimates; flag mixed evidence. Honest nudge = true, visible, easy to reverse, and in the user's interest. Dark pattern = hides costs, fakes scarcity or popularity, shames, or makes leaving harder than joining. Quote company-published results as "X reports", with the source link, and don’t generalise them. Don’t cite retracted or failed-to-replicate studies as support (e.g. Ariely & Wertenbroch 2002). Don’t state study figures unless they’re on this page or in a source you can link. If an idea crosses the line, link the matching deceptive.design pattern.

Tasks:
1. Ask me for my product, the flow (URL or screenshots) and the goal.
2. Audit where this pattern already appears, or could, in that flow.
3. Propose 2-3 ethical experiments: hypothesis, variant copy or UI, primary metric, and a guardrail metric (refunds, complaints, cancellations).
4. Flag every dark-pattern risk and say how to stay on the honest side.

Open in ChatGPT Open in Claude Open in Grok Open in Cursor

ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Cursor open with the prompt filled in (it is also copied, in case the prefill doesn't load). Gemini and Codex don't support prefilled links, so the prompt is copied and the app opens; paste it in.

Sources

Our capture of comparethemarket.com, 16 Oct 2026
Tversky & Kahneman (1974), Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124
Captured by Nudgeswipe, 16 Oct 2026 (logged out): comparethemarket.com

Related teardowns

apple.com

Apple Product page screenshot, captured 16 Oct 2026

AnchoringGrey area

Apple anchors trade-in value at the top of a range

Apple · Product page · £ as captured

linear.app

Linear Pricing page screenshot, captured 16 Oct 2026

Social proofConditional

Linear's pricing: 'Free for everyone' and 40,000 companies

Linear · Pricing page · $ as captured

uk.gymshark.com

Gymshark Homepage banner screenshot, captured 16 Oct 2026

IncentiveHonest nudge

Gymshark rotates five offers in one top banner

Gymshark · Homepage banner · £ as captured

5 new nudges, every Friday

Five real product and marketing moments, the psychology behind each, and one thing to try. Weekly issues start soon. Your email is stored with our email provider (Resend) and used only for this newsletter.