NOW strikes through £7.99 for £4.99, with a 6-month minimum term

The psychology

Why it nudges

The struck-through £7.99 is the flexible plan's price, used as the reference; the saving is in exchange for a 6-month commitment. A seasonal banner gives the offer a moment. Whether this lifts sign-ups for NOW is not public.

● Strong evidence · More on reference price, with sources →

Context

Sky's streaming service. Our capture showed "Sorry, you're browsing from another country", so we could only see the page, not sign up.

Honest nudge or dark pattern?

Honest nudge

Honest nudge as captured: the minimum term and ads are stated by the price.

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

Steal this, honestly

If the saving needs a minimum term, put the term next to the price, as here.

What to test: Saver plan first vs flexible plan first. Measure 7-month retention.

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: NOW: NOW strikes through £7.99 for £4.99, with a 6-month minimum term
Bias: Reference price: A price is judged against a comparison price: a 'was' price, a monthly rate, a renewal rate.
Why it nudges: The struck-through £7.99 is the flexible plan's price, used as the reference; the saving is in exchange for a 6-month commitment. A seasonal banner gives the offer a moment. Whether this lifts sign-ups for NOW is not public.
Our verdict: Honest nudge. Honest nudge as captured: the minimum term and ads are stated by the price.
Source page: https://nudgeswipe.com/examples/now-entertainment-saver-6-month-minimum/ (JSON: https://nudgeswipe.com/api/teardowns/now-entertainment-saver-6-month-minimum.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 nowtv.com, 16 Oct 2026
Kalyanaram & Winer (1995), Empirical generalizations from reference price research. doi.org/10.1287/mksc.14.3.G161
Captured by Nudgeswipe, 16 Oct 2026 (logged out): nowtv.com

NOW strikes through £7.99 for £4.99, with a 6-month minimum term

Why it nudges

Honest nudge

Apply this with your agent

Related teardowns

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