Should You Price Creator Offers at $19 or $20?

For most creator offers, $19 will outsell $20 because shoppers read prices from left to right and register the first digit as the price's size, making $19 feel closer to $10 than to $20. The gap matters most on lower-priced, impulse-style offers; it shrinks on offers where a buyer is already weighing value carefully.

Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling.

This isn't a matter of taste, but it also isn't settled folklore. Nine-ending pricing has been tested in randomized retail field experiments since Eric Anderson and Duncan Simester published three of them in Quantitative Marketing and Economics in 2003 (Anderson & Simester 2003), and re-tested in a preregistered meta-analysis of 69 studies and 40,541 participants published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2024 (Troll et al. 2024). Below is what that body of evidence supports — and where it stops — for a $19-or-$20 decision on Paid Questions or Custom Work.

Does a $19 price actually outsell an identical $20 price?

Yes. In randomized field experiments, a nine-ending price raised demand over a lower round price for an identical item. Anderson and Simester manipulated price endings at women's apparel catalogs and reported that a $9 ending increased demand in all three of their experiments, with the largest gains on items shoppers had never seen priced before.

The most-quoted single result comes from a mail-order women's clothing catalog, and the authors describe the lift in their own words:

"Yet in a study the authors did involving a women's clothing catalog, they increased demand by a third just by changing the price of a dress from $34 to $39." — Eric T. Anderson and Duncan Simester, "Mind Your Pricing Cues," Harvard Business Review 81(9), September 2003

Two details keep that number honest. The $39 version was the higher of the two prices, so the gain was not a discount effect, and "a third" is the authors' own summary figure for one catalog test rather than an average lift you should expect. The primary peer-reviewed paper behind that research programme reports the pattern more conservatively: across three field experiments, "use of a $9 price ending increased demand in all three experiments" and "the increase in demand was stronger for new items than for items that the retailer had sold in previous years" (Anderson & Simester). For creators, the "new items" caveat is the useful part: a brand-new offer a follower has never seen priced is exactly where a 9-ending does the most work.

Why does the brain treat $19 as so much cheaper than $20?

Because people encode multi-digit prices from left to right, the leftmost digit anchors how large a price feels, even when the real gap is one dollar. Manoj Thomas and Vicki Morwitz named that pattern the left-digit effect and documented it across five experiments in the Journal of Consumer Research (Thomas & Morwitz 2005).

"Because we process data from left to right, the encoded magnitude of $2.99 could, at least in some situations, be significantly less than that of $3.00." — Manoj Thomas and Vicki Morwitz, summarizing their Journal of Consumer Research study on the left-digit effect, in NYU Stern Business

Economist Avner Strulov-Shlain structurally estimated the size of that distortion and found that consumers respond to a one-cent increase from a 99-ending price as if it were more than a 20-cent increase (Strulov-Shlain, "More Than a Penny's Worth: Left-Digit Bias and Firm Pricing," Review of Economic Studies 90(5), 2023). The same paper estimates that retailers underreact to left-digit bias and forgo 1% to 4% of potential gross profits as a result (Strulov-Shlain 2023). Most sellers underuse the effect rather than overusing it.

Does a round number like $20 ever outperform $19?

Sometimes, but the case for round prices is thinner than pricing folklore suggests. A round price removes the discount signal a 9-ending sends, which can help when a follower is judging credibility rather than hunting a bargain. What a round price does not reliably do is make an offer look higher quality.

The preregistered meta-analysis of just-below versus round prices — 69 studies, 362 effect sizes and 40,541 participants — found that just-below prices tend to increase purchase decisions while showing no reliable advantage for round prices on perceived quality (Troll et al.). A 2025 paper in Frontiers in Behavioral Economics puts the point bluntly:

"a recent meta-analysis suggests that this so-called 'quality image' effect might be non-existent and not different from zero" — Alfio Ventura, Eve Sarah Troll, Meikel Soliman and David D. Loschelder, "Round, just-below, or precise prices? Cultural differences in the prevalence of price endings in E-commerce," Frontiers in Behavioral Economics, 2025

Round prices are nevertheless normal, not contrarian: that same 2025 study extracted 9,200 prices from 23 countries on one international online marketplace and found 51.7% were round, 25.3% just-below and 23.0% precise (Ventura et al.). In plain terms: $20 doesn't automatically make an offer look premium — it removes the "everything's on sale" signal that $19 sends. Use $20 when you want to look settled, not because it is proven to raise perceived quality.

Does charm pricing even apply to a paid service, not a physical product?

Yes — charm pricing has been tested outside retail shelves. In a field study at a pizzeria-grill, 1,271 customers were observed ordering, and a target menu item was chosen significantly more often when its price ended in nine than when it ended in zero. A restaurant order is a service purchase, not a packaged good on a shelf.

Nicolas Guéguen and colleagues lowered one pizza's price by a single centime so that it ended in nine, and reported a significant increase in how often diners chose it. That is direct evidence the mechanism travels from goods to services, which is stronger footing than the older habit of asserting the transfer from retail data alone.

It is not, however, an unlimited licence. A restaurant menu still shows several priced items side by side, so the pizza result comes from a comparison setting. A follower reading one creator's page is usually not lining your $19 up against a competitor's price. Treat the left-digit effect as documented for retail goods and for at least one priced service menu, and as untested specifically on one-off creator offers — likely present, probably smaller.

$19 vs. $20 vs. a round $25 — which fits which offer?

No published study has tested price endings on creator offers specifically, so the table below is practical guidance derived from the cited research rather than measured results. The rule it applies is simple: use a 9-ending where the evidence is strongest — new, low-consideration, impulse purchases — and a round number where a buyer is deliberating.

None of these formats change what the follower gets. Paid Questions and Custom Work are one-time purchases, no membership: the follower sees your fixed price and pays upfront for that specific offer; that is separate from whether every follower should see the same number at all.

Should every offer on your page end in a 9?

No. The research supports 9-endings as a reliable lever on unfamiliar, low-consideration items, not as a rule for every price on a page. Anderson and Simester found the demand gain was weaker for items shoppers already knew, and reported evidence that 9-endings are less effective when a retailer also uses "Sale" cues, so the effect is contextual.

Their paper concludes that "$9-endings may be more effective when customers have limited information, which may in turn help to explain why retailers do not use $9 price endings on every item" (Anderson & Simester). Applying a 9-ending to a large, considered Custom Work offer is the mismatch case: a follower evaluating a bigger deliverable has more information and may read the ending as a gimmick rather than a bargain.

Where the split falls on Brillay: Paid Questions are usually the lowest-friction offer because you set the price and reply time, followers check out by card without creating an account, and they pay upfront for the written reply (how it works). That payment arrives before you've written a word of the reply, so the price you listed is the price they already committed to. A larger Custom Work offer with a multi-day delivery time is closer to a considered purchase, where a round number can read as more confident.

How should you actually decide between $19 and $20 for your own offer?

Decide from what the follower is comparing, not from a rule of thumb. If a follower is asking "is this worth it right now," a 9-ending nudges toward yes, because the evidence is strongest on new, low-consideration purchases. If a follower is asking "do I trust this person," a round number avoids sending a discount signal.

These four anchors are practical guidance derived from the studies cited above, not separately tested findings:

• New or first-time offer: lean 9-ending — Anderson and Simester found the demand gain was stronger for new items than for items buyers already had a reference price for (Quantitative Marketing and Economics 1(1)); if the offer itself is a one-off you've never scoped before, pricing a custom request you've never done walks through setting that first number.
• Offer you plan to raise later: a round number is easier to bump ($20 → $25) without it looking like a markdown reversal — and if that bump applies to a follower who's already bought from you at the old price, how to tell a regular customer about a price increase covers how to say so.
• Multiple tiers on one page: mixing formats (for example, $19 base and $50 higher tier) can make each tier read distinctly instead of blurring together.
• You genuinely don't know: why creators with the same following charge different prices covers the bigger levers — niche, offer complexity, demand — that matter more than the last digit.

Any price mentioned here is illustrative only, not a guarantee of demand or income; results depend on audience, positioning, and offer quality.

Does the number you pick change what Brillay charges?

No. Testing $19 against $20 does not add a setup cost or change the fee terms. No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Payment-processing fees are deducted separately from creator earnings; the follower sees and pays only the price you listed.

Brillay defines creator earnings as the follower payment minus the platform fee minus the processing fee (pricing). Changing a price ending is a text edit to an existing offer, not a new setup: you set each offer's price and delivery time.

Frequently asked questions

Is $19 vs. $20 the biggest pricing decision a creator should worry about?

No. The digit at the end of a price is a real, measurable lever, but it is a smaller decision than what the offer includes, how it is scoped, and whether the price matches the buyer's expectation for that deliverable. Set the price and scope first: for example, $5 for one written answer or $25 for one defined portfolio review. The Custom Work setup states what the follower gets, what you need from them and what is not included.

Does charm pricing work the same way for every audience?

No. The left-digit mechanism is well documented, but its size varies by context: Anderson and Simester found 9-endings were more effective for new items and less effective alongside "Sale" cues (Quantitative Marketing and Economics 1(1)), and the 2024 meta-analysis of 69 studies reported small, highly heterogeneous effect sizes (Troll et al.). Test it on your own offer rather than assuming a fixed lift.

Should I show my prices publicly if I'm testing $19 vs. $20?

Yes — showing a fixed price lets a follower decide without the awkward back-and-forth of asking “how much?” in a DM. Should you show your prices publicly covers why listing a clear price (of either format) tends to reduce friction compared to "DM for pricing."

Is it okay to just guess and change the number later?

Yes. You can change a price ending on Brillay without rebuilding the offer because you set each offer's price and delivery time. Treat $19 vs. $20 as a testable detail, not a permanent decision.

Does Brillay take a bigger cut if I price at $20 instead of $19?

No. Brillay's small platform fee is charged at the same rate whether the listed price is $19 or $20, so the ending you choose doesn't move you into a different fee; only the fee's share of that one extra dollar changes. Card processing is a separate charge, not part of Brillay's fee.

Create your free Brillay page, put all your offers behind one link, and test $19 against $20 without a follower minimum or application gate. Creators in 41 countries can get paid; followers pay by card from anywhere.