Partitioned pricing
Splitting a price into base plus surcharges makes the total feel smaller.
What it means
A pricing tactic that divides the total cost into a headline base price plus one or more separate components, such as shipping or handling fees, rather than presenting a single all-inclusive price. Consumers often anchor on the lower base price and underweight or fail to fully integrate the surcharges, so demand can rise relative to an equivalent combined price. The effect depends on how attention is allocated and can reverse into 'drip pricing' resentment when the add-ons are revealed late or feel unjustified. It matters as a widespread and sometimes deceptive practice in e-commerce, travel, and ticketing.
Examples
A $90 ticket plus a '$15 service fee' can sell better than the same event priced simply at $105.
An online seller lists a printer at $70 plus $12 'delivery and handling' and outsells a rival's flat $82, because shoppers compare the headline numbers and only half-register the add-on.
A hotel advertised at $120 a night adds a '$45 resort fee' at checkout for a pool the guest never used — the split price now reads as a trick, and the review says so.
First described in Morwitz, Greenleaf & Johnson (1998).