Penny-a-day framing
Also known as: Pennies-a-day effect
Quoting a cost as 'just $1 a day' makes it feel trivial.
What it means
A framing tactic that expresses a larger total expense as a stream of tiny, frequent amounts, which makes the cost feel negligible and more acceptable. The small per-period figure invites a comparison to trivial daily purchases (a coffee, a candy bar), so people assimilate it to 'pocket change' rather than confronting the aggregate sum. The effect weakens when the per-unit amount is large enough to evoke comparisons to meaningful expenses, where the same framing can backfire. It matters for the marketing of subscriptions, donations, and financing, and as a clear case of temporal reframing of price.
Examples
'Sponsor a child for just 90 cents a day' raises more than quoting '$27 a month.'
A $45-a-month software plan sold as 'less than a coffee a day' invites comparison with a latte, not with the $540 it takes out of the year's budget.
The trick backfires on a car: '$25 a day' for a lease sounds like a real expense — a restaurant meal, not pocket change — so the monthly figure sells better.
First described in Gourville (1998).