How a Joining Discount Sets the Price Members Expect

A 2026 study on how people read subscription discounts points to why the first full payment after a joining discount can feel like a price rise instead of the rate the member agreed to. Mijin Kwon and Song Oh Yoon, in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, tested how people judge a discount sitting inside a run of repeating payments. One study watched real behaviour: 700 people saw a live-looking online ad for a subscription and either clicked through or did not. The discount was the same size in every version. What changed was where it fell in the run and how it was written.

What the research found

The standard assumption in pricing is that people want a discount now rather than later, because a dollar saved today beats one saved next month. Kwon and Yoon found that flips under one condition. When the discount was written in the same unit as the price, a run like $10, $10, $10, then $5, people preferred the discount at the end, because the falling numbers read as a single run heading down and they expected the lower price to continue past the promotion. Frame the same discount as $10, $10, then 50% off, and it reads as a one-off saving stuck onto the plan, so people go back to wanting it straight away.

The behaviour was real in the opening study, 700 people clicking a live ad rather than ticking a survey box. The follow-ups, on a Netflix-style plan with a few hundred people each, measured the expectation directly: people who saw the same-unit run expected a lower price after the promotion, and when the researchers stated the renewal price up front, the effect vanished. The limit is the setting. These were online panels in a lab task, not members at your front desk, so the direction is well-evidenced and the size is untested on a gym floor.

Where this shows up in your gym

Every membership sold on a repeating payment has a run of numbers a member can read, and the joining offer writes its first few. The intro price on your sales page, or the discounted debit a salesperson offers to close on the day, is the start of a run the member projects forward. So the discount does two things at once. It closes today’s sale, and it gives the member their first read on what the gym costs, which is the figure the eventual full price gets compared against. It is the same kind of gap between a price and how it reads that makes a “free” offer land harder than a “$0” one.

The move, and how you will know it worked

The move is to decide, before you write the offer, whether you want the member projecting your discount forward or holding your standard price in mind, then frame the discount to match.

To fill a quiet month, and if you can carry members who join cheap, write the discount in the same unit as the fee so it reads as a run. “$40, $40, $40, then $20” pulls people in and sets the expectation that low is normal.

If you would rather bring members to full price without that jolt, state the standard price next to the discount, in the same unit, so the run has a known endpoint. “Your first two months are $20, then $60, the standard rate” gives the member the real number before it lands on a statement. Kwon and Yoon found that disclosing the renewal price removed the inflated expectation. You give up a little conversion, because you have dropped the impression that the price keeps falling, and in return the member reaches full price already knowing the figure.

The place to watch is narrow: cancellations and downgrades at the first full-price debit, not the average across the membership. A cluster there is the sign that a number set at joining did not match the standard price, rather than members simply going off training. The line to listen for is “I didn’t realise it went up to that,” at the first full charge.

What it looks like on your floor

A prospect takes your “first three months half price” offer in January, $30 against a $60 standard rate. For three months the only number on the statement is $30, and nothing in the offer stated the real price in the same unit, so $30 became their sense of what the gym costs. In April the debit is $60. To you it is the rate they always knew was coming; to them it reads as a doubling. Shown “$30, then $60” back in January, the same member would meet April as the plan doing what it said.

Where this goes wrong

None of this is a way to hide a step up. The effect runs on an inference the member makes, and the moment they have the renewal price the inference is gone, which is what the disclosure study showed. Use the same-unit run to bury a jump and you do not prevent the reaction, you move it to the statement, where you are not there to explain it and the cancel button is one tap away.

One question

Of all the prices a joining member sees before their first full charge, how many are the price they will actually pay?

People also ask

Does this apply to memberships paid a year upfront, or only monthly plans?

It applies where there is a run of payments to read. A membership paid in one annual hit has no run, so there is no falling line for the member to project forward, and this particular effect does not arise. It comes back the moment you break that year into instalments, or offer a discounted first period before a recurring price kicks in. If you sell mostly upfront annuals, your pricing lever is elsewhere. If you sell monthly or instalment plans, the framing on the first few payments is doing the work described here.

Won’t stating the renewal price up front hurt my sign-ups?

Some, yes, because part of what lifts sign-ups is the impression the price keeps dropping, and you are taking it away. The real question is where you would rather carry the loss. Disclosing the renewal price trades a slightly lower number of sign-ups for members who reach full price without feeling misled. Hiding it does the reverse and concentrates the loss at renewal, where a member who has already settled in leaves feeling stung. A prospect who never joins costs you less than one who joins, gets comfortable, and then goes at the first full charge, so test it on one offer and weigh the sign-up dip against the drop at the first full-price debit.

Is it the size of the discount or the way it is framed that matters?

In this research the size was held constant and only the framing changed, so the framing is what moved both people’s preference and their expected future price. Two offers of identical value can leave members expecting very different renewal prices, depending on whether the discount is written in the same unit as the fee or as a separate percentage. The number on the deal and the expectation it plants are two decisions, not one.

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Members treat the discount as a preview of what the price will be. It is the one number in the offer you never actually quoted them.

You have the move for one offer: frame the discount, and show the renewal price, so a joining deal does not set a member up to feel overcharged in three months. If you want the same read across your pricing, from the intro offer through to the annual renewal, book a free 30-minute chat and I will show you where your current numbers are planting expectations you would rather they did not.

References: Kwon & Yoon 2026, “Discount now or later? The effect of payment framing on consumer preferences for discount timing in periodic payments” (Journal of Consumer Psychology).