---
name: Comparison prevention
slug: comparison-prevention
category: pattern
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Structuring plans or products so their features and prices cannot be
  lined up, forcing a decision that no side-by-side reading would support.
aliases:
  - name: price comparison prevention
    source: community
  - name: obfuscated pricing
    source: community
  - name: incomparable tiers
    source: community
tags:
  - commerce
  - perception
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - comparison-table
  variantOf:
    - dark-pattern
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "Deceptive Design: comparison prevention"
    url: https://www.deceptive.design/types/comparison-prevention
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: the plans are built so you cannot compare them
---

Comparison prevention is a deceptive pattern with no lie in it. Every number on the page can
be accurate and every feature genuinely included, and the page still defeats the reader,
because the options are arranged so that no two of them can be held against each other. One
plan is priced monthly and the next annually. One lists seats and the next lists "fair use".
The feature rows appear in a different order in each column, or one column's detail lives
behind a link, or the middle tier quietly measures a different unit. Nothing is false. The
comparison is simply not available.

The tell is asymmetry, not any single claim, which is why the pattern is easy to miss in
review and easy to prove with a spreadsheet. Ask what question the page is meant to answer
(usually "which of these is cheapest for me") and then try to answer it by reading across
rather than down. If answering requires arithmetic, a second tab, or a phone call, the
arrangement is doing work against the reader. That test also catches the honest version of
the same mess: a genuinely confusing pricing page built by three teams who never spoke is
indistinguishable from a deliberate one, and it should be fixed for the same reason.

The instrument this pattern defeats is the [comparison table](/comparison-table), which is
the whole reason a comparison table exists: one row per attribute, one column per option,
the same unit all the way across, and the differences visible without a calculation. Build
that and prevention becomes structurally difficult, because a missing cell or a mismatched
unit is obvious in the grid. Break it and you have made a decision harder while looking
generous, which is why Harry Brignull files this beside the rest of the
[dark patterns](/dark-pattern) rather than under bad information design.

Enforcement has caught up in the places where the money is largest. Unit pricing rules in
grocery, energy and telecoms exist precisely to force a shared denominator: price per
hundred grams, per kilowatt hour, per month. Software has no such rule yet, so the honest
move is voluntary and cheap. Pick one billing period, show the others as a toggle rather
than a per-plan choice, name every feature the same way in every column, put every plan's
number on the page including the enterprise one, and state the unit that actually matters
to a buyer. A reader who can compare and still chooses you has chosen you.