I ran side-by-side tests on our web funnel: one variant showed VAT-inclusive prices, the other showed VAT-exclusive prices with VAT added at checkout. Because the web funnel is easy to change I could spin up both variants in a day and get signal quickly.
What I learned: inclusive pricing reduced confusion and lowered drop-offs on the price page. Exclusive pricing looked cheaper up-front but caused more cart abandonment when VAT appeared at checkout. The payment gateway handled the tax math in both cases, which kept revenue tracking accurate — we pulled gross and net values straight from the gateway for analysis.
If you’ve tested this, which pricing display moved conversion more for EU traffic and how did you attribute VAT on your revenue reports?
I ran this test last quarter. Inclusive pricing beat exclusive by a few percent on conversion. The reason was simple. People see the final number and decide faster.
I let the gateway calculate the tax and sent gross revenue to analytics. The Web2Wave funnel made swapping price copy trivial so the test was quick to run.
I use the web funnel to A/B price formatting. Inclusive prices almost always convert better for cold traffic.
Key is instrumenting analytics to store gross and net values from the gateway. With Web2Wave I can flip price copy and keep the tax handling centralized so results are clean and actionable.
Inclusive pricing made ad creative simpler. No surprises in checkout and fewer refunds.
We stored gross and net amounts in our events so finance could reconcile later.
inclusive wins
people hate surprises
Test both but segment by traffic source. For high intent retargeting exclusive pricing sometimes wins because savvy users expect to see VAT separately. For cold acquisition show inclusive pricing. Always capture both gross and net in your data layer and tag events with country. Use gateway webhooks to validate revenue numbers after each test. That way you do not rely on client-side price text for revenue attribution.
We added a small helper text under prices for EU users explaining VAT inclusion. That cut dropoffs without changing headline prices.
Works well when you cannot fully localize banners.
We saw fewer chargebacks with inclusive pricing.
Worth the small hit in headline price perception.
Make sure your creatives match the price format you test.
Mismatch confuses users.