The upsell funnel: what happens after you click buy
Most products on this shelf open a sequence of extra offers after checkout. Here is what that looks like, and how to walk through it without spending more than you meant to.
The price on the card is the price of the front-end product. It is almost never the price of the thing being advertised.
What actually happens
You pay, and before the download link appears you are shown a one-time offer. Decline it and you are usually shown a cheaper version of the same thing. Decline that and the next offer starts. Four to six of these in a row is normal.
Why the entry price is so low
It is not a discount. The front end exists to find people willing to pay for something, and the funnel behind it is where the money is made. A seventeen-dollar product with a six-step funnel is not a seventeen-dollar decision.
How to get through it
Decide what you want before you pay, and treat every screen between the payment and the download as an advertisement, because it is. Nothing you decline is lost — vendors usually sell the upgrades separately afterwards.
What we do about it
Every listing on this site names the funnel behind it before you click. It costs us conversions. It also means nobody arrives at the checkout surprised.
