Drip pricing, countdown timers and the real total

Drip pricing: only the payment screen is comparable

Drip pricing is the practice of showing an initial price and then adding fees as the purchase proceeds. The CMA announced a major consumer protection drive on 18 November 2025 after a cross-economy review of more than 400 businesses in 19 different sectors, and identified potential compliance concerns in 14 of them. It sent advisory letters to 100 businesses and opened investigations into eight.

The prevalence figures the CMA cited are worth carrying around. Drip pricing was particularly prevalent for event tickets, where it was found in 93% of the businesses reviewed, for cinema tickets at 69%, and for gym memberships at 60%. Those are not stray cases; in those sectors the headline price was the exception rather than the rule.

The CMA's final guidance, Price transparency (CMA209), was published on 18 November 2025 and last updated on 7 January 2026. It covers what to include in pricing information, including mandatory fees, taxes and charges, and addresses both drip pricing and partitioned pricing, where price components are shown without the final amount the customer pays.

Countdown timers and "only available for a limited time"

Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists commercial practices that are banned outright, and its provisions came into force on 6 April 2025. Paragraph 7 of that Schedule prohibits falsely stating that a product will only be available for a limited time, in order to deprive consumers of time for an informed choice.

The CMA's November 2025 announcement names misleading countdown timers specifically as banned under the new regime. The point is the word misleading: a sale that genuinely ends on a date may say so. A timer that resets when the page is reloaded, or that counts down to nothing in particular, is describing urgency that does not exist.

The practical defence costs nothing. Decide your buying price before you open the page, as described in the price-history guide on this site, and a timer becomes information rather than pressure. If the figure on the payment screen is at or below your threshold, the timer changes nothing; if it is above, the timer is the only reason you would buy.

Bait advertising: the headline attached to nothing

Two of the banned practices in Schedule 20 deal with offers that cannot be fulfilled. Paragraph 5 covers making an invitation to purchase at a specified price without disclosing that the trader cannot supply reasonable quantities, or supply within a reasonable time. Paragraph 6 covers inviting purchase at a specified price and then refusing to show the advertised item, or refusing to deliver it, in order to promote a different product.

From a shopper's side these look identical: the headline figure exists and the item does not. The tell is usually in the detail rather than the banner, so read the availability line and the dispatch estimate before the price. An item listed as available in one size, in one colour, with dispatch in 3 to 4 weeks, is not the item the headline was selling.

The arithmetic consequence is that a deal with no stock has no cost per use at all, because you never receive it. A slightly dearer listing that ships in 2 days is often the better purchase on any measure you can actually apply, and it is the one you can compare like for like against other sellers.

1. Read the availability line before the price, and treat "limited stock" as information rather than urgency
2. Check the dispatch estimate in days; a 3 to 4 week estimate is a different product from a 2-day one
3. Confirm the headline price applies to the size, colour and variant you actually want
4. Look at whether the page steers you to a dearer alternative when the advertised item is selected
5. Keep the comparison between listings you could complete today, not listings that merely exist

Free-delivery thresholds and the filler item

A free-delivery threshold is a discount that you pay for. Take an example basket of £38 at a seller whose delivery is £4.99 and free above £50. Adding a £12 item to cross the line costs £12 to avoid a £4.99 charge, which leaves you £7.01 worse off unless you wanted the £12 item anyway.

The sum is always the same shape: compare the cost of the filler with the delivery charge you avoid. Filler cheaper than the charge is a genuine saving, filler dearer than the charge is a purchase. On these example figures the break-even filler costs £4.99, and nothing in the basket is likely to land exactly there.

Collection changes the arithmetic entirely by removing the delivery line. On the example in the first table, collecting in store turns a 17% reduction back into a 30% one, which is a larger effect than almost any voucher code.

• Basket £38, delivery £4.99, free delivery above £50: you are £12 short of the threshold
• Adding a £12 filler item costs £12 and saves £4.99, so the net effect is £7.01 worse
• The break-even filler on these figures costs £4.99, which is the charge you are avoiding
• If you would have bought the filler within the month anyway, the saving is the full £4.99
• Collection removes the delivery line entirely and is worth more than most voucher codes
• Compare delivered totals across sellers, because the threshold differs at each one

Reviews, "free" and the things this site does not have

Paragraph 13 of Schedule 20 deals with reviews at length. It covers submitting fake reviews, concealing the fact that reviews were incentivised, publishing reviews in a misleading way such as filtering out negative ones, and failing to remove review information known to be false or misleading. A star rating is a claim like any other and it is now regulated as one.

Paragraph 23 covers the word free. Describing a product as free, gratis or without charge when costs apply beyond what is unavoidable is a banned practice. The test is whether the consumer must pay anything to obtain the item other than the unavoidable cost of responding and collecting or paying for delivery.

This site publishes no reviews, no star ratings, no reader comments and no price feed, and none of the calculators connects to a seller. The reason is the same one that runs through this guide: an unverified number presented as evidence is worse than no number, and a site with no way to verify should say so rather than display one.

Before you buy

• Take every comparison to the payment screen before judging an offer
• Add delivery and any booking or service fee to the headline before computing a percentage
• Decide your buying price before opening the page, so a timer carries no information
• Check whether collection is offered, which removes the delivery line entirely
• Compare a filler item's cost with the delivery charge it avoids, not with the threshold
• Treat star ratings and reviews as claims rather than data
• Put the full line-by-line total into the landed-cost calculator rather than the headline

Questions readers ask

Is a countdown timer illegal?

Not in itself. Schedule 20 paragraph 7 of the DMCC Act 2024 bans falsely stating that a product will only be available for a limited time, and the CMA named misleading countdown timers as banned under the regime that came into force on 6 April 2025. A timer counting down to a real deadline that is then honoured is a statement of fact.

Do delivery charges have to be shown up front?

The CMA's final guidance on price transparency, CMA209, published 18 November 2025 and updated 7 January 2026, sets out what pricing information must include, covering mandatory fees, taxes and charges, and addresses drip pricing and partitioned pricing directly. The practical consequence for a shopper is simpler: compare totals at the payment screen, where every line is present.

How common is drip pricing really?

In the sectors the CMA reviewed it was the norm rather than the exception. Its November 2025 announcement cited drip pricing in 93% of the event ticket businesses reviewed, 69% for cinema tickets and 60% for gym memberships, out of a cross-economy review of more than 400 businesses in 19 sectors.

Is it ever worth adding a filler item for free delivery?

Only when the filler costs less than the delivery charge, or when you would have bought it anyway within a few weeks. On the example figures here, a £12 filler to avoid a £4.99 charge leaves you £7.01 worse off. Treat the filler as a purchase and judge it on its own merits.

Can I trust a star rating on a deal page?

Treat it as a claim rather than a measurement. Schedule 20 paragraph 13 of the DMCC Act 2024 bans fake reviews, concealed incentives and publishing reviews in a misleading way, including filtering out negative ones, which tells you those things happened often enough to need prohibiting. A rating with no visible method behind it is unverifiable.

Sources

1. GOV.UK — CMA launches major consumer protection drive focused on online pricing practices, 18 November 2025 — checked 2026-11-03
2. legislation.gov.uk — Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20: commercial practices which are in all circumstances unfair — checked 2026-11-03
3. GOV.UK — Price transparency (CMA209), published 18 November 2025, updated 7 January 2026 — checked 2026-11-03