How to choose PPP discount percentages for your product
You've decided to offer regional pricing. Now comes the awkward part. Should the discount be 20%, 40%, or 60%?
The same discount won't work for every product in a country. Start with a price you can sustain, use purchasing-power data as context, and test a small number of offers. A neat spreadsheet can still give you a bad price.
Work out your lowest sensible price
Use a hypothetical $100 course. Suppose each extra sale costs you $10 in support and delivery. Your payment costs are an assumed 5% of the amount collected. You want at least $20 left per sale to contribute toward fixed costs and your time.
Your minimum price is $10 plus $20, divided by 0.95. That's about $31.58. Below that, the sale misses your chosen contribution target under these assumptions.
This isn't a suggested course price. It demonstrates the order of work. Establish the boundary before choosing the discount. Your own calculation may need fixed transaction fees, affiliate commissions, refunds, or a larger allowance for support.
At a $60 selling price, this example leaves $47 after the assumed fee and delivery cost. At $40, it leaves $28. Both clear the chosen floor, but neither is automatically the better business decision. You also need to know how many people buy.
Find your floor before choosing a percentage
$10 delivery + $20 target contribution
0.95 retained after payment fees
$31.58 minimum price
A price above this floor meets this example's per-sale target. You still need enough sales to cover fixed costs.
Use country data without pretending it knows your buyer
The World Bank's PPP guidance warns that country-level PPP measures don't describe particular population groups or differences within a country.
That matters when your audience is narrow. A professional buying software for paid work has a different reason to spend than a student buying their first course. Ask what your product replaces, who pays for it, and whether the customer earns locally or internationally.
Use the Evendeals regional pricing calculator to explore candidates. Then compare those candidates with your price floor. If the suggested price falls below it, adjust the offer or its scope. Don't copy the output into checkout without checking.
Start with a few manageable groups
You can begin with a small set of discount levels. The point is to make the first test understandable, not to classify every economy perfectly.
| Group | Example offer | Why it exists |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | No discount | Keep an unchanged reference price |
| Test A | 25% off | Try a modest affordability change |
| Test B | 40% off | Try a larger change that still clears the floor |
| Manual review | No automatic offer | Resolve unusual purchases individually |
These percentages are illustrative. They don't assign any country to a tier. Choose initial countries from your audience and sales records, then document the reason for each assignment.
Avoid putting low-traffic countries together just to produce a bigger number. Different traffic sources and buyer types can hide what's happening. If you combine markets, keep a separate country breakdown for later review.
Pick one offer to test first
A small business rarely needs a dozen simultaneous price experiments. Choose a market where people already visit your pricing page. Keep your product and acquisition channels stable enough that you can interpret the result.
Record the price, discount, eligible products, billing period, and start date. For subscriptions, write down how long the reduced price lasts. A 40% discount on the first invoice is a different offer from 40% off every renewal.
Review net receipts and contribution per eligible visitor, alongside conversion. More buyers at a much lower price can leave you with less money to run the business. Refunds and support requests can also change the result after the initial sale.
Try this with one course before your whole catalog
Imagine you sell a self-paced design course for $100 and a coaching bundle for $300. The course takes little of your time after a student joins. The bundle includes two live calls. Giving both products 50% off might look tidy in your dashboard, but it creates very different commitments.
Start with the course. Estimate the support you'll actually provide, choose a discount above your price floor, and keep the coaching bundle out of that first offer. You can price the bundle separately once you know what the extra time costs you.
Write a one-line reason for the offer: people already visit this course page from this market, but price comes up repeatedly in their questions. That's a much better starting point than giving the biggest discount to whichever country appears lowest in a spreadsheet.
Save the setup before launching so you can compare it later. If it works, you can expand it. If it doesn't, you've learned something about one product without repricing your whole business. Nice and manageable.
Explain the decision to your customer
You don't need to publish an economics essay beside the purchase button. Say that a regional offer is available, show the amount, and explain how to apply it. Include any product or renewal limits where customers can find them before paying.
In Evendeals, configure country groups and offers, then verify the matching coupon in your payment system. The quick-start guide covers that setup.
Pick one product, check its costs, and set up the first country group. You can add more groups later. If you're unsure how to connect the offer to checkout, our quick-start guide walks through it.