Way too few startups use price anchoring strategies when presenting their prices - the iPad intro is definitely not the first, but possibly the most well-executed anchoring I've ever seen.
If your product is disruptive in the sense that it potentially can replace a more expensive existing solution, you should simply point out the math - the higher the original number, the better, as even the higher price points you've been thinking up for your product will seem small.
Interestingly, anchoring can also work outside of mere price comparisons. That is, sometimes it's enough to just present high numbers to effectively prime customers towards higher price points. The most famous example is Kahnemann's classical experiment on using subjects' (obviously random) social security numbers for anchoring:
"...an audience is first asked to write the last two digits of their social security number and consider whether they would pay this number of dollars for items whose value they did not know, such as wine, chocolate and computer equipment. They were then asked to bid for these items, with the result that the audience members with higher two-digit numbers would submit bids that were between 60 percent and 120 percent higher than those with the lower social security numbers, which had become their anchor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
Yes, but this kind of anchoring is "artificially" manipulative. It's possible you convince a customer to accept a higher price at first, but pretty soon buyer's remorse will set in and you're screwed.
I do believe you want to pick "valid" anchors and sometimes be more selective (as-in the iPad case) but the comparison has to stick.
Not necessarily. Take our case of the iPad. It came out at a time when netbooks had created a new low for computer pricing. The iPad lacked a keyboard, a proper/large HDD, had a processor that was even slower, ran a smartphone OS that couldn't even multi-task properly, and had a screen resolution right out of 1995. The 'logical' price for this would have been $200-300; pretty much the only hardware that was not a cost reduction on a netbook was the (low cost) touch layer. Yet it had excellent customer satisfaction. They created perceived value- lacking USB, storage expansion and replaceable battery were all practical disadvantages-- but these weren't things that created desire like the buttery-smooth operation provided by the GPU and capacitive touch, the large viewing angle from the IPS screen, the sleekness from having just one button etc, and the light and slimness gained by forgoing so many features available in even a netbook.
And it's not just something like apple does. Think of a tech 'consultant', or a fashionable web-design company. Chances are you see their prices and think 'WTF are they smoking'..I could have better than that done for me for 10x less. but their clients, i bet are pretty happy. Because of the value they offer-- some perceived, some reality.
"...an audience is first asked to write the last two digits of their social security number and consider whether they would pay this number of dollars for items whose value they did not know, such as wine, chocolate and computer equipment. They were then asked to bid for these items, with the result that the audience members with higher two-digit numbers would submit bids that were between 60 percent and 120 percent higher than those with the lower social security numbers, which had become their anchor." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring