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I'm the CTO for a startup that is about to launch. We have a monthly subscription plan, and we are not sure what price to set it at. We have done some rough analysis, but we are considering using A/B testing to optimise the price further.

I want to know if there are any laws against this, considering we are a UK incorporated company, and we will be marketing to people worldwide.

I don't want to know reasons for or against A/B testing prices unless they have a legal basis, such as angering users and so on, only any potential legal ramifications. So far I haven't found any online.

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  • Not touching the legal aspect directly, but one issue you may have is to be sure that once you have given a price to someone, you give them the same price in further visits... including on different devices. This may become a legal issue as it may become false advertising if they get the lower price first, and then get a higher price on a subsequent visit. – jcaron Jan 29 '16 at 13:29
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  1. You need professional legal advice
  2. You need to comply with the law in every jurisdiction in which you do business. Your place of incorporation is irrelevant. If you are selling to Uzbekistan you need to comply with Uzbeki law, Queensland, Queensland and Australian law, Maine, Maine and US law etc.
  3. In most jurisdictions, discrimination is legal unless it is on the basis of a protected class, usually things like sex, race, etc.
  4. In the EU, price discrimination is illegal if it is an abuse of market power. Therefore, among other things you have to have market power. https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/gclc_wp_07-05.pdf
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As a Software Engineer, whose company does pretty much the same in the USA and the EU, what you need to make sure is you are not discriminating on some particular basis like @DaleM said. As far as you don't give them different price, just because they are lets say women or asian, it is OK to do so. Another thing to watch out in the EU is geo-blocking. To clarify what exactly that is:

You CANNOT give them difference price, based on nationality. You CAN however, give them different price, based on location.

That said, you can sell for 10 EUR to everyone living in Germany, while selling for 15 EUR in the Netherlands, but you cannot give 15 EUR price to a french individual, who lives in Germany, while giving 10 EUR to a German individual with the same residency. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/geo-blocking-digital-single-market

However, you should get a professional legal advice, before doing anything.

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