Demand and conversion
Adding an option nobody is expected to buy, priced so that one of the real options stops looking expensive.
Also called Asymmetric dominance · Decoy pricing · Эффект приманки · Асимметричное доминирование
People evaluate comparisons rather than prices. Introduce a third tier that is clearly worse than one of the others while costing almost the same, and the option dominating it becomes the reference point — not because anything was hidden, but because the question the buyer is answering has been changed.
The tell is that removing the decoy changes what the remaining options mean. A genuine option does not do that. Data Nexus includes this in its catalogue of patterns deliberately, and equally deliberately notes that it breaches nothing: every number is accurate, nothing is concealed, and no jurisdiction prohibits a third pricing tier.
A team that cannot tell this apart from drip pricing will either ban both and lose a legitimate pricing tool, or permit both and take on exposure it did not price. The distinction is whether the buyer is being persuaded or being denied a number they need.
The definitions are the easy part. Whether the figure on your dashboard was computed this way is a different question, and usually the more expensive one.