The struck-through price: when a 'was' figure can be checked, and when it cannot
A price with a line through it is not a price, it is a claim, and the claims come in two kinds. Some are comparisons the vendor computed from figures also printed on the page, which makes them checkable. Others are round multiples repeated identically across a whole ladder, which is the signature of a number chosen rather than remembered. This guide sets out how to tell them apart, using lifetime deals where the pattern is starkest, and why a payback calculation can be a statement about the wrong thing.
Struck-through figures do a lot of work on pricing pages and almost none of it is scrutinised. The convention borrows its authority from retail, where a crossed-out number is understood to be what the item cost last week. In software it can mean that, or it can mean a price the vendor charges elsewhere, or the sum of the parts bought separately, or nothing much at all. The useful question is not whether the discount is generous but whether the crossed-out number can be checked against anything.
Sometimes it can, and the check is trivial. Mangools' annual card prints a struck-through yearly figure beside the annual one, and that struck-through figure is exactly twelve times the monthly rate printed in the other billing state. It is the vendor doing the arithmetic a careful buyer would do anyway: this is what a year costs if you pay monthly, and this is what it costs if you pay up front. Both inputs are on the page, so the comparison is verifiable, and it turns out to be accurate. A struck-through number that equals a published figure times a published quantity is the honest form of this device.
Then there is the other kind. Six lifetime plans in our record carry both a live price and a crossed-out one. Internxt's three are each exactly five times the live figure — not approximately, but precisely five, on every tier of the ladder. A former price does not behave like that. Prices set at different times for different amounts of storage do not land on the same round multiple across three tiers simultaneously; a rule applied once to three numbers does. Whatever that crossed-out figure is, it was derived from the price beside it rather than the other way round.
pCloud's lifetime tiers make the contrast, because its crossed-out figures sit at roughly one and a half times the live price and do not all sit at the same ratio: two tiers match each other and the third is slightly higher. That untidiness is mildly reassuring. Numbers that came from somewhere tend to be uneven, and a ladder whose discounts vary a little by tier looks more like a set of decisions than a formula. It is not proof of anything, and we do not present it as such, but it is the difference between a pattern that could have arisen naturally and one that could not.
The same tell recurs everywhere once you look for it. Introductory rates that land on exactly half or exactly a tenth of a standing price across a whole ladder are telling you which of the two figures was designed, and a crossed-out price at a clean multiple is telling you the same thing in the other direction. In both cases the number that varies naturally between tiers is the real one, and the number that holds a constant ratio is the derived one.
Lifetime deals invite a second calculation, which is how long they take to pay back against the recurring price. Our record computes that for Internxt's three tiers and it lands between roughly two and three and a quarter years, which sounds like a strong case. The vendor's own record carries the caveat that matters: the payback looks fast because the recurring price is high, so the figure is a statement about the annual plan being expensive rather than about the lifetime plan being cheap. A ratio has two ends, and a payback period improves just as readily by raising the subscription as by lowering the one-off.
There is also a cost to a lifetime purchase that no page prints, which is that its value depends on the vendor continuing to exist and continuing to honour it. That is not a number and we do not pretend to one. It is worth naming only because the payback arithmetic is always presented against a fixed horizon, and the horizon is the part nobody can publish.
So the reading procedure is short. If a crossed-out figure equals another figure on the page multiplied by something obvious, check it and trust it. If it sits at a clean multiple that repeats identically down the ladder, treat it as a marketing construction rather than a former price. And if the page offers a payback period, work out which end of the ratio is doing the work before you accept the conclusion.
A checkable 'was' price equals something else on the page
Mangools' struck-through yearly figure is exactly twelve times the monthly rate its other billing state prints. Both inputs are published, so the comparison can be verified rather than believed. This is the form of struck-through pricing that survives inspection.
An exact multiple repeated down a ladder is a construction
Internxt's crossed-out lifetime prices are precisely five times the live figure on all three tiers. Prices set at different times for different capacities do not converge on one round multiple; a rule applied to three numbers does.
Untidy ratios are the more credible ones
pCloud's lifetime comparisons sit near one and a half times the live price and are not identical across tiers. Uneven ratios are what decisions look like, and even ratios are what formulas look like. Neither is proof, and the difference is still worth noticing.
The same tell works on introductory rates
A discount landing on exactly half or exactly a tenth of the standing price across an entire ladder identifies which number the vendor designed. Whether the derived figure sits above or below the real one, the constant ratio is the giveaway.
A payback period is a ratio with two ends
A lifetime plan pays back quickly either because it is cheap or because the subscription it is measured against is expensive. Internxt's own record makes exactly that point about its own figures. Check which end moved before treating a short payback as a bargain.
The horizon is the part nobody publishes
Every lifetime calculation assumes the vendor and the offer both persist. That assumption carries no figure, appears on no pricing page, and is the single largest variable in whether the purchase was sound.
Questions people actually search
Is a struck-through price ever just a former price?
Often, and there is nothing wrong with the device when it is. The test is whether anything on the page lets you confirm it. Where the crossed-out figure equals a published rate times a published period, it can be checked and usually holds up. Where it is a round multiple identical across every tier, it is more likely a comparison constructed for the page than a price anyone was charged.
Why does an exact multiple across tiers matter so much?
Because independent decisions do not produce identical ratios. If three storage tiers were each discounted from what they used to cost, the discounts would differ, because the old prices were set at different times against different costs. Three tiers sharing one precise multiple indicates a single rule applied to the current prices, which makes the crossed-out numbers a function of the live ones rather than evidence about them.
Should I buy a lifetime plan?
It depends on a number no page prints, which is how long the vendor and the offer will last. The published payback periods are real arithmetic and worth doing, but they answer only half the question. It is also worth checking whether the payback looks short because the one-off price is low or because the recurring price is high, since only the first of those is a saving.
Do you publish the actual figures for these comparisons?
Not on this page, and the reason is a limitation rather than a choice. The vendors used here were read in a single currency, and this guide appears in three English editions, so printing their figures would show one edition's readers prices in another region's currency. The ratios are identical in every currency, so the argument is carried by ratios and the amounts stay on the vendors' own pages and our per-market tables.
Do you earn anything from the vendors named here?
From one. We hold an affiliate relationship with Mangools, which appears here as the example whose struck-through figure is honest and checkable, and none with Internxt or pCloud. This page carries no affiliate links. Our method is on the method page.
This page publishes no absolute prices. Every quantity in it is a ratio computed from dated vendor records read between 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-03, because the vendors whose struck-through pricing it examines were each read in one currency while this guide appears in three English editions; printing their figures would put one region's currency in front of another region's readers. The ratios hold in any currency. Where a vendor's crossed-out figure could not be checked against another published number, this page says so rather than assessing whether the discount is fair. Related: why a renewal is not the sticker price, the annual discount you cannot check and how to read a price record. The method →
Found a price that no longer matches the vendor’s page? Tell us — corrections are dated and stay on the page.