Component pricing and drip pricing: displaying a single price lawfully

The single price rule in one sentence

If you advertise a price to consumers, you must display the total price as a single figure, and that figure must be the lowest amount a customer could actually pay.

The ACCC states the rule directly: businesses must display the total price of a product or service as a single figure, being the minimum total cost — the lowest amount a customer could pay, including any taxes, duties and unavoidable or pre-selected extra fees (ACCC, checked August 2026).

The underlying provisions are sections 47 and 48 of the Australian Consumer Law, with the associated penalty provisions at sections 165 and 166. The requirement applies to the supply and promotion of goods or services of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption. It is not confined to a shop window: it applies to websites, catalogues, booking flows, quotes, television and print.

What must be inside the single price

The single price is the total of all measurable costs a consumer must pay to acquire the product or service.

It includes:

• any charge payable, including charges associated with pre-selected options
• the amount of any tax, duty, fee, levy or charge, such as GST

Two consequences follow that businesses routinely miss.

Pre-selected options are inside the price. If your checkout pre-ticks an option — a protective case bundled with a phone, an insurance product, a service plan — the consumer must opt out to avoid paying for it. Because the default position includes that charge, its price must be in the single price. The ACCC's guidance uses exactly this example.

Unavoidable fees are inside the price. A per-ticket booking fee that every purchaser pays is not an optional extra; it is part of the minimum total cost. Advertising the ticket price without it is a contravention regardless of how clearly the fee is disclosed at step four of the checkout.

The test for whether a component belongs in the single price is quantifiability. An amount is quantifiable if, at the time the representation is made, it can be readily converted into a dollar amount. Where a total price combines quantifiable and non-quantifiable components, the total is calculated from the quantifiable components, and consumers must be clearly advised of the basis on which the amount was calculated and that it may change.

What can stay outside the single price

Four categories of charge do not have to be included, and each carries a condition.

Two refinements are worth noting. First, in the regulators' view, dealer delivery as currently imposed in the motor vehicle industry is a component of the single price, not an excluded delivery charge. Second, GST need not be included when displaying prices to other businesses, and a single price is not required when advertising exclusively to a body corporate.

The prominence test for partial prices

You may show a component price, but only if the total price is displayed at least as prominently.

The ACCC's formulation is that if a business also displays a price for just one part of a product or service, the total price must be at least as prominent as the partial price. The ACL guidance material puts the same test as: the single price must be clear at the time of the sale, and as prominent as the most prominent component of the price.

"Prominent" is not defined in the legislation but has been interpreted as requiring information to be conspicuously or noticeably displayed. In practice, a headline monthly figure in 48-point type with the total contract cost in 8-point grey footnote text will not satisfy it.

There is one structural exception: a single price for services supplied under a contract that allows periodic payments does not have to be displayed as prominently as the component prices.

Drip pricing: disclose fees at the start

Drip pricing — advertising a low headline price and adding fees as the customer moves through checkout — contravenes the single price rule and can also be misleading conduct.

The ACCC's guidance is that businesses must be upfront and clearly disclose to consumers at the start of a purchasing process the types of fees that will apply and when. Disclosure at the end is not disclosure at the start.

The enforcement record is consistent. In June 2025 Dendy Cinema paid a $19,800 infringement notice penalty over allegations it failed to prominently display the total single price for movie tickets, including the unavoidable per-ticket booking fee, at the earliest opportunity in the online booking process. The ACCC's Deputy Chair framed the principle as: businesses must be upfront about the total minimum quantifiable price of a product or service (ACCC media release, checked August 2026). Earlier, the Federal Court imposed a $200,000 penalty against an airline for contravening the single pricing provisions by failing, for ten months, to display some airfare prices inclusive of all taxes, duties, fees and other mandatory charges in a prominent way as a single figure.

Where a fee is genuinely optional and not pre-selected, drip pricing is not the issue — but you should still disclose the types of fees that may apply at the outset.

Multiple pricing is a separate obligation

Multiple pricing is not the same as component pricing, and it carries its own, much lower, penalty.

Section 47 of the ACL deals with the situation where a supplier displays more than one price for the same item. The supplier must either sell the goods at the lowest displayed price, or withdraw them from sale until the price is corrected. That applies wherever the price is displayed — shelf label, catalogue, website or television advertisement. The supplier is not obliged to sell at the lowest price; withdrawal is a valid response.

A price published in a catalogue or advertisement is a displayed price, but it ceases to be one when a retraction is published to a similar circulation or audience. A price is not a displayed price when it is entirely obscured by another price, when it is a unit-of-measure price shown as an alternative way of expressing the price, or when it is not in Australian currency.

Failing to sell goods for the lowest displayed price can attract maximum civil and criminal penalties of $5,000 for a body corporate and $1,000 for an individual under ACL section 165 — a materially different order of magnitude from the component pricing penalties below.

Exemptions and edge cases

The ACL provides a conditional exemption for restaurant and café menus, and it is narrower than most operators assume.

Under regulation 80A, café and restaurant menu surcharges are not required to adhere to the component pricing requirements provided all of the following are met:

• the menu displays a surcharge for the supply of food or beverage on specified days
• the menu displays the words "a surcharge of [percentage] applies on [the specified day or days]"
• the prescribed words are displayed in a transparent and prominent manner on the menu

"Transparent" is defined in the ACL as requiring information to be expressed in reasonably plain language, legible, presented clearly and readily available to the target audience.

The limits of the exemption matter more than the exemption itself. It applies only to menus — including room service menus and menus for banquets and other events where the food or beverages are not expected to be consumed at a later time. It does not apply to any other form of advertising, which must continue to display the single price including any surcharge or other compulsory fee. And it does not cover goods other than food or beverages: service charges such as corkage or cover charges included on a menu must have a single price displayed for them at all times.

The removal of card surcharging from 1 October 2026 will push more costs into headline prices, which makes this rule more consequential rather than less. See card surcharging and the 2026 reform.

Penalties and enforcement

For conduct on or after 28 March 2026, the maximum penalty for a corporation for failing to comply with the single price requirements is the greater of $100,000,000, three times the reasonably attributable benefit, or 30% of adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period.

For an individual the maximum is $2,500,000 (ACCC fines and penalties, checked August 2026). The corporate maximum increased in 2026, so any internal risk material citing a lower figure is out of date. Size your own exposure with the penalty estimator rather than working from memory.

Enforcement is active and targeted. The ACCC's compliance and enforcement priorities for 2026-27 include consumer and fair trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sectors with a focus on misleading pricing practices, and misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services with a focus on energy and telecommunications.

Component pricing failures also rarely travel alone. A headline price that omits an unavoidable fee is usually also a false or misleading representation about price — see our explainer on sections 18 and 29 of the ACL — and pricing claims made through paid creators attract the influencer disclosure rules. Run your campaign creative through the marketing compliance check before it goes live, and see the Australian Consumer Law topic hub for the surrounding obligations.

This article is a reference summary, not legal advice. Confirm current requirements with the ACCC before changing your pricing displays.