Drip Pricing Rules for Australian Online Stores

Drip pricing reveals extra fees during checkout after attracting customers with a lower advertised price. Australian stores must already show a prominent total price that includes quantifiable unavoidable charges. The newer federal reforms have passed Parliament, but haven’t commenced.

What Drip Pricing Means

Drip pricing happens when a customer sees a headline price, then discovers additional charges as they move towards payment. A mandatory handling fee or service fee added at the last screen can leave the customer paying more than the product page suggested.

Consider a hypothetical kettle advertised for $60, with a compulsory $4 handling fee revealed after the customer enters their address. The customer can’t buy it for $60. The product’s minimum price is $64 before any separately disclosed delivery charge.

Current Law on Total Prices

Yes, misleading drip pricing can already be illegal in Australia. The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) prohibits misleading price claims, and section 48 requires a single price in specified circumstances. A forthcoming disclosure rule adds to those existing obligations.

The single price includes quantifiable unavoidable charges and applicable taxes, including goods and services tax (GST). Pre-selected extras also belong in the displayed total. When you show a part price, the single price must be at least as prominent as that part price. The ACCC’s price-display guidance explains these obligations.

For goods, section 48’s delivery exception permits a sending charge to sit outside the single price. If you know the minimum delivery charge the customer must pay, disclose that amount too. A processing fee doesn’t become delivery merely because you rename it.

If delivery depends on the address, describe the charge upfront and calculate it when the address is known. A genuine free collection option means delivery isn’t unavoidable. Keep payment-method rules separate when reviewing your card surcharge obligations.

Unit Prices for Grocery Sellers

Unit pricing shows the cost of a standard quantity alongside the pack’s selling price. The mandatory Unit Pricing Code covers online grocery retailers selling the full minimum grocery range. That range includes bread, breakfast cereal, butter, eggs and flour. It also includes fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh milk, meat, rice, sugar and other packaged food.

The physical-store floor-space threshold doesn’t exempt an online seller with that range. A specialist store selling only a limited selection isn’t automatically covered. Covered sellers must unit-price eligible products, subject to the Code’s exemptions.

The ACCC’s grocery retailer guide sets the measures by product category. Many packaged groceries use a price per 100 g. For meat and produce sold by weight, use per kg. Beverages need a price per litre. Use the category’s required measure, and round the unit price to the nearest cent.

In a hypothetical example, a 750 g cereal pack costs $6. Its unit price is $6 divided by 750, multiplied by 100, or $0.80 per 100 g. A unit pricing calculator must use the same quantity and base measure as the product record.

A compliant display puts “750 g cereal - $6.00” next to “$0.80 per 100 g” in readable text. An incorrect display hides the unit price in faint, tiny text behind a separate information tab. Check the product page on mobile to confirm the unit price stays close to the selling price and can be read without zooming.

For a catalogue feed using Google’s format, unit_pricing_measure carries the pack quantity, such as 750g. Its companion unit_pricing_base_measure carries the comparison quantity, such as 100g. Google documents the pair in its base-measure guidance. Map both fields into the shopping agent’s product record and calculate from the same selling price the page uses.

Quoting Total Prices in Chat

A shopping agent’s chat quote is a price claim made to your customer. The ACL’s pricing duties still apply, so include every quantifiable unavoidable fee in the quoted single price. Don’t let a cheaper chat answer undo the product page’s accurate display.

For this hypothetical example, all amounts are Australian dollars and include GST. The kettle costs $60 plus a compulsory $4 handling fee. Every customer must pay at least $8 delivery, with the final delivery charge determined by address.

Compliant reply: “The kettle is $64 including the handling fee and GST. Delivery starts at $8. Enter your postcode for the delivery price and final total.”

Non-compliant reply: “The kettle is $60. We’ll add handling and delivery at checkout.”

Use the live variant price for chat quotes, with the same tax treatment and mandatory-fee calculation as the storefront. Refresh the catalogue when a sale starts or ends, and invalidate cached prices. Keep approved compare-at values with the current price, and prevent stale promotions from appearing in chat.

Check a normal-price item and a sale item in both chat and checkout. Change the quantity and delivery address, then confirm the totals update correctly. If the catalogue sync fails, pause price quotes that depend on stale data until the feed recovers.

Was/Now Pricing and Compare at Prices

A was/now claim can mislead if the item didn’t genuinely sell at the “was” price for a reasonable period immediately before the sale. Very few sales at that higher price can also make the comparison misleading. An invented higher price creates an invented saving.

Shopify’s Compare-at price field holds the higher reference price, while Price holds the sale price. Depending on the theme, both appear on product and collection pages as a discount comparison. Filling the field creates a customer-facing claim that needs evidence.

Set a written internal rule before staff enter compare-at prices. For example, require at least 30 consecutive days at the higher price immediately before the sale, with records of actual sales. This is a suggested approval threshold, not an Australian legal safe harbour. Have a lawyer assess whether the period and sales volumes support the claim for your products.

Remove the comparison if its history doesn’t support it. Don’t use a supplier’s recommended price as your own former price. Read the separate RRP guide for that distinction.

In 2020, the Federal Court ordered Kogan to pay a $350,000 penalty over a misleading tax-time promotion. Kogan increased prices for 621 products immediately before advertising a 10% reduction. This was inflated discount pricing, even though the promotion used a code rather than a “was” label.

The Proposed Ban on Drip Pricing

The federal reform is now enacted, rather than awaiting Parliament’s approval. Treasury’s 2026 exposure-draft consultation preceded the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026. The Act has received assent, but its new duties haven’t commenced.

The Act introduces a general unfair-trading prohibition and a specific disclosure rule for transaction-based charges. Once that rule applies, stores displaying a base price must show the covered charge beside it. Show the amount, or its calculation method when the amount can’t be calculated. State that it is per transaction, whether it is payable and whether the displayed price includes it.

That information must stay legible, prominent and unambiguous while the base price appears. The new rule leaves the existing single-price obligation in place. Payment surcharges are expressly excluded from this new transaction-charge definition and have their own rules.

Use the Act’s commencement table for the exact start date. Until commencement, the existing ACL requirements still prohibit misleading price claims and enforce the single-price rule.

ACCC Action on Hidden Fees

The ACCC has already obtained penalties for late fee disclosure under the existing ACL. The cases show why a total revealed at payment doesn’t necessarily correct a misleading opening price.

In 2017, the Federal Court ordered Jetstar and Virgin Australia to pay penalties of $545,000 and $200,000 respectively. The findings concerned specific advertised airfares that misled customers about the price, with inadequate disclosure of additional fees.

In 2020, the Federal Court ordered Viagogo to pay $7 million for several misleading ticket-selling representations. They included prices that excluded substantial fees until late in the purchase process. The penalty covered other misleading claims too, so it wasn’t solely a hidden-fee fine.

Audit Your Own Checkout

Audit the complete path from the first price a customer sees to the final payment total. Use a test order or stop before submitting payment, and keep screenshots of each price display.

1. Open an advertised product as a new customer. Record its price, selected variant and any stated delivery charge.
2. Add one item to the basket. List every new fee, including handling or a service charge, and record where it first appears.
3. Enter a delivery address. Repeat with another delivery zone, and check whether the earlier minimum charge was accurate.
4. Continue to payment. Record any further charge and whether a free payment option exists. Review card fees under the separate surcharge rules.
5. Change the quantity and remove optional extras. Identify fees charged per item or per order, and confirm pre-selected extras were already in the displayed total.
6. Compare the same purchase with a chat quote and a mobile product page. Confirm the payable amounts agree and unit prices remain readable where required.

Fold quantifiable unavoidable fees into the prominent single price from the first screen. Disclosing “fees apply” beside an incomplete headline price doesn’t replace that total. Show a known minimum delivery charge nearby, then update the final amount when you have the address.

Retest the same basket after correcting the displays. The customer must see the mandatory cost before progressing, and later totals must reflect only disclosed conditions or choices. Use the checkout optimisation guide for the wider purchase flow. Ask a lawyer to review your price displays before relaunching checkout.