---
title: "One product page that shows a different price to every account"
description: "How to serve walk-in buyers and contracted dealers from one catalogue, and the one rule that turns the tier system into an upgrade conversation."
canonical: https://aumcreate.com/blog/tiered-pricing-one-page
datePublished: 2026-08-27
dateModified: 2026-08-27
---
# One product page that shows a different price to every account

> Public list price and private partner price can live on the same page. The page shows the list price to anyone who walks in, and recalculates price, stock and downloads for whoever is signed in. Building two separate sites for the two audiences doubles the maintenance and splits the search authority of every product.

A manufacturer selling both to the public and through dealers usually ends up with two websites: a public catalogue and a login-only portal. It is the obvious answer and it is expensive. Every product now exists twice, every update happens twice, and the two versions compete with each other in search results carrying the same product name.

The alternative is one page with a rule layer on top of it.

## What recalculates, and what never does

| Changes per account | Stays the same for everyone |
| --- | --- |
| Price | The specification |
| Stock figure and lead time | The photographs and drawings |
| Which documents are downloadable | The URL |
| Minimum order quantity | What the product is and does |

The right-hand column is what keeps the page indexable. The specification, the description and the URL are identical for every visitor, so search engines see one stable page for that product, not a page that changes shape depending on who asks. The rule layer only touches commercial terms.

## The rule that matters most: do not hide the tier above

When a document is above the visitor’s tier, the instinct is to hide it. In the prototype we did the opposite — the item stays visible and says which tier does have it. That sentence is the whole point: it is what makes a dealer ask about moving up. A hidden document generates no question, because nobody asks about a thing they cannot see.

The same applies to price. A partner on the second tier who can see that a better price exists at the tier above has a reason to consolidate his orders with you. One who simply sees his own number has no reason to think about it at all.

## Why it should not reload

When the same page recalculates in place, the visitor experiences it as the page changing for him. When the site sends him to a different URL after login, he experiences it as being moved somewhere else — and the connection between "this is the product I was looking at" and "this is my price for it" gets broken by the navigation.

## What has to be built, and what does not

- The catalogue, the accounts and the enquiry route: ordinary WooCommerce. Do not build these.
- The rule layer: this is yours. How many tiers, what each one gets, who is in which — no plugin knows that, because it is your commercial policy, not a feature.
- The upgrade path: a sentence on the page, not a separate page. It works where the reason to upgrade is visible.

The split matters because it decides what a quote for this work should cover. Anyone quoting you for "a dealer portal" as if it were a product has not asked what your tiers are — and the tiers are the only part that cannot be bought.

---

Part of: [An export site is a structure problem before it is a content problem](https://aumcreate.com/blog/export-site-structure-first)