IBM Pricing
Experience
Helping self-service buyers find, understand and act on IBM pricing.
Role
IA & UX Strategy Intern
Timeline
10 weeks · Summer 2026
Team
IBM Digital Experience
Over 10 weeks, I audited the self-service pricing journey and turned what I found into recommendations and wireframes.
The challenge
Self-service buyers research on their own before talking to sales. When pricing answers come from third parties, IBM loses control of how its pricing is explained.
research
understand pricing
decide next step
evaluate
commit
The self-service journey. I audited the first four stages.
My approach
What I found
Claude and Gemini often relied on third-party sources. Sites like G2 and TrustRadius pair pricing with hidden costs, comparisons and reviews, which is easier for people and AI to use. ChatGPT surfaced IBM content for basic questions, less as questions got closer to a decision.
My comparison: G2 vs IBM.com, same product
I tested 5 IBM eComm products in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, with 4 prompts per product, one for each buying stage: discovery, deeper pricing questions, competitor comparisons and decisions. For every answer, I recorded whether its sources were IBM.com or third parties, and how IBM pricing was represented.
“As a developer comparing cloud data tools, I want a straight answer to ‘how much will this cost us per year?’ so I can shortlist options before involving procurement.”
Every CTA, mapped
Product and pricing pages offered trials, demos, docs, buying and sales all at once, spread across the page. Buyers couldn’t tell which path fit their stage.
I reviewed product and pricing pages across IBM.com, comparing CTA hierarchy, placement and density, and how each page moves a buyer from exploring to acting. I looked at the experience as a whole, not individual buttons.
“As a buyer who’s just read the pricing page, I want to know whether to start a trial, book a demo or buy, so I don’t waste time on the wrong path.”
Competitors put trials next to purchase buttons on pricing pages. On IBM.com, trials often lived only in the header, navigation or page bottom, and details like duration and payment only showed up inside the product.
IBM vs four competitors, including Microsoft and Salesforce
I compared how four competitors, including Microsoft and Salesforce, and IBM position free trials, around four questions: How discoverable are trials? How are they connected to pricing? How are expectations set? What happens after “Start free trial”?
“As someone about to start a trial, I want to know how long it lasts, whether I need a credit card and what’s included, so I can plan a real evaluation.”
What I recommended
Annual cost estimates and pricing FAQs on product pages, in crawlable HTML, with IBM.com as the one source of truth.
My mockup
Today
start trial
book demo
buy now
read docs
contact sales
Guided
exploring
Read docs / see pricing
evaluating
Start free trial
deciding
Buy now or contact sales
An illustrative model, not a final design.
“Try for free” moves into the pricing card, and a trial page explains duration, eligibility and payment before anyone signs up.
Before
The trial is hidden in the header → Signup has little context → The rules only show up inside the product
After
The trial sits in the pricing card → A trial page explains it → Signup has no surprises
Try for free, inside the card · My wireframe · Now in the eComm team’s design phase
My wireframes · Final screens by IBM’s UX design team
Impact
My role
I ran the three audits, shared the findings with SEO, the Client Voice Program and eComm, and wireframed the trial directions. IBM’s UX design team created the final free trial screens.
What I learned
There’s no single buying journey, and no single team owns it. With AI search, a pricing page now has to work for AI as well as for people.
