Full price or instalments?

Take the plan, unless the full amount is genuinely spare. The reason is not affordability and it is not interest - it is what each route does to the decision you are making.

Why the plan usually wins

It changes the size of the question. Committing $2,497 this week and committing one payment to find out are different decisions, and far more people can answer the second one honestly.

For most buyers the real alternative was never the other price. It was starting this year against starting next year, and the plan is what makes the first one available.

What the plan costs

six payments of $497 comes to more than $2,497 paid once. That difference is real and it should be said rather than glossed - it is the price of beginning now instead of when the whole sum exists.

Worth paying? Only if the other option was not starting. For someone who could comfortably write the cheque today it is money for nothing, and for someone who could not it is the entire difference between this year and next.

When paying in full is the better call

Pay once if the money is spare and you would rather be finished with it. Some people carry an open commitment badly, and a purchase that stops nagging is worth something real even though it appears nowhere in the arithmetic.

My honest read: if recurring charges irritate you, that irritation will attach itself to the programme rather than to the payment, and you will work through it in a worse frame of mind. Pay once.

The clause that matters more than the arithmetic

Whether the balance remains owed if you stop. That single line determines whether a plan is a payment schedule or a commitment, and it varies between sellers more than buyers expect.

It is on the checkout page. Read it there and capture it, because it is the term most likely to matter later and the one least likely to be remembered accurately.

What the plan says about the seller

Offering one at all is mildly informative. Instalments hand an unhappy buyer leverage, because payments can be stopped, and a seller expecting complaints in the first fortnight would rather have the money up front.

Weak evidence rather than proof, and it points in the right direction. Sellers who insist on payment in full at this level are making a choice worth noticing.

The mistake worth avoiding

Deciding how to pay before deciding whether to buy. An instalment figure looks affordable against a monthly income in a way a lump sum does not, and that effect operates whether or not the purchase suits you.

Settle the product question first. Then the payment question is a detail rather than the thing doing the persuading.

Whether it is worth it · The longer take · All nine answers