On 18 November 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its final guidance covering the price transparency requirements under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA), and the CMA has now issued its first fine under the new price transparency requirements. This article looks at the key provisions of the final guidance and explores how those advertising, marketing, selling or otherwise promoting products to consumers can ensure that they do not fall foul of the unfair commercial practices regime.

Background to the guidance

The CMA guidance concluded a series of consultations and draft guidance aiming to assist marketers in understanding the price transparency requirements under the DMCCA (see our MediaWrites article here for analysis of the draft guidance). The most recent consultation led by the CMA sought comments from stakeholders on its draft price transparency guidance (CMA209con) (the Draft Guidance). This consultation ended on 8 September 2025 and from its responses came the final guidance in this area (CMA209) (the Guidance), published on 18 November 2025. Businesses should note that the CMA's new enforcement powers under the DMCCA came into force in April 2025, meaning that the CMA is already actively enforcing the consumer protection provisions that the Guidance addresses.

Main changes from the Draft Guidance

The Guidance makes a series of important changes from the Draft Guidance and clarifies the position going forward. Some of these key changes are:

1. Invitations to purchase

A new provision at 2.10 of the Guidance outlines where the responsibility lies for those making an invitation to purchase. An invitation to purchase is defined in section 230(10) of the DMCCA as a commercial practice involving the provision of information to a consumer: 

1. which indicates the characteristics of a product and its price; and
2. which enables, or purports to enable, the consumer to decide whether to purchase the product or take another transaction decision in relation to the product.

The Guidance makes clear that it is the trader making an invitation to purchase who is responsible for ensuring its compliance with the requirements of the provisions contained in Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the DMCCA (the Unfair Commercial Practice (UCP) provisions). This is the case notwithstanding the fact that the trader is not the person actually selling the product to consumers. Examples of this might include price comparison websites, an influencer promoting a brand’s product and a brand owner advertising a product sold by third party retailers to consumers. However, the Guidance makes clear that both the trader operating an online marketplace listing the product for sale on behalf of the seller, and the trader selling the product, may be held responsible should the invitation to purchase be non-compliant. In practice, it is therefore important to ensure that all businesses involved in marketing products to consumers are aware of, and complying with, the UCP provisions.

2. Periodic pricing

Both sets of guidance recognise that some products require consumers to make periodic payments in return for ongoing services, either by way of:

• rolling contracts (i.e. those free to cancel at any time); or
• minimum term contracts (i.e. those where the consumer is committed to a minimum term).

For rolling contracts, the total price (being the fully inclusive price including any fees, taxes or charges) must be the price for each period (inclusive of all mandatory charges to be incurred in that period). However, for minimum term contracts, the trader can either follow this same ‘total monthly price’ model as is the case with rolling contracts (alongside a statement prominently stating the number of months of commitment), or alternatively, provide the cumulative price of the entire minimum term of the contract inclusive of all mandatory charges for that period (‘total cumulative price’). The Guidance makes an additional comment that traders opting for this latter option can be confident of complying with the DMCCA’s requirements to display the total price in an invitation to purchase, irrespective of the pricing structure they use.

3. Mandatory charges v optional charges

Both sets of guidance distinguish between mandatory charges and optional charges. Mandatory charges are those that the consumer must pay if they are to purchase the advertised product, such as administrative fees or VAT. These charges must be included in the total price of the product. The practice of initially presenting a lower headline price and then incrementally revealing mandatory charges during the purchasing journey is commonly known as "drip pricing" — a practice that the Guidance makes clear is non-compliant. Optional charges relate to optional services that the trader may wish to offer. The price of such optional services can be presented separately from the headline price, being the main price most prominently promoted or communicated to a consumer in an invitation to purchase, provided they are genuinely optional.

The Guidance has clarified that simply presenting a charge separately to the headline price or describing it as an extra service does not make it optional. In other words, it is still a mandatory charge if the consumer has to pay the additional charge in order to purchase or receive the product. Furthermore, the Guidance states that the charge is still mandatory even if the consumer could in theory avoid it by purchasing or signing up for an additional product, or by paying an additional membership fee.

4. Prices that cannot be calculated in advance

The Guidance recognises that there are instances where, owing to the nature of the product and the requirements of the consumer, the total price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance. In these instances, the DMCCA states that consumers must be given information about how the price (or that part of it) will be calculated in the invitation to purchase and be displayed with as much prominence as the part of the total price that can be calculated in advance. The Guidance also emphasises that the trader must provide a fully calculated total price once it has the consumer’s requirements. Furthermore, it also recognises that only some parts of a price may not be calculable in advance, and that the trader would need to structure its prices so that these costs can be included in the total price.

Recent developments

In a development that underlines the practical significance of the Guidance, the CMA has fined the AA £4.2 million and ordered refunds of over £760,000 to more than 80,000 customers of AA Driving School and BSM Driving School, following an investigation into drip pricing. The AA failed to display a mandatory £3 booking fee in the upfront price when customers booked driving lessons online — a breach of UK consumer law. This marks the first financial penalty imposed by the CMA using its new enforcement powers, which came into force in April 2025. The AA received a 40% penalty reduction for admitting the breach and settling early. This enforcement action illustrates precisely the type of pricing practice that the Guidance seeks to address, and demonstrates the CMA's willingness to impose significant penalties for non-compliance with the UCP provisions.

How we can help

The Guidance forms part of the CMA’s major consumer enforcement drive into online pricing practices (further information on which can be found in our analysis of the CMA's consumer enforcement strategy, found here). If you have any questions relating to the Guidance, or to general pricing questions in light of the CMA’s enforcement action, then our advertising and consumer law experts can help.