They’ve been talking about eliminating the one cent coin for decades, but it looks like it’s finally happening. Prices will be rounded “to the nearest five cents”—yeah, like any vendor will round down.
Many things are sold at x.99, will x.95 become the new normal?
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I’d guess they do the rounding at checkout. So if someone pays by card, nothing changes.
In comparison, some euro countries already got rid of their 1ct and 2ct coins years ago - while others still keep using them…
Possible. But I doubt the price will be rounded down very often.
I’m sure American companies are still looking for ways to justify a manufacturer suggested price hike. If widget A has a retail price $0.99 today, some of these find a way to make that $1.05 … or up. I did this for a living long, long ago, so don’t judge when I say this could be a pretty interesting problem to work out.
eta: of course a retailer could always choose to round the total basket down instead.
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Hhhhmmmmmmm… I wonder if there is a way to take the difference when they round down, you know, pull off a scheme like they did in Office Space.
They could make it whatever they want, but the marketing appeal of the x.99 format is obvious.
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Aren’t US prices before tax?
Yep, in these parts anyway. In places where you’re going to buy a bunch of stuff like a supermarket, they tend to use x.99 or x.x9. In a takeout restaurant say they tend to price so the tax will make a round number.
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Right. But it is before tax anyways so the total price won’t be 99¢ even for one item.
For example a $2.99 item at an 8% tax is $3.23
And the logic falls flat because people buying one small item is incredibly rare.
U.S. Penny
Died November 12, 2025
RIP
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Americans always copying Canada… 
Maybe they can copy canada in not jailing parents for raw garden plants that alleviate cancer pain sometime, while they’re at it 
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