Prior research has investigated the consumer effects of cash and card payments in service settings, but the growing trend of innovative payment with a mobile device hasn’t been considered in the literature so fare. This article represents one of the first studies that considers the adoption of mobile as a new payment method and investigate how the ‘checkout’ phase affect the shoppers’ overall price image of retail stores (OSPI). Results from our studies show that the ‘checkout’ phase is the ‘moment of truth’ for shoppers judging OSPI. We investigate the effects of cash, card, and mobile payments and show that the less transparent a payment method, the lower OSPI judgments of shoppers. In particular, favorable comparisons of basket prices to shoppers’ mental budgets trigger lower store price perceptions. Subsequently, these results have major implications for retailers aiming to lower their OSPI in customers’ minds.