I mean it's a retention tactic at the company scale but for the individual consultant they're genuinely trying to help you out.

I frequent a local family-owned Italian restaurant/pizza place and my usual order jalapeños, banana peppers, and roasted garlic so I do a build you own. Totally fine, happy to pay the price. But one day I come in and the woman working the take-out counter sees my order before it goes in and tells me that if I order a "meat lovers", remove two toppings and sub the rest it comes out way cheaper.

So now I'm the vegetarian that always gets a meat lovers and she makes the joke every time I come in.

I don't think it's weird or nefarious that a business doesn't have completely consistent pricing and holding it differently can save you money. When we spec out services on AWS we're using the official calculator when deciding whether it's "worth it" so to us at least it genuinely feels like we're saving money.