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This question may be quite confusing so I've attached an image with it.
Below is a snap from Yelp site, there you can see $$$ which is for price level. So what I want to ask is, is there any alternative anyone has used?
Actually I'm designing a page for similar site so I'm thinking is there anything else we could use or has anyone used?
You have two choices: to use iconography or text.
The advantage of this particular iconography (the dollar signs) is that it is concise and it clearly conveys the necessary information.
Using text gets into the question of proper labeling (cheap as opposed to inexpensive; costly versus upscale). Properly done there isn't a reason to oppose using text - but you have to hit your market spot on.
"Cheap Eats" may not be what some people want associated with their product. "Upscale" may equate with expensive to some, unaffordable to others and, of course, not all expensive places are upscale.
TL/DR - The dollar icon works well. It's understood by all. Labels can be very, very tricky.
I look at this and I have to ask myself several questions regarding the design and goals of the site. When I look at a dollar symbol under a review site that quickly translates in my head what the value is.
An issue you might face, to me, is in regards to what the focal points are and if you modify the common occurrence of the dollar sign. For instance the, the 1st point of view should be the images:
the second focal area would be the review ratings:
You could use a similar star rating base but the visitor could have a hard time discerning where the price point shifts too if you used something like a total of 5 stars but only three were defined:
If you're looking to do something around humor you could always do little pigs similar to a piggy bank:
you could also utilize stacking coins:
some might understand the bag of money reference:
To me it just depends how you intend to tie it in the design. You could use a symbol like I mentioned above as a settle note depending on if price is a big focus in your design. You could take the price to the next level and design something just for it like:
There's also color reference such as green for base value, yellow higher and something like red as in high dollar amount applied to coins but usage of this idea could clash with the theme of the site/design.
Site pricing could be designed with the form of payment involved. For instance Bitcoin is growing in usage but you could use their icon for price if the that is what the seller uses as currency:
or modify the PayPal symbols to use your site theme colors:
then there is your site logo as a scale.
Just mentioning my personal preference, visually I see no reason to alter anything from the dollar sign as it's possibly the go to for expressing currency. I think the design's focal point could use that country's currency with something like $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'];. From Get visitors language & country code with javascript (client-side). Since you didn't go into detail what the project's focus is on I think it's all up to the goal of the site.
As a non-US user, I like the idea of a currency-neutral design (like stacks of coins). I tend to use gold pieces as an indicative currency. But coins are just flat shiny cylinders with currency symbols on them; remove the currency symbols and you've got something that looks a lot like plates. What does that mean? How busy the restaurant is? How big?
Yelp here in the UK uses £...££££, and I've seen €...€€€ in mainland Europe. But the $...$$...$$$ pattern is intuitive in the UK, meaning it's so widespread you'd have a lot of familiarity to overcome, which to me says you need a really good reason to use something different
When looking for specific iconography I first see what others have done. A rich visual grammar has been developed for web use using symbology. Because there are well established symbols for "cost" or "value" you should start by searching for those icons or symbols.
Then see which ones work the best and fit best in your design. Some of these symbols take only a square character amount of space, unlike 3 dollar signs. For instance a dollar sign with an up arrow or down arrow or big up arrow etc.
Just an arrow slanting up, down or middle can be an indicator of cost.
A stack or bar graph is common and the meaning is clear.
A generic coin icon (gold, round, maybe a head or eagle on it) and using several filled or empty / greyed out based on price could work across many cultures.
