Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a type of corporate social responsibility activity that combines charitable donation with purchase. Therefore, it is necessary to understand cause-related marketing and consumer responses from both the perspective of donation as a prosocial act and the perspective of rational purchasing. Accordingly, this study applied the double-entry mental accounting model and assumed that the utility of cause-related products is determined by the relationship between the benefits derived from donation (pleasure of consumption) and the payment of the donation amount (pain of paying). Two message frames (benefit-focused vs. cost-focused) that could enhance the utility of cause-related products were proposed, and their effects were tested through interaction analysis with product type. The study categorized products into hedonic and utilitarian types and conducted an experiment using four hypothetical scenarios. The analysis results showed that for hedonic cause-related products, consumers exhibited higher product preference when presented with a benefit-focused message frame compared to a cost-focused message frame. In contrast, consumer preference for utilitarian cause-related products was higher under the cost-focused message frame. Based on these results, this study discussed implications and future research directions.