How to offer discounts and promo codes on bookings

A discount is the easiest lever to pull and the easiest one to get wrong. Knock 20% off the wrong service, leave a code live a month too long, or let two promotions stack when you only meant one to apply — and the discount that was supposed to fill a quiet Tuesday quietly eats your margin all week.

This guide covers how booking discounts actually work: the two types, how to target them so they only fire when you want, how to schedule and cap them, and how stacking is decided when more than one matches a cart.

The two kinds of discount

Every discount is one of two methods.

Automatic discounts apply to every qualifying booking with no action from the customer. They're for promotions you want to run quietly in the background — a recurring "Monday mornings 15% off" to fill your slowest window, or a standing 10% off a service you're trying to push.

Code discounts require the customer to enter a promo code at checkout. They're for campaigns you can attribute: WELCOME10 in your onboarding email, INSTA20 in a story, a partner code you hand to a referrer. If you need to know where a booking came from, use a code.

Both share the same value formats — a percentage (15% off) or a fixed amount ($10 off) — and the same scope choice:

• Line-item scope distributes the discount across individual cart lines. "10% off each qualifying service."
• Order scope applies to the cart total after summing line items. Better for flat amounts like "$10 off orders over $50."

Line-item is the common case. Reach for order scope when you're discounting the whole basket rather than a specific service.

Step 1: Target the right bookings

The most common discount mistake is one that applies too broadly. Targeting is how you stop that. A discount can be restricted by:

Targeting re-evaluates on every cart change. If a customer adds a qualifying service the discount applies instantly; remove it and the discount detaches. You never have to refresh or re-enter anything — the cart keeps itself honest.

Step 2: Schedule when it's live

A discount you have to remember to switch off is a discount that costs you money. Use the active period instead.

• Always active — for permanent codes like a standing referral discount.
• Weekly recurring — repeat on specific days and times each week. "Monday–Wednesday, 9am–12pm, 15% off" to pull demand into your dead hours, automatically, forever.
• Date ranges — exact start and end with times. "Black Friday: 2026-11-27 00:00 → 2026-11-30 23:59." It turns on and off by itself.

Scheduled discounts pair naturally with automatic mode. A recurring "Tuesday 15% off" set to automatic means every qualifying Tuesday booking gets the price drop with no code, no banner, no manual toggling.

Step 3: Set requirements

Requirements decide the floor a cart has to clear before a discount applies:

• No minimum — any qualifying booking.
• Minimum purchase amount — the cart has to reach a dollar threshold. Keeps "$10 off" from applying to a $12 booking.
• Appointment duration — set a minimum and/or maximum duration. Discount only the long sessions (90 minutes and up) or exclude the quick ones.

Duration accepts natural input like "1h 30m" or "90 minutes," so you can say "only appointments 60–120 minutes" without doing unit math.

Step 4: Control stacking

This is the rule most discount systems handle badly, and the one most likely to surprise you on a busy day. When two discounts both match a cart, what happens?

The combinable toggle decides:

• Combinable discounts stack with other combinable discounts. Two 10% combinables both apply, compounding to roughly 19% off.
• Exclusive discounts never stack. If several exclusive discounts match, the best one for the customer wins and the rest stand down.
• Mixed mode: combinable discounts stack with each other first, then the single best exclusive discount applies on top.

The reason this matters: a single careless "combinable" flag is how a 20%-off welcome code quietly stacks on a 30%-off clearance and you sell at half price. Decide stacking deliberately, per discount.

Step 5: Cap usage

Caps are the difference between a promotion and an open-ended liability.

• Total usage cap — after N redemptions the discount stops applying. "First 50 bookings get 20% off." When the cap is hit, the discount flips inactive on its own; customers who already have it in their cart can still check out, but no new carts pick it up.
• Per-customer cap — each customer can use it up to N times. "Your first three bookings are 20% off" without anyone gaming it on booking four.

Caps work for both automatic and code discounts. On Shopify or multi-store setups, usage is tracked per store — a code burned in Store A doesn't count against the cap in Store B.

Putting it together: three discounts worth running

You don't need a dozen promotions. These three cover most service businesses:

How discounts behave across the rest of a booking

A discount isn't an island. A few interactions worth knowing:

• Add-ons participate only if you enable "include add-ons" on the discount. Off by default thinking is safest — discount the service, charge full price for the extra.
• Deposits are calculated on the discounted total, so a 20% promo also reduces the deposit the customer pays up front.
• Multi-store setups keep separate discount lists per store, with caps and eligibility scoped per store.