How to create discount rules in WooCommerce

Decide what the customer must do before receiving the discount. A sale price suits one product and a fixed promotional period. A coupon suits a code-based percentage, fixed-product or fixed-cart discount. Quantity tiers, buy-one-get-one offers, customer-role pricing and automatic cart rules need a dynamic pricing system.

Write down the products, quantities, customer groups, cart value, start date, end date and whether discounts can combine. This prevents two rules from producing a price you did not intend.

For a straightforward product markdown, go to Products > All Products, edit the product and open Product data > General. Enter the regular price and sale price, then select Schedule if the discount needs start and end dates. Save with Update. For variable products, set the price on each relevant variation.

This route is fine for a temporary product sale, but it does not create quantity breaks, customer-role rules, BOGO offers or cart-value conditions. Scheduled sale prices also change the product price for everyone who can buy that product.

First enable coupons under WooCommerce > Settings > General. Then go to Marketing > Coupons, select Add new coupon, enter a code and choose Percentage discount, Fixed cart discount or Fixed product discount. Enter the amount without a currency or percent symbol, set an expiry date if needed, and publish the coupon.

Use Usage restrictions for minimum or maximum spend, products, categories, sale-item exclusions and allowed emails. Use Usage limits to restrict total uses, uses per customer or the number of qualifying items. Coupons are normally entered by customers at the cart or checkout; WooCommerce does not apply the code automatically.

Test the offer with an eligible cart and with an ineligible cart. Check the product page, cart, checkout, tax, shipping, guest checkout and a logged-in customer account where relevant. A coupon applies to cart items rather than shipping, unless you create a free-shipping coupon.

Watch for the common Friday problem: a coupon may appear not to work because the cart misses a spend threshold, contains an excluded sale item, uses the wrong product category, has an expired date or has reached its usage limit. If you use several coupons, remember that an individual-use coupon cannot be combined with others, and review the store's coupon calculation settings.

If the rule needs quantity tiers, BOGO, buy X get Y, role-based pricing, category discounts, cart-total discounts or scheduled conditions, install a dynamic pricing plugin and create the rule in its settings. Configure the products or categories, customer group, quantity or cart threshold, discount type, date range and whether the rule repeats.

WooPricely is a suitable option when one pricing method is not enough. It is designed for tiered, BOGO, role-based, cart-level and time-limited discounts. After activating it, create one rule at a time, keep overlapping rules narrow and test the final cart price before publishing the promotion.