Apply Discounts and Promo Codes
Building a discount, restricting who and what it applies to, capping what staff can give away, and stacking rules.
Discounts in the left navigation. The editor has three tabs — Basic Settings, Restrictions and Advanced Settings — and a search box over all of them, because a discount has more knobs than it looks.
Basic settings
Discount information — name, effective date, expiration.
Discount value — a fixed amount or a percentage.
Promo code settings — the code clients type, and its link. There is a copy action for the promo-code link, which is what you put in a campaign.
Expiration settings — when it stops working.
Booking date restriction — restrict the discount to appointments booked, or taking place, inside a window. This is how a "January only" offer stays in January even if someone books it in December.
Restrictions
Usage limits — total uses, uses per client, and similar caps. Set a total cap on anything you promote publicly. A code that escapes onto a coupon site with no cap is expensive.
Minimum purchase — a floor before the discount applies.
Client type restrictions — new clients only, existing clients only. "New clients only" is the most commonly wanted and the most commonly forgotten.
Restrict to specific stylists — an allow-list or a deny-list of staff.
Advanced settings
Discount applicability — everything on the ticket, or specific items.
Distribution strategy — how a discount spreads across the applicable items. This matters for commission: how much comes off each line decides how much each stylist earns.
Service-specific discounts — per-service amounts, for an offer that is not uniform.
Stopping staff giving the shop away
Two settings on Features Configuration → Payment Settings:
Discount threshold — the maximum total discount one stylist may give within a pay period. 0 disables the cap.
Block discounts after threshold — when on, discounts past the threshold are blocked and only the remaining allowance applies. When off, the discount still goes through and management is notified.
The "notify but allow" option is usually better in a busy shop. Blocking a discount at the desk with a client watching is worse than a message you read later.
Allow Multiple Discounts decides whether more than one discount can stack on a ticket. Off means one promo code per ticket, which is the safer default.
Discounts and commission
A discount reduces what the ticket earned, and commission follows. Whether that is fair depends on who authorised the discount, and it is worth agreeing out loud: a stylist who discounts to win a client is paying for it from their own commission.
The distribution strategy is where this becomes concrete on a multi-service or collaboration ticket.
Who can apply one
A permission on the Ticket category. If discounts are a manager decision in your shop, take it off stylists rather than relying on the threshold.
Discount vs. reward vs. membership
- A discount is a one-off or campaign price reduction.
- A reward is earned through loyalty. See Set up loyalty rewards.
- A membership is an ongoing arrangement the client pays for. See Sell a client membership.
Using a discount where you meant a membership is how a "member price" becomes something staff have to remember to apply.