Shopify Discount Codes: Types, Setup and Key Settings

A Shopify discount code is a code customers type at checkout, online or at Shopify POS, to get a discount. You create it under Discounts, pick one of four types (amount off products, amount off orders, buy X get Y, free shipping), and set when it runs, how often it can be used, what it applies to and whether it combines with other discounts.

Details below are from Shopify’s Help Center pages on discount codes, amount off discounts, discount combinations and managing discounts, read on October 23, 2026.

Four discount types

Codes are one of two methods; the other is an automatic discount, which applies without typing. Automatic discounts vs discount codes explains when to use which.

Create a discount code

1. Go to Discounts and click Create discount.
2. In Select discount type, choose Amount off products or Amount off orders (or one of the other two types).
3. Under Method, choose Discount code.
4. Enter a name for the code or click Generate code.
5. In Value, choose Percentage or Fixed amount and enter it.
6. Optional: if you sell subscriptions, choose One-time purchase, Subscription or Both under Purchase Type.
7. Optional: under Applies to, choose Specific products or Specific collections.
8. Optional: set Minimum requirements, then limits, dates and combinations (below).
9. Click Save.

Avoid special characters in a code’s name so it works correctly in the checkout URL. A code can apply to up to 100 specific customers, products and variants; past that, Shopify shows “Item entitlements exceeded max number”. A store can hold up to 20,000,000 unique codes in total.

Settings that change the outcome

• Dates. Start and end times use the time zone in your admin. A November 26 start in a store set to EST begins at 12:00 a.m. EST that day.
• Usage limits. Set a total number of uses and, if needed, one use per customer. The per-customer limit applies only to that discount; delete it and make a duplicate, and customers who used the original can use the new one once.
• Minimum requirement. A minimum purchase amount counts product prices only, not shipping or taxes. For a product discount, only the selected items count toward the minimum.
• Scope. Limit the code to specific products, collections or variants if the margin differs between them.
• Combinations. Each discount has a class: product, order or shipping. You choose which classes a code can combine with. Everyone can combine order with free shipping, product with free shipping, and product discounts on separate items. Product with order discounts and order with order discounts need an eligible store (no checkout.liquid customizations). A customer can use up to 5 product or order codes and 1 shipping code on one order, and product discounts apply first, then order discounts on the new subtotal, then shipping. Combination scenarios are in combining discounts on Shopify.
• Post-purchase. A code can’t be applied on the post-purchase page, and a code used at checkout doesn’t apply to post-purchase offers.

The order of application changes what a customer pays when codes stack. Take a $100 cart with a 20% product code on a $50 item and a 10% order code, both allowed to combine. The product code comes off first ($10), the order code then takes 10% of the new $90 subtotal ($9), and the customer pays $81 before shipping. Place a test order with the stacked codes before announcing them, so the total customers see matches the one in your announcement.

When you reuse an old code, check its end date: reactivating an expired discount sets it to Active with no end date, so add the date again.

Share the code

Send it by email, or show it on your store; customers have to enter it at checkout, and Shopify warns that forgotten codes can lead to cart abandonment.

A shareable link removes the typing. Open the discount, click Promote, select Get a shareable link and copy it. The link applies the code to the cart and saves it in the customer’s browser. By default it opens your home page; to land on a collection instead, change the end of the link from /discount/CODE to /discount/CODE?redirect=/collections/your-collection. Shareable codes follow the same combination rules and the same limit of 5 codes per order. A customer who wants to shop without the code has to click Remove discount at checkout, or clear the browser’s cookies and cached data for your store and then go to the store directly; opening the link again reapplies the code. For a code offered in a popup in exchange for an email address, our Pop Up Discount app creates the visitor as a Shopify customer, and the visitor gets the code through Shopify Flow; the setup is in add a discount popup to Shopify. Abandoned checkout emails can carry a code too, applied to the recovered checkout.

Measure it

After the code is live, open the Sales by discount report to see how often each code was used. Give every channel its own code (one for the newsletter, one for a partner, one for the popup), so the report tells you which channel brought the orders. Compare uses with the margin you can afford; the arithmetic is in how to price products on Shopify. For a time-boxed sale, read Shopify flash sales. Other pricing guides are in the pricing and sales hub.

FAQ

How do I create a discount code in Shopify? Go to Discounts, click Create discount, choose the type, set the method to Discount code, enter or generate the code and its value, then save.

Can customers use more than one code? Customers can use more than one code when each code’s combination setting allows it, up to 5 product or order codes and 1 shipping code on one order.

Can I limit a code to one use per customer? You set a one-use-per-customer limit in the code’s usage limits, and it belongs to that discount only.

Do discount codes work in person? Customers can redeem discount codes at Shopify POS as well as online.