Discounts FAQ
Find answers to common questions about creating discounts and applying discounts to sales with Square.
Yes. You can create post-tax discounts for things like manufacturer discounts and instant rebates. When a post-tax discount is applied, the item being discounted will be taxed at the original price instead of the discounted price. Learn how to create post-tax discounts.
Yes. You can create automatic discounts from your online Square Dashboard based on items, categories, time of day and period of time – so you can create discounts for happy hour specials and seasonal sales.
Yes. You can create a quantity-based discount at any time from your online Square Dashboard. Choose to have discount trigger when either a) an exact number or b) a minimum number of items are added to the cart.
Yes. You can set a minimum spend requirement so that a purchase subtotal must meet a minimum dollar amount to qualify for a percentage-based discount.
Yes. You can set a maximum discount value for a discount to limit the total discounted amount applied to a purchase.
Learn more about setting up automatic discounts.
Yes. Customer based discounts allow you to create and link discounts to Customer Groups from your online Square Dashboard. The discounts will automatically apply when a customer from the Customer Group is added to a transaction. Also, any customer added to a Customer Group with an associated discount will automatically receive the discount during a transaction.
Yes. You can access and apply automatic discounts you create from your online Square Dashboard to the items you offer on your Square Online website. To do so:
- From your Square Item Library, go to Discounts.
- Select Create a Discount to enter discount details including a discount name, amount (either a percentage or whole amount) and applicable locations.
- From the “Automatic discount” section, toggle on “Discount” rules and select a discount type. Note: Customer group discounts and Square category discounts won’t apply to Square Online sites.
- Save to apply the changes.
The discounts you create will be available on your live Square Online website. Learn more about creating discounts for Square Online items.
Conditional discounts only apply to a single item in your cart. For example: say you create a Buy One, Get One Free discount rule, so each time a customer buys a sandwich, they’ll receive a discounted bag of chips or soda. At this time, there is not a way to create a discount that will trigger when you add both chips and a soda. The discount will apply to the first item you add to your cart, but it will not apply towards both.
In your Square Daschboard:
- Create a Discount and set the amount to 100%.
- Select the qualifying purchase item(s) to trigger the discount.
- Click Add Discount Rule > ‘Buy One Get One’.
- Choose to either Copy Purchase Items or select different items from your library.
- When you’re all set, click Save.
Keep in mind: Auto-apply rules are overridden when discounts are applied manually which would give 100% off. Setting Passcode Required may help restrict who can manually apply this discount.
Item modifiers are included in the amount discounted. For example, if you charge for an additional topping on a pizza, the discount will also apply to the modifier’s cost.
Only one automatic discount will apply to each item. The Square app will apply the discount most favourable to your customer. When applying Buy One, Get One Free discounts, the discount will be applied to the lower priced matched item(s). In other words, if a Buy One, Get One Free discount applies to three items priced at $20, $15 and $10, then the discount would qualify with the $20 item and apply to the $15 item.
Additional discounts can be manually added if needed. Learn about applying discounts to sales.
Automatic discounts are available in your Items List and can be added to a sale manually or by tapping the item in the cart and toggling on the applicable discount.
When a discount is applied manually outside of your specified rules, a passcode is required. For example, if you’re running a flash sale and a customer was in line to check out when the sale expired, the discount can be manually applied by an employee with the appropriate employee permission enabled.
Not at the moment. Discounts will continue to be available as promo codes in the online store and will not apply automatically based on discount rules.
After toggling on Auto Apply to Items and Categories, you can apply automatic discounts to all items by selecting the checkbox next to Items. If you want to select a subset of items to include, you can select up to 100 categories or individual items.
Yes. To do so:
- Go to Account & Settings from your online Square Dashboard.
- Click Business > Receipts.
- Under “Items and total”, toggle on “Show total savings row when more than one discount is applied”.
- Next, toggle off “Show cart-level discounts on the item level” to prevent itemized cart-level discounts from appearing on receipts.
- Click Save.
Yes. By using information stored in your Customer Directory, you can create discounts that will automatically apply to buyers in your Customer Groups once they are added to the sale. Once associated, the discounts will work across all Point of Sale devices.
Discounts for customer groups can be created through your online Square Dashboard or on the Square Point of Sale app on iOS devices. Discounts can also be configured via Square’s Catalogue API. Learn more in the Catalogue API Overview.
See instructions on how to create discounts for Customer Groups.