Happy Hour and Discounts with Square for Restaurants

If you need to trigger discounts automatically for happy hour, or maybe a dinner special, just head to your online Square Dashboard to get started. You can create discounts that will automatically apply to bills for specified items or categories, days of the week and times or for a limited date range.

For example, let’s say you offer 20% off drinks for a weekend happy hour (Saturday-Sunday, 9 am-12 pm). If an employee adds a mimosa to a bill on Sunday at 11 am, your 20% discount will automatically apply – so your employees can check out customers quickly and easily, without needing to manually apply running discounts.

Create Automatic Item or Category Discounts

1. Head to the Items tab in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts

2. Click Create New Discount

3. Enter the discount details

4. Toggle on Auto Apply

5. Click Select Items to apply discounts to certain items or categories automatically

6. Click Save

Create Quantity Discounts

Create a discount that will automatically apply when you add items or categories and a specified quantity to a sale.

You can set up three types of quantity discounts:

• Exact Quantity: When you add an exact item quantity to your basket, the discount will automatically trigger and apply to the item cost.

• Minimum Purchase Quantity: When you add a minimum quantity of an item to your basket, a discount will apply to a purchase.

• Buy One, Get One: When a customer buys a specified quantity of an item or category, a discount will apply towards additions of the same item or towards different item(s) added to the basket. For example, you can create a BOGO discount so that when a customer purchases 2 cocktails, they’ll receive 50% off the cost of an appetiser.

Note: If you’d like to set up a buy one, get one free discount, just make sure to set the discount percentage amount to 100%.

To get started:

1. Visit Items & Orders > Items > Discounts in your online Square Dashboard.

2. Click Create a Discount.

3. Toggle on Auto Apply to Items and Categories.

4. Click Quantity. Next set your Discount Rule. You’ll have three options for setting up your quantity discount:

   • Exact Quantity

   • Minimum Purchase Quantity

   • Buy One, Get One

5. Once selected, add the required quantity for the discount to apply and click Save.

You can update an existing discount at any time by clicking Edit Purchase Rule from the discount details page.

Create a Recurring Discount

1. Visit Items in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts.

2. Click Create Discount to add a new discount

3. Enter the discount details

4. Toggle on Auto Apply and apply the discount to items/categories

5. Toggle on Set Schedule

6. Select the day of the week and time of day the discount will be applied

7. Click Save

Create a Limited Time Discount

1. Head to the Items tab in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts.

2. Click Create New Discount.

3. Enter the discount details.

4. Toggle on Auto Apply.

5. Click Select Items to apply discounts to certain items or categories automatically.

6. Toggle on Set Date Range and select dates to create a limited-time discount.

7. Click Save.

Review answers to frequently asked questions about using discounts with Square. Check out the full comparison of features between Square POS, the Square for Restaurants Free Plan and Plus Plan.

Create a Customer Based Discount

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. To get started:

1. From your online Square Dashboard, go to Items & Orders > Items > Discounts.

2. Click Create a Discount.

3. Enter the discount details, including the discount name, amount and location. Note: If a discount is connected to a specific location, the customers will only get the discount if they make a purchase from that location.

4. Select the Customer Group you want to apply the discount to. 

Note: If the customer associated with the discount is removed from the transaction, the discount will also be removed from that transaction. If you add the customer back to the transaction, the discount will reapply automatically.