How to Create a Discount Code on Shopify (Step by Step)
Updated 30 September 2026 · PromoCodes.com.au team
Creating Shopify Discount Codes, the Right Way
A practical walkthrough for Australian Shopify merchants — from picking the right discount type to setting limits, stacking rules, shareable links, testing and tracking what each code actually earns you.
Discount codes are one of the cheapest marketing tools you have. A good code gives a shopper a reason to buy today, lets you measure which channel sent them, and costs you nothing until someone actually purchases. A badly set-up code does the opposite: it ends up on a public coupon site you never chose, stacks with your sale prices, and quietly eats your margin for months.
This guide walks through Shopify’s built-in discount tools step by step. Shopify updates its admin regularly, so button labels can shift slightly over time — the menu names below match Shopify’s own Help Center at the time of writing, and the logic behind each setting doesn’t change.
In This Guide
Where Discounts Live in Shopify Admin
Everything discount-related sits under Discounts in the left-hand menu of your Shopify admin (in the Shopify mobile app, it’s under the menu icon, then Discounts). That page lists every discount you’ve created — active, scheduled and expired — and it’s where you create, edit, duplicate, deactivate and promote them.
Create discount
The button at the top of the Discounts page. It opens a Select discount type menu where you choose what kind of discount you’re building.
Filters & tags
Filter your list by status, method, type, start date, times used and more. Add your own tags (for example eofy-2026) so campaigns are easy to find later.
Timeline
Each discount has a timeline showing when it was created, edited, activated and expired. Staff can leave comments there — handy for noting who a code was issued to.
Discount vs sale price
A Shopify discount is applied in the cart or at checkout. It’s different from a sale price, which you set on the product itself using the “compare-at” price to show a strikethrough. If you want shoppers to see the reduced price on product pages without entering anything, a compare-at price (or an automatic discount plus a theme or app that displays it) is usually the better tool.
Discount Code vs Automatic Discount
Every discount type in Shopify can be delivered by one of two methods. You pick the method in the Method section when you create the discount.
Discount code
The shopper types a code (for example WELCOME10) at checkout. Best when you want to target a group, reward a channel, or measure a campaign.
- Feels exclusive and creates urgency
- Easy to attribute (one code per email, influencer or partner)
- Shoppers who forget the code may leave to go looking for one
- Public codes can spread further than you intended
Automatic discount
Applied in the cart and at checkout as soon as the conditions are met. You give it a Title, which is what shoppers see.
- Smooth checkout, nothing to remember
- Good for site-wide sales and spend thresholds
- Shoppers may not notice they got a discount
- Harder to tell which channel drove the sale
Rule of thumb: use automatic discounts for offers you want everyone to get (a Black Friday site-wide sale, free shipping over a threshold), and codes for offers you want to control and measure (newsletter subscribers, a podcast sponsorship, a partner site).
The Four Shopify Discount Types
When you click Create discount, Shopify asks you to choose a type. Once a discount is saved, its type and method can’t be changed — you’d need to delete it and start again — so pick carefully.
| Type | What it does | Example (AUD) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amount off products | Percentage or fixed amount off specific products or collections | 20% off the Winter collection | Clearing a range, launching a category |
| Amount off order | Percentage or fixed amount off the whole order subtotal | $15 off orders over $100 | Welcome codes, lifting average order value |
| Buy X get Y | Buy a set quantity or spend, get items free or discounted | Buy 2 candles, get a third free | Moving stock, bundles, gift-with-purchase |
| Free shipping | Removes shipping cost, optionally by country or with a cap | Free shipping within Australia over $80 | Reducing cart abandonment at the shipping step |
Examples are illustrative only. Anything beyond these four (tiered discounts, complex custom rules) generally needs an app from the Shopify App Store, or Shopify Plus features.
Buy X get Y gotcha
Shopify never adds the free or discounted “get” item to the cart for the shopper. They have to add every item themselves, then the discount applies. Say so clearly in your promotion (“add both to your cart”), or you’ll get support emails.
Free shipping cap
Free shipping discounts have an option to exclude shipping rates over a certain amount. Use it if you offer express or overweight rates — otherwise a “free shipping” code could wipe out a large courier charge you didn’t mean to cover.
Step by Step: Create a Discount Code
Here’s the full flow for an Amount off order code — the most common type. The other types use the same settings with a few extra fields.
Open Discounts and click Create discount
From your Shopify admin, go to Discounts, click Create discount, then choose Amount off order from the Select discount type menu.
Choose the method and name the code
Under Method, select Discount code. Type a code name, or click Generate code for a random one. Short, readable names (SPRING15, VIPTHANKS) are easier to type on a phone; random strings are harder to guess and share.
Set the value
In Value, choose Percentage or Fixed amount and enter the number. Fixed amounts are in your store currency — AUD for most Australian stores. For Amount off products, you’ll also choose what it Applies to: specific products or specific collections.
Add minimum requirements
Under Minimum requirements, choose a Minimum purchase amount or a Minimum quantity of items. Shopify counts product prices only — shipping isn’t included. A $10-off code with a $60 minimum protects you from the code being used on a $12 item.
Choose customer eligibility
In Eligibility, pick All customers, Customer segments, Specific customers or Markets. Segments are powerful (for example, customers who haven’t ordered in 12 months), but note that Shopify segments only include people who already have a customer profile — brand-new shoppers aren’t in a segment until after their first order.
Set usage limits
Discount use is unlimited by default. Under Maximum discount uses you can tick Limit number of times this discount can be used in total (say, the first 200 orders) and/or Limit to one use per customer, which Shopify tracks by email address or phone number.
Decide on combinations
In Combinations, tick the classes of discount this code can combine with — product discounts, order discounts and/or shipping discounts. Leave them all unticked if you don’t want stacking. More on this below.
Set active dates, then save
Under Active dates, choose a start date and time. Click Set end date to give the code an expiry — without one, it never expires. Dates run on the time zone set in your Shopify admin, so check it says Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth as appropriate. Optionally add tags, review the Summary, and click Save.
Always set an end date on public codes
Codes without an end date keep working until you remember to deactivate them. Once a code is shared on social media or a coupon site, an open-ended code can circulate for years. If you want an evergreen welcome offer, use a usage limit of one per customer and review it every few months.
Australian Specifics: GST, AUD and Sale Timing
GST-inclusive pricing
Australian shoppers expect prices to include GST, and most Australian Shopify stores are set to show tax-inclusive prices. A $10-off code reduces the price the customer pays, so the GST component of that sale is smaller too. Shopify calculates tax after the discount is applied. If you’re unsure how your discounts should appear on your BAS, check with your accountant rather than guessing.
Fixed amounts are store-currency
A fixed-amount code is set in your store currency. If you sell to New Zealand or elsewhere through Shopify Markets, decide whether the offer should apply there too — the Markets eligibility option and the country settings on free shipping discounts let you keep an Australia-only offer Australia-only.
The Australian sales calendar
| Event | When | Set-up tip |
|---|---|---|
| EOFY sales | June (financial year ends 30 June) | Great for clearing stock before stocktake; set the end date to 30 June at 11:59pm. |
| Click Frenzy | Main event usually in November, plus smaller events through the year | Check participation terms on Click Frenzy’s site; schedule start and end times precisely. |
| Black Friday & Cyber Monday | Late November (Black Friday 2026 is 27 November) | Create and test discounts a week early; use scheduled start dates rather than switching on manually at midnight. |
| Boxing Day | 26 December | Mind your Christmas shipping cut-off messaging so shoppers know when orders will ship. |
Stacking: How Shopify Combines Discounts
Shopify groups every discount into one of three classes: product discounts (specific items or collections), order discounts (the cart subtotal) and shipping discounts. Two discounts only combine if both are set to allow it. When they can’t combine, Shopify applies whichever gives the customer the better deal.
1. Product
Product discounts apply first, to individual items
2. Order
Order discounts apply to the subtotal after product discounts
3. Shipping
Shipping discounts apply last
Percentages add up, they don’t compound
If a 10%-off order discount and a 20%-off order code both apply to a $100 cart, Shopify calculates both on the original subtotal: the customer pays $70, not $72. Model your margin on the combined figure.
Some combinations need eligibility
Any store can combine order or product discounts with free shipping, and product discounts on different items. Combining product discounts with order discounts, or order discounts with each other, is only available to eligible stores (Shopify lists conditions such as not using legacy checkout customisations). Stacking two product discounts on the same item is a Shopify Plus feature.
Hard limits
Shopify allows up to five product or order discount codes plus one shipping code on a single order, and up to 25 active automatic discounts (including app-based ones). Two shipping discounts never combine.
Tip: during a big automatic sale (say 25% off site-wide for Black Friday), untick order-discount combinations on your evergreen welcome code. Otherwise a new subscriber gets 25% plus 10% — and so does anyone who finds that welcome code on a coupon site.
Bulk and Unique Codes
A single shared code (SPRING15) is simple, but once it’s public anyone can use it. Unique codes — one code per customer, each usable once — stop leakage and let you tie each redemption to a specific person or partner. They suit:
Welcome emails, where each new subscriber gets their own single-use code
Printed inserts, flyers or event giveaways
Customer service make-goods after a late or damaged order
Partner promotions where you need to count each partner’s redemptions
The standard Create discount screen makes one code at a time. For hundreds or thousands of unique codes, merchants generally use a bulk code generator app from the Shopify App Store, or the unique-code feature built into their email platform (many email tools that integrate with Shopify can create a one-off code per subscriber). Shopify also lets you export your discounts from the Discounts page, which helps when you need to hand a list to a partner or printer.
Check before you install
App features and pricing change, so read the current listing and recent reviews before installing. Note that discounts created by a third-party app may not support everything in the admin — for example, Shopify says you can’t get a shareable link or QR code from the admin for an app-created discount.
Test Before Launch, Then Track Performance
Testing a code
Don’t let your customers be the testers. Before a code goes out in an email or to a partner, run through checkout yourself:
Happy path: a qualifying cart (right products, above the minimum) shows the expected discount.
Below the minimum: the code is rejected with a sensible message.
Excluded products: sale or excluded items don’t get discounted.
Stacking: try it alongside any running automatic discount and your other public codes.
Mobile: type it on a phone — codes with O/0 or I/1 cause typos.
Shareable link: open it in a private window and confirm the discount lands in the cart.
For a future-dated code, test with a duplicate that’s active today (use Duplicate on the discount page), then delete the test copy. You can stop at the payment step, or place a test order using Shopify’s test payment options if you need to see the full order record.
Tracking what a code earns
Sales by discount
Shopify’s analytics include a Sales by discount report showing how often each code is used and the sales attached to it.
Times used
The Discounts list shows usage per code and can be filtered by times used, so a sudden spike (a leak) stands out.
One code per channel
Give each email, influencer and partner a different code. Same offer, different names — and your report tells you which channel worked.
Look past redemptions
A code used 500 times isn’t automatically a success. Compare average order value and new-versus-returning customers on discounted orders with your undiscounted orders. If most redemptions come from returning customers who would have bought anyway, the code is a margin cost rather than a growth tool.
Pre-Launch Checklist for Every Code
Right type and method chosen (can’t change later)
Minimum spend protects your margin
Usage limits set (total and/or one per customer)
Combinations reviewed against live sales
End date set, in the correct Australian time zone
Tested on desktop and mobile, including the shareable link
Get Your Codes in Front of Australian Shoppers
Plenty of shoppers search “[your store] promo code” just before they pay. If they can’t find a current code, they either leave to keep looking or end up using an old one that fails at checkout. Listing the codes you choose gives them the right answer instead.
PromoCodes.com.au lists Australian store codes and deals, organised by store and checked by people. Listing is free: send your store name, website and current codes — with their conditions and expiry dates — through our store listing form. Our guide on how to get your codes listed explains exactly what to send, and how we make money explains how affiliate commissions work on the site.
Shopify Discount Codes — FAQs
Can I change a discount’s type after I’ve created it?
No. You can edit most settings — value, limits, dates, eligibility — but the discount type and method are fixed once saved. To switch from, say, Amount off products to Amount off order, delete the discount and create a new one.
Can customers use more than one code on an order?
Only if every code involved is set to combine with the others’ discount class. Shopify allows up to five product or order codes and one shipping code per order. If codes can’t combine, Shopify applies the best combination for the customer.
Why does a customer see “discount code has already been used”?
If the code is limited to one use per customer, Shopify checks their email or phone number. Shopify also holds a code against its limit while a checkout is being paid; if a checkout never completes properly, the hold can remain. Check their order history first, and if needed, issue a fresh code with the same conditions.
Does a discount reduce the GST I collect?
Generally the GST on a sale follows the price the customer actually pays, so a discounted sale carries less GST. Shopify applies tax after discounts. Your accountant can confirm how your discounts and reports should flow into your BAS.
How do I stop my code ending up on coupon sites?
You can’t fully stop a public code being shared. What you can do is use unique single-use codes for private offers, set end dates and usage limits, restrict eligibility to customer segments, and give coupon sites an approved public code of your own so shoppers find a code you’re happy with. Shoppers can read more about how codes work in our guide how promo codes work.
Can I show the discounted price on product pages?
Shopify discounts apply in the cart and at checkout. To show strikethrough prices on product and collection pages, use compare-at prices, a third-party discount app, or a custom solution from a Shopify Partner.
List Your Store’s Codes for Free
Send us your current codes and we’ll add them to your store page on PromoCodes.com.au. It takes two minutes.
Advertisement