How discount codes affect rewards

When a customer applies a discount code, the cart total drops. Whether that affects a reward depends on the reward type: some rewards count the cart before the code, others after it. This article explains what your customers will see.

Overview by reward type

Reward type	Reward bar in the cart	At checkout
Shipping	After the code	Shopify decides, based on your shipping rates
Discount (advanced)	Before the code	Before the code
Discount (legacy)	Before the code	Shopify decides, based on your discount's settings
Single gift and Multi gift	After the code	Before the code

"Before the code" means the cart value without the discount code. "After the code" means the total the customer sees once the code is applied.

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Discount rewards

The bar counts the cart before the code for both discount types, so applying a code never pushes a discount reward back out of reach. A Discount (advanced) reward is also checked against the pre-code total at checkout, so the customer keeps it.

For a Discount (legacy) reward, Shopify applies your own automatic discount, so whether it combines with the code depends on the Combinations settings of that discount in Shopify.

Shipping rewards

The bar counts the cart after the code. A large code can drop the cart below your free shipping threshold, and the bar moves back. That matches how Shopify checks free shipping rates at checkout.

Gift rewards

The bar counts the cart after the code, because that's the total the customer sees. At checkout, the gift is checked against the cart before the code by all three gift functions: Cart Transform, Automatic discount and Gift eligibility enforcement.

So if a code drops the cart below a gift's threshold:

• the bar in the cart may show the gift as not reached,
• but the gift stays free at checkout, and checkout isn't blocked.

This is on purpose: blocking checkout because a customer used their own code would cost you the sale. A dedicated $0 gift product stays free in any case, because its price is $0 in Shopify.

What still changes a gift

Quantity changes do count. If the customer removes products at checkout and the cart value before codes drops below the threshold, Cart Transform and Automatic discount charge the gift at its regular price, and Gift eligibility enforcement blocks checkout for dedicated gift products. A gift with a quantity above 1 is never made free.