A Buy X, get Y free offer is a volume discount that gives free items as shoppers buy more, for example buy 2, get 1 free or buy 3, get 2 free. Shoppers pick a tier from cards near the Add to cart button on your product page, and the free items come with the tier. Use it to sell more units of a product in one order without lowering its price.
Buy X, get Y free is included on every Appstle Bundles plan. See a live example on the Appstle demo store. To give a different product away, see Set up a Buy X get Y offer instead.
Before you start
Make sure the products you want to discount are active. Draft products don't show on your store, so shoppers won't see the offer on them.
Turn on the Appstle Bundles app embed in your theme. Step 4 of the editor tells you whether it is on and links to the theme editor if it isn't.
Create a Buy X, get Y free offer
In your Shopify admin, open the Appstle Bundles app and go to Bundles & Discounts.
Click Create offer.
Under Buy more, select Buy X, get Y free. Use the On the store and At checkout tabs to preview what shoppers see.
Click Start with Buy X, get Y free.
The editor opens with five steps on the left, a live preview in the middle and the settings for the current step on the right. It is the volume discount editor with Free items already chosen, so its type shows as Volume discount · Buy X, get Y free. Click Next at the bottom of the settings panel to move on, or click a step on the left. Click Try it above the preview to click through the offer as a shopper would.
The offer isn't saved until you click Save as draft or Launch offer. The top right of the editor shows Not saved yet until you do.
Step 1: Products
Choose which products the offer covers and which items count toward the same tier.
Under Which products get the discount?, choose Specific products, Collections or All products.
Click Add products, select the products or variants in Shopify's picker, then click Add. With Collections, click Add collections instead.
Under Can shoppers mix items?, choose No, the same variant only (the default), Yes, variants of one product or Yes, any product in this offer.
This step works like Step 1 of a volume discount, so the same limits apply: up to 5,000 products and variants, or up to 20 collections. See Set up a volume discount for the full list of options.
The free items come from the items that count together. With the default setting, shoppers get more of the same variant free. When different items count together, the cheapest items in the cart are the free ones, so you give away the least.
With Yes, any product in this offer, use Products shoppers can pick from to choose This offer's products, Other products or Products in collections. Products you add there also count toward the tiers and get the discount, so they can be the free items. A product list (mix and match) isn't available with free items.
Under More options, Variants shoppers see first sets the variant each item starts with in each tier.
Step 2: Discount tiers
Tiers set how many items shoppers buy and how many they get free.
Under Shoppers get, leave Free items selected.
A new offer starts with two tiers: Buy 1, get 1 free and Buy 2, get 3 free. Check them before you launch, because Buy 2, get 3 free gives away more items than shoppers pay for. For each tier, set Buy to the number of items shoppers buy and Get to the number they get free.
Click Add a tier to add another tier. Drag a tier by its handle to reorder it, or open its ... menu for Tier settings, Duplicate and Delete. An offer needs at least one tier.
Click the star on the tier that should be selected when the page opens. If no tier has a star, shoppers pick a tier themselves.
Each tier is a set. A tier of Buy 2, get 1 free is a set of 3 items, and the card on your store shows the price of the whole set. At checkout, every complete set in the cart earns its free items. With only that tier, 6 matching items earn 2 free items. A cart gets the tier that saves the most.
Below the tiers, Grey out tiers that need more than is in stock is on by default. A tier that needs more items than the shopper's variant has in stock can't be picked and shows a badge. It works for products whose stock Shopify tracks and that stop selling at 0, and isn't available with Yes, any product in this offer. With free items, it compares stock with the number shoppers buy, not the whole set.
You can't switch a saved offer to or from Free items. To change it, create a new offer.
Step 2: Tier settings
Open a tier's ... menu and choose Tier settings to fine-tune that tier.
This table shows what each tier setting does.
Setting | What it does |
Discount on the items they buy | A percentage off the items shoppers buy. Leave it empty to charge full price. |
Discount on the free items | Empty or 100% means free. Enter a lower percentage to sell the extra items at a discount, like buy 2, get 3 at 50% off. |
Name at checkout | Shown for this tier's discount in the cart, at checkout and on the order. If you leave it empty, the offer's name at checkout is used. |
Only for customers with this tag | Use one tag per tier. Only logged-in customers with that tag see and get the tier. |
Available for | Shows only while Show purchase options in the offer is on. Choose One-time and subscriptions, One-time purchases only or Subscriptions only. Tiers for the other purchase type stay on the page but can't be picked. |
Selling plan for this tier | Ties the tier to one of your selling plans. You can pick one only while Show purchase options in the offer is on, under Purchase options in this step. |
Add-on products on this tier | Products that show inside this tier's card. |
Hide this tier under a scratch card | Shoppers scratch the foil to see the tier. The discount is the same whether or not they scratch. It shows only in the Vertical layout and isn't available with Gifts that unlock as shoppers buy more. |
Step 2: More options
Click More options under the tiers to change how the free items apply. All five switches are off by default.
Keep shoppers on the tier they picked: this switch doesn't change a Free items offer. At checkout, a cart always gets the tier that saves the most.
Discount only items added through the widget: only items that shoppers add with a tier selected in the offer get free items. Items added another way, like a quick add on a collection page, pay full price.
Remove bundle details when the discount stops applying: when a shopper lowers the quantity below the first tier, the cart items lose their bundle details.
Keep one tier selected at all times: shoppers can switch tiers but can't clear the selection by clicking the selected tier.
Give only the configured free quantity: when it's on, shoppers get the tier's free quantity once, and extra items are full price. When it's off, every complete set in the cart earns its free items.
Step 2: Gifts, add-ons and purchase options
Further down the step, you can add gifts and add-ons and set purchase options.
Gifts that unlock as shoppers buy more: off by default. Turn it on to give free gifts or free shipping at higher tiers. See the Progressive gifts article.
Add-on products: off by default. Turn it on to offer products that shoppers can add to this offer at a discount.
Purchase type: choose One-time and subscriptions (the default), One-time purchases only or Subscriptions only.
Discount on renewals: with subscriptions, choose Every order or The first orders. With The first orders, set the Number of orders that get the discount. At checkout, renewal prices can show without the discount, but each renewal is still charged with it.
Show purchase options in the offer: shoppers choose one-time or subscribe inside the offer. Leave it off if your subscription app already shows its own options. When it's on, you also set its layout and texts. Under its More options, Use each tier's own selling plan makes picking a tier also pick that tier's plan.
Selling plans shoppers can pick: under More options, choose All plans, Only these plans or All except these plans.
Step 3: Look and texts
Choose how the offer looks and what shoppers read. Most settings are the same as in a volume discount (see Set up a volume discount), so this list covers what matters here.
Look: choose a starting look from Brand style, From your theme, Clean, Bold, Soft, Luxe or Playful. You can fine-tune any part afterwards.
Layout: Vertical stacks the tiers in one column, Horizontal puts them side by side, and Grid arranges them in a grid. You can also set the Corners and the Space between cards.
Option texts: for each tier, edit the Title, Subtitle, Savings badge, Badge and Badge style. Leave a badge empty to hide it.
Names: Title shoppers see shows above the offer on your product page. Name at checkout (optional) shows next to the discount in the cart and at checkout, and the title is used if you leave it empty. A tier's own Name at checkout wins over this one. Name in your admin is for you and your team only.
Colors and sizes: click Edit on the Design tab to fine-tune the colors and sizes of each part of the offer.
Add to cart: Free items offers use your theme's Add to cart button. The offer's own button isn't available.
Your theme's product page: turn on Hide your theme's quantity selector on products where this offer shows, or Show the tier's price in your theme's price to update your theme's price when shoppers pick a tier.
More options: turn on Your theme uses a custom Add to cart button if your product page uses a button from a page builder such as PageFly or GemPages. You can also turn on Hide your theme's variant picker, Sticky bar, Countdown timer or Low stock alert.
Step 4: Where, who and when
Choose where the offer shows, who gets it and when it runs.
Where it shows: the offer shows near the buy button on the product pages it covers, with no theme changes. If the check says your app embed is off, click Turn it on, switch on the Appstle Bundles app embed in the theme editor, then come back and click Check again. Until then, shoppers don't see the offer, but the discount still applies at checkout.
Custom location (optional): add the block to a template only if you want the offer somewhere else on the page. Click Add it for me under a template, like Default product template: the theme editor opens with the block already added. Click Save there.
Announcement bar: turn on Show this offer in the announcement bar to tell shoppers how close they are to the offer and when they've unlocked it.
Who gets it: choose Everyone or Customers with tags. Tags must match exactly, including capital letters, and work only for logged-in customers, so guests don't see a tag-limited offer. Under More options you can also turn on Not for B2B buyers, choose Selected markets, or turn on Not in Shopify POS.
When: choose When I launch, or On a schedule to set a start and end date and time in your store's time zone.
Uses per customer: the number of times each logged-in customer can get the discount. While a limit or tags are set, guests don't see the offer, unless you turn on Still show the offer to shoppers who can't get it under Who gets it → More options. Then everyone sees it, and only eligible customers get the discount.
Works together with: Other product discounts, Order discounts and Shipping discounts. All three are on by default.
Order tags: tags added to each order the app records for this offer. The default is
appstle_bundles.
Step 5: Review and launch
The last step lists anything that needs fixing under Checks and sums up your choices under At a glance. Fix any problem it lists, then click Launch offer to make the offer live, or Save as draft to save it without going live.
What shoppers see
On the product page, shoppers see the tiers as cards under the title you set. Each card shows the price of the whole set and the full price crossed out. The tier with the star is selected when the page opens. Shoppers add the selected tier with your theme's Add to cart button, and the cart gets the whole set.
In the cart and at checkout, a set of Buy 2, get 1 free shows as two lines of the same product: the items shoppers pay for, and the free items on their own line at $0.00. The free line carries the discount name: the tier's own Name at checkout if it has one, otherwise the offer's Name at checkout, or the title if both are empty.
Things to know
When a product is part of more than one active volume discount, customers get the discount that was created first.
A live volume discount uses 1 of the 25 automatic discounts your store can have active in Shopify.
Free items are always items that count toward the offer, and the cheapest ones are free. To give away a different product, use Buy X get Y.
Free items offers use your theme's Add to cart button, and tiers count items only. Counting by amount spent and counting subscription and one-time items separately aren't available.
You can't switch a saved offer to or from Free items. Create a new offer instead.
FAQs
Why doesn't the offer show on my product page?
Check these in order:
The offer is live, not a draft, and its schedule has started.
The product is in the offer, or in one of its collections.
The Appstle Bundles app embed is on in your theme.
No limit hides it. Tags and Uses per customer work only for logged-in customers. To test, log in as a matching customer instead of using a private window.
No other volume discount that was created earlier covers the same product. Customers get the one that was created first, so pause or delete the older one.
Why didn't a cart get the free items?
Check these:
The cart holds a complete set. For Buy 2, get 1 free, that is 3 matching items.
The items count toward the same tier. With the default No, the same variant only, 2 small and 1 large bag don't make a set.
If Discount only items added through the widget is on, the shopper added the items with a tier selected in the offer, not from a collection page or another app.
The customer hasn't used up their Uses per customer.
If the cart has another discount, Works together with allows that kind of discount.
For a subscription, the shopper added it through the offer on the product page. Subscription items added any other way never get free items, whatever your settings.
Can the free items be discounted instead of free?
Yes. Open the tier's ... menu, choose Tier settings and enter a percentage under Discount on the free items. For example, 50% sells the extra items at half price.
Can I add a free gift to a tier?
Yes. Click the gift icon on a tier in Step 2 to add a free gift to it, or turn on Gifts that unlock as shoppers buy more. See the Progressive gifts article.
Does it work with subscriptions?
Yes. Under Purchase options in Step 2, choose One-time and subscriptions or Subscriptions only, then use Discount on renewals to decide how many orders get the discount. Subscription items get free items only when shoppers add them through the offer on the product page.