Discounts are one of the most direct ways to move products in a WooCommerce store — whether you’re running a launch promotion, rewarding loyal customers, or trying to recover abandoned carts. Setting up coupons takes a few minutes once you know which settings to look for, and there are more options than most beginners expect.
WooCommerce includes a built-in coupon system with three main discount types, usage limits, product and category restrictions, and expiry dates. You don’t need a plugin to get started. Most store owners can handle the majority of discount scenarios with the default tools.
If you’ve recently followed a guide to creating a WooCommerce store in WordPress, enabling coupons is one of the first configuration steps worth completing before you start marketing your products.
Quick Answer
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General and tick “Enable coupons”. Then go to Marketing > Coupons, click “Add coupon”, enter your discount code, choose the discount type, and set any usage restrictions before publishing. Customers apply the code at checkout.
Why This Matters
A coupon strategy serves several purposes beyond simply offering discounts. Welcome codes bring in first-time buyers. Loyalty discounts keep repeat customers coming back. Limited-time codes create urgency around specific products or events. And a targeted discount sent after an abandoned cart can recover a meaningful percentage of lost sales — the guide on setting up abandoned cart recovery in WooCommerce covers this in more depth.
Using coupons strategically also lets you test price sensitivity. If a 10% code dramatically increases conversions on a specific product but a 5% code barely moves the needle, you’ve learned something useful about how customers value that item.
How to Create WooCommerce Coupons
Step 1: Enable coupons in WooCommerce settings
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General. Scroll to the Coupon section and tick Enable the use of coupon codes. Save changes. This unlocks both the coupon management area and the coupon entry field at checkout.
If you don’t see the coupon field appearing at checkout after enabling it, check whether your theme or a plugin is overriding the checkout template — this occasionally hides the field even when coupons are turned on.
Step 2: Create a new coupon
Go to Marketing > Coupons and click Add coupon. You’ll be taken to the coupon editor. Enter your coupon code in the top field — it can be anything: WELCOME10, SUMMER25, or a random string for a private offer. WooCommerce also has a “Generate coupon code” button if you want a random code.
Step 3: Choose the discount type
The General tab offers three discount types:
- Percentage discount — Takes a percentage off the cart total (e.g., 10% off everything)
- Fixed cart discount — Takes a fixed dollar amount off the entire cart (e.g., $15 off)
- Fixed product discount — Applies to specific products only (e.g., $5 off a particular item)
Set the Coupon amount to the value you want. For free shipping specifically, tick “Allow free shipping” — this only works if you have a free shipping zone configured in your WooCommerce shipping settings.
Step 4: Set an expiry date
Add a Coupon expiry date in the date field on the General tab. WooCommerce will automatically disable the coupon after that date. This is worth setting on every coupon — old promotional codes circulate on deal websites for years, and forgetting to deactivate one manually is a common and costly mistake.
Step 5: Add usage restrictions
The Usage restriction tab lets you tighten who can use the coupon and on what:
- Minimum spend — The cart must be worth at least this amount before the coupon applies
- Maximum spend — Prevents the discount from applying on large bulk orders
- Individual use only — Prevents stacking with other discount codes
- Specific products or categories — Limits the coupon to certain items
- Exclude sale items — Prevents already-discounted products from receiving an additional reduction
The more targeted your restrictions, the more predictable your margin impact. A percentage coupon with no minimum spend on a low-margin product can erode profitability quickly.
Step 6: Set usage limits
The Usage limits tab has two fields:
- Usage limit per coupon — Total number of times the code can be used across all customers (e.g., first 50 uses only)
- Usage limit per user — How many times each individual customer can use it
Setting a per-user limit of 1 is sensible for most campaigns. It prevents a single customer from applying the code multiple times across separate orders.
Step 7: Publish and test
Click Publish to make the coupon active. Before distributing it anywhere, test it yourself: add a qualifying product to the cart, proceed to checkout, enter the code in the coupon field, and confirm the discount is applied correctly. The WooCommerce documentation on managing coupons covers edge cases — including how coupons interact with tax calculations — worth reviewing if your store has complex tax rules.
Practical Tips
A coupon that applies to specific high-margin products is usually more profitable than a site-wide percentage discount. Think carefully about which products you actually want to move before setting restrictions.
Use unique coupon codes per campaign rather than reusing the same code. Unique codes let you track which promotions are driving sales in WooCommerce analytics, and you can disable specific campaigns without affecting others.
Getting the right product presentation in place before you run a discount campaign improves your conversion rate significantly. The guide to creating a WooCommerce product page that converts covers the product page elements that matter most — coupons work harder when they land customers on a page that’s already set up to close the sale.
The step-by-step guide to building a WordPress website covers the full commercial setup process — from domain and hosting through to WooCommerce configuration — if you’re still working through the fundamentals.
Common Mistakes
No expiry date. Old promotional codes circulate on deal sites for years after a campaign ends. Without an expiry date, that LAUNCH20 code from your store opening continues discounting indefinitely unless you manually deactivate it.
No minimum spend. A percentage discount with no floor lets customers apply it to a $2 item. Set a minimum spend that reflects your average order value and protects your margin.
Skipping the test. Running through checkout with the coupon code before distributing it takes two minutes. It saves the embarrassment of sending promotional emails about a code that doesn’t work or applies incorrectly.
Overusing blanket discounts. Running site-wide percentage coupons too frequently trains customers to wait for discounts rather than buying at full price. Use targeted, restricted coupons for specific goals rather than permanent broad promotions.
When to Use This vs. Alternatives
The built-in WooCommerce coupon system handles most standard discount scenarios well. For more advanced needs — bulk coupon generation, automatically applying coupons based on cart rules, or loyalty points systems — a dedicated plugin like Advanced Coupons or Smart Coupons adds functionality that isn’t available by default. These are worth considering once your store is generating consistent sales and you need more targeting control.
If your goal is increasing conversions without running discounts, focus on optimising your product pages and checkout flow before leaning on coupons to compensate for a weak buying experience.
Conclusion
Enable coupons in WooCommerce settings, create your first code under Marketing > Coupons, and always set a minimum spend and expiry date before sharing it anywhere. Those three steps prevent most of the mistakes that turn a straightforward promotion into a margin problem.
Etienne Basson works with website systems, SEO-driven site architecture, and technical implementation. He writes practical guides on building, structuring, and optimizing websites for long-term growth.