Apply discount together with free shipping

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Core Issue:
Shopify merchants cannot natively combine a product discount (percentage or fixed amount) with free shipping in a single discount code. Customers must enter separate codes, which creates friction and can push orders below free shipping thresholds when discounts are applied.

Business Impact:

  • Discount codes often reduce cart totals below free shipping minimums, negating promotional value
  • Critical for influencer campaigns, affiliate programs, and first-time customer acquisition
  • Merchants report customers abandoning purchases or being confused by shipping charges after applying discount codes

Community Response:

  • Thread spans 5+ years with 350+ posts and dozens of vote requests
  • Merchants express frustration that this “basic” feature exists on competing platforms (WooCommerce, Ecwid)
  • Some users threaten platform migration due to this limitation

Shopify’s Evolution:

  • Initially: Feature marked as “in development” with no ETA, votes collected by support staff
  • September 2021: Shopify launched “Discount Combinations” allowing customers to stack multiple codes AND introduced automatic free shipping discounts
  • Current limitation: Still requires customers to enter multiple codes; no single code can apply both effects natively

Workarounds:

  • Set conditional free shipping rates in shipping settings (applies automatically when threshold met)
  • Use third-party apps like “Discount Mixer” or “Single Code Discount by Swiftbee” ($0.99-$10/month)
  • Shopify Plus merchants can use Discount Functions (requires development)

Status: Partially resolved through discount stacking, but original request for single-code solution remains unmet natively.

Summarized with AI on October 26. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
150

I believe I have that set up and it does not work for my desired scenario. I set a rule in shipping that shipping is free for orders over $150. That’s a general rule I want for all orders. But when a customer inputs a discount code the system looks at the resulting balance to decide the shipping rate, not the total before the discount is applied. Thus, in many cases, the balance will drop below the free shipping threshhold and then free shipping will no longer apply.

You give with one hand but take with the other - not a good customer experience.

In my particular scenario, I have a partner that sells my products for me, issuing my one off promo codes for redemption in my store. Customers thus often spend $200 or more and still have to pay for shipping despite the site promising free shipping for orders over $150. I realise I should just not support this scenario but I can’t think of a better way other than closing down this channel.

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