Coupons and discounts are related, but they're not the same thing. Understanding the difference between the two helps you build a more effective promotional strategy for your WooCommerce store.
A coupon is a code-based offer that the customer has to know about and actively apply. A discount is a price reduction that happens automatically, without any customer action required.
Both have their place in a WooCommerce store, but they serve different purposes and require different setups.
Why Offer Both Coupons and Discounts in WooCommerce?
Coupons are great for targeted promotions such as newsletter subscriber exclusives, partner referral codes, or limited-time offers, where the goal is partly to track the source of the conversion. The code itself is the mechanism by which the customer is qualified.
Discounts work better for store-wide behaviors you want applied consistently, such as bulk pricing, category-level reductions, or loyalty tiers. These are rules that should fire automatically for any customer who meets the criteria, meaning they do not require the customer to enter any codes.
Running both coupons and discounts in parallel lets you run targeted campaigns alongside evergreen store-wide pricing strategies without one interfering with the other.
Offering Coupons in WooCommerce Natively
WooCommerce's coupon system is accessible under WooCommerce → Coupons. Creating a coupon is straightforward:
- Name the code
- Choose your preferred discount type (percentage off, fixed cart, or fixed product)
- Set the discount value
- Configure any restrictions or limits you want to apply.
Once customers enter the code in the coupon field at checkout, the discount is applied to their order. The system also supports setting minimum and maximum order amounts, restricting coupons to specific products or categories, and capping usage by total redemptions or per-customer limit.
This is adequate for code-based promotions and covers the majority of traditional coupon use cases.
Offering Automatic Discounts in WooCommerce
The aspect of offering automatic discounts is where the native toolset runs short. WooCommerce doesn’t have a mechanism for automatically applying discounts based on rules.
If you wanted to set up a discount that fires when the customer has 6 items in their cart, or when they're a wholesale customer, it would be impossible with WooCommerce’s native toolset.
For that, you need a dedicated plugin.
Using Elevated Discount Rules for Discount Rules
Elevated Discount Rules addresses WooCommerce's limitations on the discount side by giving you a rule-based discounting system that automatically applies without any code entry.
You can run the discounts that you create alongside WooCommerce's native coupon system. The plugin supports combining discounts with other active promotions, so both types of offers can coexist in the same store without any hiccups.
The discount types available include simple fixed or percentage discounts (applicable to all products, selected products, or specific categories), tiered bulk pricing that adjusts the discount based on quantity purchased, and buy-X-for-fixed-price bundle rules.
You can scope each discount by product, category, or user role, and exclude individual products if needed.
Additionally, you can schedule the time period during which you want the discount to run, e.g., Black Friday, Christmas, or Halloween, and include custom product page and cart messages to boost conversion.
Final Thoughts
Offering coupons and discounts in WooCommerce doesn't have to mean choosing between them. The native coupon system handles code-based offers pretty well, while Elevated Discount Rules handles the automatic, rule-based discount layer that WooCommerce leaves out.
Together, they cover the full range of promotional scenarios a growing WooCommerce store is likely to need.
For more WooCommerce discount plugin options, see our roundup of the 6 Best WooCommerce Discount Plugins.
