Tiered discounts
Reward loyal subscribers with increasing discounts the longer they stay.
Introduction
When you create a subscription plan, you can offer a single flat discount — for example, 10% off every order. But what if you want to reward subscribers who stick around longer with a bigger discount?
Tiered Discounts let you set up multiple discount levels that automatically increase based on how many orders a subscriber has completed. This encourages customers to stay subscribed longer, directly reducing your churn rate and increasing lifetime value.
Understanding tiered discounts
Think of tiered discounts like a loyalty ladder. The more orders your customer completes, the higher they climb — and the bigger their discount gets.
Example: You sell Vitamin D supplements at $30/bottle with a monthly subscription.
Order 1–3
10% off
$27.00/month
$3.00/month
Order 4–8
15% off
$25.50/month
$4.50/month
Order 9+
20% off
$24.00/month
$6.00/month
Your customer starts at 10% off. After their 3rd order, the discount automatically increases to 15%. After the 8th order, it goes up to 20% — and stays there for all future orders.
What your customer sees: Before each billing cycle, they receive a notification showing their current discount and when their next discount increase is coming. This creates anticipation and a reason to stay subscribed.
How it works behind the scenes: Joy Subscriptions tracks the order cycle number for each subscriber. When it's time to charge for a new order, the app checks which tier applies and automatically adjusts the price. No manual action is needed from you or your customer.
How to set up tiered discounts
Step 1: Open the Joy Subscriptions app from your Shopify admin, then navigate to Plans.
Step 2: Click Create plan to start a new plan, or click an existing plan to edit it.
Step 3: Scroll to the Discount section and turn on the Discount toggle.
Step 4: Enter your first tier — this is the discount that applies from Order 1 onward.
Choose Percentage or Fixed amount from the dropdown
Enter the discount value (e.g., 10)
Step 5: Turn on Change discount after orders to enable tiered discounts.
A second tier appears automatically. Configure it:
From order: The order number where this tier starts (e.g., 4)
Discount value: The new discount amount (e.g., 15%)
Step 6: Click Add tier to add more levels. Each new tier starts after the previous one ends.
For example, to create 3 tiers:
Tier 1
1
3
10%
Tier 2
4
8
15%
Tier 3
9
All future orders
20%
The To order field fills in automatically — you only need to set the From order and the Discount value for each tier.
Step 7: Click Save to activate the plan.
Tips for setting up effective tiers
Start small, increase gradually. A common mistake is offering too much discount upfront. Start with a modest 5–10% for new subscribers, then increase in meaningful steps.
Recommended structure for most stores:
1
1–3
5–10%
Attract new subscribers
2
4–6
10–15%
Reward past the critical churn window (most cancellations happen in the first 3 orders)
3
7+
15–20%
Lock in loyal customers for life
Keep it simple. 2–3 tiers works best. Too many tiers confuse customers and make your pricing harder to communicate.
Use percentage discounts unless your products have very different price points. Percentage discounts scale naturally across all product prices in your plan.
Overall
Tiered discounts let you automatically reward subscribers with increasing savings the longer they stay. Set up 2–3 tiers with gradually increasing discounts to reduce churn and build long-term customer loyalty — all without any manual work after the initial setup.
To get started, go to Plans → select or create a plan → enable Discount → turn on Change discount after orders → add your tiers → Save.
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