Coupons

Headpinz

Hey Team,

I’ve been digging into the Square Community and found a lot of users facing similar challenges as us when it comes to coupons.

There seem to be quite a few limitations here, and it feels like this is more than just an idea on a message board. I’d love to get your thoughts on it.

Automatic discounts in Square are pretty robust. Let’s look at how the initial setup of an automatic discount or "discount rule" works:

You have extensive customization options: customer groups, quantity, item, or even category.
You can set specific time ranges and dates.
These rules can be applied as BOGOs, percent-off discounts for specific customer groups, and more.
If you work with the API, you can even unlock functionality not available in the GUI.

Now, imagine if this same functionality was available for coupons. Sure, Square offers basic options like specific amounts, free items, or percentage discounts, but what if we could take it further and apply the customization available in discounts to specific coupon codes?

Here’s an example:

Our Square Text database is growing fast—it’s already crossed the 10,000 mark in just a few weeks. We’d love to create a weekly or bi-weekly BOGO program exclusively for those customers. The discount module has the restrictions we need, but it can only be applied automatically.

What if we could send out a unique coupon code via Square Marketing, tied to the same restrictions in the discount setup?

Another scenario: a limited-time happy hour special—buy any meal and get a free draft beer. We could technically set this up through automatic discounts, but we’d rather reserve it for our most loyal customers.

Other users have posted similar ideas, like customers earning a coupon for purchasing four items on their website. Automatic discounts can handle part of this, but there’s no way to tie it to a specific coupon code.

It’s also odd that Square’s API has some coupon functionality, but it’s not fully accessible. Coupons show up on customer accounts, but there’s no way to add or modify them easily.

It feels like the teams at Square could collaborate to bridge the gap between these features. Discounts and coupons should work more seamlessly together.

I’d love to hear your ideas on how we might better utilize coupons to mimic the functionality of discounts—just with the added flexibility of codes. Let me know your thoughts!

Eric

Headpinz

Also posted in Champions— https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Champions-Lounge/Let-s-Talk-Coupons/m-p/771519#M16541

namastewatford

I really wish that Square gives some more priority to Coupons / Discounts features.

We are using Square for Restaurant and few of the basic couponing, we are not able to implement.

1. If some customer book table via certain App, we need to give them discount only on food tems, not on drinks.

-- I gave up implementing this via discounts or coupons.

-- In discounting, if I put the automatic rule, then it applies to all customers. There is no way to chose this only when booking is coming via certain channel

-- In coupon system, when I chose the coupon to give 20% discount on certain categories, then it gives this discount for just one item, and not to all the items of that category. Support had confirmed and I had to leave this option as well

2. I would like to implement, BOGOF on all food categories, again only when customer is showing certain loyalty card like TasteCard or so. Yet to find a way to implement.

I hope that this forum will help review discounts/coupons options and help make Square a better platform.

Headpinz

Hey @namastewatford thank you so much for adding to the request.

I did find a way to give an automatic discount on certain categories to a certain customer base. It’s not available in dashboard but in the API, which does apply to Square for Restaurants.

If you could manage to get those customers into a smart group this might work for you.

Let me know if you’d like more details.

namastewatford

Hi @Headpinz ,

Indeed, any working solution would be great. Please do pass on the info on how to implement such.

TIA

Manish