WooCommerce Discount Glossary
14 min read
A plain-language reference for every discount and promotion term you will encounter when running WooCommerce campaigns. Bookmark this page and come back whenever a term is unclear.
A #
Active Campaign #
A discount campaign that is currently running and applying discounts to products in your store. An active campaign has passed its start date and has not yet reached its end date. Products affected by an active campaign display sale prices to customers automatically.
Add-on Mode #
A campaign setting that controls whether discounts apply to the base product price only or include product add-on costs. When set to base-only, the discount is calculated on the original product price before add-ons. When set to include add-ons, the discount applies to the total price including any add-on fees.
All Products Mode #
A product selection method that applies a campaign discount to every product in your WooCommerce store. Useful for store-wide sales like Black Friday or end-of-season clearance events. No manual product picking required.
Automatic Activation #
The process where a scheduled campaign starts running at its configured date and time without any manual action. WooCommerce cron jobs check for campaigns that are due to activate and start them automatically, even if you are away from your computer.
B #
BOGO (Buy One Get One) #
A discount type where customers receive free or discounted items when they purchase a qualifying quantity. For example, “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” or “Buy 1 Get 1 at 50% off.” The store owner configures the buy quantity, get quantity, and discount percentage. BOGO deals increase average order value by encouraging customers to add more items to their cart.
Bulk Actions #
Operations that can be applied to multiple campaigns at once from the campaign list. Common bulk actions include activating, pausing, deleting, or duplicating several campaigns simultaneously instead of editing them one by one.
Bundle Discount #
A discount that applies only when a customer adds a specific set of products to their cart. The store owner defines which products make up the bundle. The discount can be a percentage off, a fixed amount off, or a flat bundle price. If any product is missing from the cart, the bundle discount does not apply. Available in Pro.
C #
Campaign #
A configured set of discount rules that applies to selected products during a defined time period. A campaign includes the discount type, affected products, start and end dates, priority level, and any conditions. Campaigns are the core unit of Smart Cycle Discounts.
Campaign Intelligence #
The decision-making layer in Smart Cycle Discounts that analyzes every campaign and delivers a verdict on what to do with it. Intelligence collects planner, health, store, and economics signals, then resolves a single verdict — Blocked, Risk, Caution, Good, or Ready — backed by a primary reason code, a recommended action with a CTA, a confidence band, and a reliability chip. The same verdict appears in the wizard, on the campaigns list, in the overview panel, and on the dashboard. Intelligence replaced the older 0–100 per-campaign Campaign Health Score as the day-to-day decision signal. See Campaign Intelligence System for the full breakdown.
Campaign Priority #
A numeric ranking (1 to 5) that determines which discount applies when multiple campaigns affect the same product. Higher priority campaigns take precedence. If two campaigns with the same priority affect the same product, the most recently created campaign wins. This prevents customers from receiving unexpected double discounts.
Campaign Status #
The current state of a campaign in its lifecycle. Possible statuses include:
- Draft — saved but not active, used for testing and review
- Scheduled — waiting for its start date to arrive
- Active — currently running and applying discounts
- Paused — temporarily stopped, can be resumed
- Ended — reached its end date and stopped automatically
Cart Discount #
A discount applied at the cart level rather than to individual products. Spend threshold discounts are a common type of cart discount — for example, “Spend $100 and get $15 off your order.” The discount appears as a line item in the cart totals.
Combination Policy #
A campaign setting that controls whether a discount can be combined with other active campaigns or WooCommerce coupons. Options typically include exclusive (this discount only) or combinable (can stack with others). Helps prevent unintended discount stacking.
Conditional Discount #
A discount that only applies when specific conditions are met. Conditions can include minimum cart total, customer role, specific product categories, or quantity thresholds. If the conditions are not met, the customer sees the regular price.
Confidence (Intelligence) #
How sure Campaign Intelligence is about a verdict, expressed as a band: High, Medium, or Low. Confidence is computed from four weighted factors: signal completeness (24%), data freshness (22%), cross-signal consistency (18%), and evidence quality (28%). Brand-new campaigns with no order history are typically capped at Low confidence until enough orders accumulate.
Confirmation Card #
The interactive card Cycle AI shows before performing any management action on an existing campaign. Appears for edit, pause, activate, delete, and duplicate actions — including bulk actions across multiple campaigns. The card shows what will change (before/after diff for edits, warning for deletes, campaign list for bulk actions) plus Confirm and Cancel buttons. Nothing is changed until Confirm is clicked.
Conversation (Cycle AI) #
A single Cycle AI session from the first prompt until the chat is closed, the campaign is sent to Review & Launch, or the merchant starts a new conversation. One conversation = 1 daily quota use, regardless of how many refinement turns, chat questions, or management actions happen inside it. See Cycle AI.
Cycle AI #
Smart Cycle Discounts’ natural-language assistant for creating and managing discount campaigns. Pro feature. Lives in a floating bottom-right panel and uses a hosted AI service to draft campaigns from plain-English prompts (“20% off T-shirts next weekend”), refine them through back-and-forth conversation, and execute management actions (edit, pause, activate, delete, duplicate) via confirmation cards. Limited to 25 conversations per day. See the Cycle AI section for details.
D #
Decision State #
The internal name for the five Campaign Intelligence verdicts: Blocked, Risk, Caution, Good, or Ready. Used interchangeably with “verdict” in user-facing copy. The decision state is resolved by Intelligence after collecting planner, health, store, and economics signals — not chosen by individual UI surfaces.
Discount Stacking #
When multiple discounts apply to the same product or cart simultaneously. Most WooCommerce discount plugins, including Smart Cycle Discounts, use a priority system to prevent uncontrolled stacking. Only one campaign discount applies per product. Coupon-based discounts from WooCommerce core operate independently.
Discount Type #
The method used to calculate the reduced price. Common discount types in WooCommerce include:
- Percentage — reduces price by a percentage (e.g., 20% off)
- Fixed amount — reduces price by a set dollar amount (e.g., $5 off)
- BOGO — buy X get Y free or discounted
- Tiered — discount increases with quantity purchased
- Spend threshold — discount unlocked at a cart total
- Bundle — discount when a specific product set is in cart
Draft Campaign #
A campaign that has been created and saved but is not yet active or scheduled. Drafts are useful for preparing campaigns in advance, reviewing settings, and checking health scores before going live. Drafts do not affect product prices.
Duplicating Campaigns #
Creating an exact copy of an existing campaign with all its settings intact. Useful for creating similar seasonal promotions or testing different discount amounts. The duplicated campaign is created in Draft status so you can adjust it before activating.
E #
Ended Campaign #
A campaign that has reached its configured end date and automatically stopped applying discounts. Ended campaigns remain in your campaign list for reference. You can duplicate an ended campaign to quickly create a new one with the same settings and new dates.
F #
FAB (Floating Action Button) #
The small circular button in the bottom-right of the Smart Cycle Discounts admin pages that opens the Cycle AI chat panel. Shows a sparkle icon on the WordPress-blue background. Visible on the dashboard and campaigns pages when Cycle AI is available, hidden on other admin pages and when the panel is open. Pulses on first visit to draw attention, then stops.
Fixed Amount Discount #
A discount that reduces the product price by a specific dollar amount. For example, “$5 off” takes exactly $5 off the regular price regardless of the original price. Simple to understand for customers and predictable for profit margin calculations.
Flash Sale #
A short-duration sale, typically lasting a few hours to one day, designed to create urgency. Flash sales work best with a clear start time, limited product selection (5-20 items), and discounts of 20-40%. Automation is important because manually starting and stopping a flash sale requires being at your computer at exact times.
Free Shipping Campaign #
A campaign that offers free shipping on qualifying orders. Can be combined with product discounts or used on its own. You can apply free shipping to all shipping methods or select specific methods like flat rate or local pickup.
H #
HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) #
A WooCommerce feature that stores order data in custom database tables instead of the WordPress post meta table. HPOS improves performance for stores with large order volumes. Plugins must declare HPOS compatibility to work correctly with this feature. Smart Cycle Discounts is fully HPOS compatible.
M #
Minimum Quantity #
The lowest number of items a customer must purchase to qualify for a discount. Used in tiered pricing (e.g., “Buy 5+ to get 10% off”) and BOGO deals (e.g., “Buy 2 to get 1 free”). Encourages customers to increase their order size.
O #
Operational Signals #
Five numeric metrics that Campaign Intelligence uses to reach a verdict and surfaces alongside it for transparency. The signals are: margin impact (how much the discount eats into profit), inventory burn (how fast stock is depleting), overlap severity (how much conflict exists with other campaigns), predicted uplift (expected revenue increase), and timing quality (whether the schedule is well-positioned). They are inputs to the verdict, not standalone targets to optimize.
P #
Percentage Discount #
A discount that reduces the product price by a percentage of the original price. For example, “20% off” on a $50 product results in a $40 sale price. The most common and intuitive discount type for customers. Works well for store-wide sales.
Preview Card #
The interactive card Cycle AI renders in the chat panel to show a proposed campaign before it is saved. Includes the campaign name, description, discount type and value, scope label, duration, a storefront mock showing how the discount displays to customers, a collapsible reasoning section, and any adjustments the validator made to the AI’s output. Nothing is committed to the database until the merchant clicks “Review & Launch”.
Prompt (Cycle AI) #
The plain-English description a merchant types into Cycle AI to describe the campaign they want to create or manage. Limited to 500 characters. Cycle AI combines the prompt with a full summary of the merchant’s store (catalog, categories, segments, calendar events, existing campaigns) before asking the hosted AI service to draft a response. See Prompt Writing Tips.
Priority System #
The mechanism that resolves conflicts when multiple campaigns affect the same product. Each campaign is assigned a priority from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). The campaign with the highest priority wins. This ensures customers always see a single, predictable discount price.
Product Selection Mode #
The method used to choose which products a campaign affects. Available modes include:
- All Products — every product in the store
- Specific Products — manually selected products
- Random Products — a random subset rotated automatically
- Smart Selection — rule-based filtering by category, tag, or attribute
R #
Random Products Mode #
A product selection method that automatically picks a random set of products for each campaign cycle. You specify how many products to include (e.g., 10), and the plugin randomly selects them. Ideal for “mystery sale” or “daily deal” promotions where different products are discounted each time.
Reason Code #
The plain-English explanation of why Campaign Intelligence reached a particular verdict. Reason codes are grouped into seven families: conflicts, stock, coverage, discount, schedule, reliability, and review. Each code carries up to seven pieces of copy — what happened, why it matters, what to do, why that helps, and the CTA button text — so the verdict always comes with a concrete explanation and next step.
Recurring Campaign #
A campaign that automatically repeats on a defined schedule. For example, a “Weekend Sale” that runs every Friday through Sunday, or a “First Friday” deal that activates on the first Friday of each month. Recurring campaigns eliminate the need to manually create the same promotion repeatedly.
Refinement (Cycle AI) #
A follow-up message inside an existing Cycle AI conversation that adjusts the current campaign draft. Examples: “make it 30% instead”, “add shoes too”, “extend to Friday”. Refinements send only the current campaign state plus the new instruction (not the full store context), so they are fast, cheap in tokens, and do not consume additional daily quota. See Refining with Conversation.
Reliability (Intelligence) #
How trustworthy the data behind a Campaign Intelligence verdict is right now. Reliability surfaces as a chip on the verdict — typically “Stale data” (data hasn’t been refreshed recently), “Estimated” (some figures are projections, e.g., for scheduled campaigns), or “Limited evidence” (not enough orders to draw firm conclusions). When evidence is limited, Intelligence intentionally softens display severity from “critical” to “warn” so it doesn’t sound the alarm based on data it isn’t confident in.
S #
Sale Price #
The reduced price displayed to customers when a discount campaign is active. WooCommerce shows the sale price alongside the original price (with a strikethrough) on product pages, category pages, and in the cart. Sale prices are applied automatically by the plugin — no manual editing of product prices is needed.
Scheduled Campaign #
A campaign that has been configured with a future start date and is waiting to activate automatically. Scheduled campaigns let you prepare promotions days or weeks in advance. The plugin activates them at the specified time without any manual intervention.
Smart Selection Mode #
A rule-based product selection method that dynamically includes products matching specific criteria. Rules can be based on product category, tag, price range, stock status, or attribute. Products that match the rules are automatically included in the campaign, even if new products are added to the store later.
Spend Threshold Discount #
A discount that activates when the customer’s cart total reaches a specified amount. For example, “Spend $100, get 15% off” or “Spend $200, get $30 off.” Spend thresholds increase average order value by incentivizing customers to add more to their cart to reach the discount level. Available in Pro.
Store-Wide Health Score #
A 0–100 portfolio-level score shown on the dashboard health gauge. Store-wide health blends per-campaign health scores — active campaigns weighted twice as heavily as scheduled ones, with the weakest active campaign pulling the average down. Blocking issues hard-cap the score at 40. This is not the same as the per-campaign Intelligence verdict: store-wide health answers “is my promotional strategy in good shape overall?” while the verdict answers “what should I do with this specific campaign?”
T #
Tiered Pricing (Volume Discount) #
A discount structure where the discount increases as the customer buys more units. Tiers are defined with quantity thresholds, for example: Buy 5+ get 10% off, Buy 10+ get 20% off, Buy 25+ get 30% off. Commonly used for wholesale pricing, bulk orders, and encouraging larger purchases. Available in Pro.
U #
Usage Limits #
Restrictions on how many times a campaign discount can be used. Limits can be set per customer (e.g., each customer can use this discount once) or globally (e.g., the first 100 orders only). Useful for controlling the cost of a promotion and creating exclusivity. Available in Pro.
V #
Variable Product #
A WooCommerce product that has multiple variations, such as different sizes or colors. Each variation can have its own price. Campaign discounts apply to all variations of a variable product automatically. Smart Cycle Discounts supports variable products in all discount types.
Verdict #
The Campaign Intelligence decision for a specific campaign — one of five states: Blocked, Risk, Caution, Good, or Ready. The verdict is the merchant-facing name for the underlying decision state. Every verdict is backed by a primary reason code, a recommended action with a CTA, a confidence band, and a reliability chip. The same verdict for a campaign appears on every surface — wizard, list, overview panel, dashboard.
W #
Wizard (Campaign Wizard) #
A guided 5-step interface for creating discount campaigns. The wizard walks you through: (1) basic campaign information, (2) product selection, (3) discount configuration, (4) scheduling, and (5) review and launch. Designed to prevent misconfiguration and ensure campaigns are complete before activation.
