Create discounts

A Discount is a reduction in the price you charge for one or more products or bundles.

The Marketplace Manager can create Discounts as a promotional tool to help increase sales on your marketplace by offering lower prices on selected products. The reduction in price comes out of the marketplace owner's share of revenue: the amounts paid to the product Developers and other stakeholders are not affected. However, a Discount can increase overall sales by encouraging customers to take advantage of a special deal.

Discounts must be redeemed by the buyer, in one of two ways: automatically, or manually with a discount code.

You can configure discounts to apply as follows:

• To all products (one discount per marketplace)
• To one product and all its editions
• To one edition of a product and all its payment plans
• To one payment plan in an edition

Products including add-ons

Discounts that apply to only one product (or its editions or payment plans) apply to no other products, including add-ons. Add-ons are independent products and you can configure discounts for them as you can for any product.

Discount redemptions

When discounts are configured with a maximum number of redemptions, the following is true:

• When discounts apply to all products, one redemption is redeemed for each purchase.
• When discounts apply to a product, one redemption is redeemed when one or more units of a product is purchased (unless the discount is configured to apply to each unit).
• When discounts apply to an edition, one redemption is redeemed when one or more units of an edition is purchased (unless the discount is configured to apply to each unit).
• When discounts apply to a payment plan, one redemption is redeemed when one or more units of a payment plan is purchased (unless the discount is configured to apply to each unit).

When purchases require more discount redemptions than are still available, the remaining redemptions are applied to the products, editions, payment plans, or units until the redemptions are exhausted.

For example, suppose a discount applicable to all products, with two redemptions remaining, is applied to a purchase of three products. In this case, the discount is applied to only two of the products.

Prices and fees

Discounts apply to all prices and fees on the first invoice, and all prices on recurring invoices until discount limits are reached. For example, limits such as the maximum number of billing cycles a discount applies, if a maximum number is configured.

Termination fees

Discounts do not apply to termination fees. However, for percentage termination fees, discounts that applied to the subscription price are applied to calculate the value of the canceled contract period. For example:

Calculation for discounted canceled contract value with percentage termination fees

Termination fee	70% of unused monthly charges
Remaining (canceled) months	6
Price per month with discount	$50 * 50% discount = $25
Value of canceled contract period	6 canceled months * $25 per month = $150
Termination fee calculation	$150 canceled contract value * 70% termination fee = $105

Decimals

You can enter discounts with up to 10 decimal places. However, when you save them, the system saves them to 8 decimal places and rounds them. For example, 20.8888888888 becomes 20.88888889, and 20.8888888811 becomes 20.88888888.

Metered usage

For metered usage, you can create only a percentage discount. The fixed price and discount-per-unit types are not supported, because metered usage is calculated after the usage period. When you create a discount for metered usage, the total fee amount is unknown. Because the total fee amount is unknown, and the associated discount is relative to the usage, you can only create a percentage discount for metered usage plans.

Expired discounts and created orders

It is possible to make discounts retainable, which means that they are redeemable on orders that are created before the discount expiration date, even if the discount has subsequently expired. However, it is only possible to set or change this setting with the API. See Configure retainable discounts.

Depending on the marketplace configuration and the discount configuration options that you select, you might not see all of the elements referenced in the following procedure.

To create a discount

📝 Note: If the AppDirect logo appears in the upper-left corner of the page, when Manage > Marketplace appears in this topic, click the grid icon > Switch to | Store, instead.

1. Go to Manage > Marketplace > Products > PROMOTIONS | Discounts > Add Discount.
   The Discount Details page opens.

2. Select one of the following redemption options:

   • Apply automatically—Discounts are automatically applied to a purchase that meets the discount criteria. Automatically applied discounts use the smallest payment structure, for example, a marketplace-wide discount is the largest payment structure and a tier-specific discount is the smallest.
     • A product-specific discount overrides a marketplace-wide discount.
     • An edition-specific discount overrides a product-specific discount.
     • A tier-specific discount overrides an edition-specific discount.
   • Enter code at checkout—Discounts are applied to a purchase after customers enter a discount code that you define and distribute to them. When you select this option, a discount code field appears along with the following options:
     • Enter a single code—Enter a unique alphanumeric code. You must distribute this code to potential customers.
     • Generate multiple random codes—Displays the Number of Random Codes field where you can enter a number between 1 and 999. The codes generated appear in the Discounts table at Marketplace > Products > Promotions | Discounts.
     • Upload a file containing your discount codes—Displays an upload field where you can navigate to a text file that contains up to 50,000 discount codes. Each code must be on its own line.

3. Select a discount type:

   • Percentage—Reduces the price by a percentage of the total. A 100% discount results in the product being free. The Percentage Discount field appears.
   • Fixed price—Reduces the price by a flat amount in the currency of the order on which it is applied (you enter the amount independent of currency). For example, when you enter a discount amount of 55, it is a $55 discount on a USD order and a 55 Euro discount on a Euro order. If the reduction is more than the total cost, the remainder applies as credit for the next automatic payment. The Fixed Price Discount Amount field appears.

4. Enter the discount value, percentage or amount, depending on the discount type you selected.

5. (Optional) Enter a percentage for Developer Share and for Marketplace Share. You cannot change the AppDirect Share. The combination of the three values must equal 100%. The AppDirect platform validates this and displays an error message accordingly.

6. (Optional) Enable the Discount Per Unit toggle if you want the discount applied to each unit instead of the entire order.

   📝 Note: Per-unit discounts are not supported for one-time editions.

The following fields appear:

• Unit Type—Select the appropriate unit type for this discount. For example, if you offer a discount on storage space, you could select gigabyte.
• Unit Restrictions—Enter a minimum and maximum unit limit for the unit discount. Customers who order the minimum number of units or more, receive the fixed price or percentage discount on each unit they purchase within the minimum to maximum unit range, inclusively. For example, when you configure a fixed price discount of 1, and turn on Discount Per Unit with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 units, the discount applies to a US dollar order as follows:
  • 4 units: no discount (total discount: $0).
  • 5 units: a $1 discount on the fifth unit (total discount: $1).
  • 7 units: a $1 discount on the fifth, sixth, and seventh units (total discount: $3).
  • 10 units: a $1 discount on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth units (total discount: $6).
  • 11 units: a $1 discount on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth units (total discount: $6).

7. Configure the discount details.
   1. Enter a description for this discount. This helps you identify and manage the discount and also helps customers understand it. For example, if you defined a 30% off your first purchase discount, returning customers would know it did not apply to them.
   2. (Optional) Enter a Vendor discount code, if the vendor provided one so that they could be notified when this discount is applied to purchases. This field appears for discounts that are applicable to one product, after you select a product (see step d). Unlike discount codes, vendor discount codes are internal references only. The code is saved with the order information and sent to the vendor in event notifications (see Subscription events). It is possible to add multiple Vendor discount codes for Google products. See Sell G Suite free trials for information on how to add the Google discount codes.
   3. (Optional) Upload a graphic to attract attention to the discount.
   4. (Optional) Select the product, edition, and payment plan which the discount is applicable to from the corresponding drop-down lists. The contents of the Edition and Payment plan lists update based on the selection of the list above it.
   5. Select one of the following Redemption Restriction options.
      • No restrictions per user—All users with purchasing permissions can redeem this discount unlimited times (until users redeem this discount the maximum number of times if the Max Redemptions restriction is set).
      • A user can redeem this discount only once—Each user with purchasing permissions can redeem this discount one time (until users redeem this discount the maximum number of times if the Max Redemptions restriction is set).
      • Member of a company can redeem this discount only once—One member of each company can redeem the discount one time (until users redeem this discount the maximum number of times if the Max Redemptions restriction is set).
   6. (Optional) Enter the total number of redemptions allowed for this discount for all users.
   7. Enter a start date and an expiration date for the discount in the corresponding fields. If no entries are made, the discount is valid when this discount is saved, and does not expire.
   8. Enter a number in the Billing Cycles field to define the number of billing cycles to which the discount is applied.
8. Click Save.