How to Exclude Discounts in Reward Goal

This article explains how to control how discounts impact progress in the rewards bar based on your reward configuration.

Overview

By default, discounts may affect the reward progress bar in Upcart, depending on how your tiers are set up. This guide explains how Upcart handles discounts and how to configure your settings to prevent them from interfering with reward unlocking logic.

If you want to ignore discounts when calculating progress, there’s a setting that makes this easy, no code required.

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How to ignore discounts in reward calculations

Go to:
Upcart > Cart Editor > Rewards > General Settings

Enable the checkbox labeled:
“Use pre-discounted prices for cart total”

When this is turned on:

• The rewards bar will base progress on the original cart total
• Applied discounts (manual or automatic) will be ignored
• Customers won’t lose reward progress after applying a discount

Use this if you want customers to still unlock rewards even when they apply a coupon.

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Default behavior without this setting enabled

When “Use pre-discounted prices for cart total” is off, the way discounts are calculated depends on your Tier 1 reward type.

If Tier 1 is free shipping or product

Discounts will affect reward progress.

Example:

• Tier 1 = Free shipping at $100
• Cart = $100 before a $20 discount → now $80
• Result = Reward progress will reset based on the discounted total

This is done to prevent false positives. Without it, a customer could see “You unlocked free shipping!” when they haven’t truly reached the threshold after discounts are applied.

If Tier 1 is a discount

Discounts are ignored when calculating progress.

Example:

• Tier 1 = 10% off at $100
• Cart = $80 after a $20 discount
• Result = Rewards bar still shows progress as if the cart were $100

This prevents double-discounting, customers don’t get penalized by their own discount affecting the unlock conditions for another one.

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Why Upcart uses this logic

Upcart’s reward system is designed to balance fairness and clarity. Here’s why it behaves differently based on the reward type:

• Avoiding confusion for free shipping
  If discounts were always ignored, customers might think they unlocked free shipping when they haven’t.
• Preventing discount stacking
  If discounts were always counted, customers might be blocked from unlocking a discount reward due to a discount they already applied—despite receiving no actual benefit.

Because of this, the logic dynamically adapts to your reward setup to create the cleanest experience possible.

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Quick summary

Tier 1 Type	Do discounts affect progress?
Free Shipping	Yes (by default)
Product Reward	Yes (by default)
Discount Reward	No

To override this logic globally, enable Use pre-discounted prices for cart total under Reward General Settings.