Buy X Get Y coupon is a Shopify-only reward type.
Set a purchase condition ("Buy X") and issue a specific reward ("Get Y") with the Buy X Get Y coupon reward — a flexible way to reward both advocates and their referred friends. A few examples:
Buy 2 items from a collection → get a specific product free.
Spend $200 on a collection → get 50% off a featured item.
Buy 1 product → get $20 off another product.
How it works at checkout: ReferralCandy automates Shopify's native Buy X Get Y discount, generating one for each advocate or friend — so it behaves like any Shopify Buy X Get Y discount. The advocate or friend adds both the qualifying items (X) and the reward items (Y) to the same cart, then the discount applies to the reward items at checkout. The reward items are never added to the cart automatically — the customer adds them. For the full customer-side behavior, see Shopify's guide: Buy X get Y discounts.
Important: Buy X Get Y is a reward type — what the advocate or friend earns. It doesn't control campaign enrollment or who receives a referral link. To control who gets a referral link, use campaign enrollment and your campaign's target audience (segments). To control when the reward is earned, use Reward conditions (for example, a minimum purchase amount by the friend, or first purchase only).
Use Buy X Get Y coupon
The Buy X Get Y coupon is available for both the advocate reward and the friend offer. To set it up:
From your Shopify admin, go to Campaigns > select your campaign. In the Set rewards section, click Advocate reward or Friend offer.
If your advocate reward uses FlexiTiers, click the tier you want to edit to expand it, then click Edit reward settings.
Select the Buy X Get Y coupon reward type.
Buy X conditions
Set the purchase a customer must make to qualify for the reward. In the Advocate buys or Friend buys section:
Choose one condition type:
Minimum quantity of items
Minimum purchase amount
Set the minimum Quantity or Minimum purchase amount.
In the Any items from dropdown, select Specific products or Specific collections.
In the Purchase type dropdown, set the condition to apply to One-time purchase, Subscription, or Both.
Use Search products or Search collections (or click Browse) to find and select the qualifying item(s).
Click Add.
Get Y reward
Set the reward a customer receives once the Buy X conditions are met. In the Advocate gets or Friend gets section:
Set the reward Quantity — how many discounted items the customer receives.
In the Any items from dropdown, select Specific products or Specific collections.
Use Search products or Search collections (or click Browse) to find and select the reward item(s).
Click Add.
Under At a discounted value, choose how much of a discount the reward item gets:
Percentage — a percentage off the item's value.
Amount off each — a fixed amount off the item's value. For multiple quantities, the discount applies to each item.
Free (default) — the reward item is free.
Coupon settings and limits
Below the reward, you can fine-tune how the generated coupon behaves. These settings are optional — the defaults work for most campaigns.
Reward description — a short label for the reward that shows in widgets and emails (for example, "a free t-shirt"). It fills in automatically, but the generated text can be long — review and simplify it so it reads clearly.
Usage limits — Set a maximum number of uses per order is on by default and set to 1, so the discount applies once per order. Adjust it to control how many times the discount can be applied per order.
Coupon settings — under Expires in days, set the number of days until the coupon expires. Enter 0 for no expiry.
Combine with other discounts — allow the coupon to stack with Product, Order, or Shipping discounts at checkout. Changes here apply to coupons generated after the change; codes already issued keep the rules they were created with.
When you're done, click Save.
Buy X Get Y coupon FAQ
Can I use Buy X Get Y for both the advocate reward and the friend offer?
Can I use Buy X Get Y for both the advocate reward and the friend offer?
Yes. Buy X Get Y coupon is available as both an advocate reward and a friend offer on Shopify. You set it up the same way for each — the difference is only whether you configure it under Advocate reward or Friend offer.
How is Buy X Get Y different from an amount off coupon?
How is Buy X Get Y different from an amount off coupon?
An amount off coupon takes a percentage or fixed amount off the order. Buy X Get Y is conditional: the customer must first buy the item(s) or quantity you specify ("Buy X"), and then they're rewarded with specific item(s) free or at a discount ("Get Y"). Use Buy X Get Y when you want the reward tied to a particular purchase.
Does the reward (Y) item get added to the cart automatically?
Does the reward (Y) item get added to the cart automatically?
No. Shopify never adds the reward (Y) items to the cart automatically — the customer adds them alongside the qualifying (X) items, and the discount applies to the reward items at checkout. This is standard Shopify Buy X Get Y behavior.
How do subscription products work with Buy X Get Y?
How do subscription products work with Buy X Get Y?
Use the Purchase type dropdown in the Buy X conditions to set whether the condition applies to one-time purchases, subscriptions, or both. The separate "Enable coupon for subscription apps" setting appears only on the amount off coupon, not on Buy X Get Y.
Where do I find the Buy X Get Y coupon code?
Where do I find the Buy X Get Y coupon code?
ReferralCandy generates these codes automatically in your Shopify Discounts — friend offer codes are created as advocates join your campaign, and advocate reward codes when a reward is issued. Because the codes are grouped into daily discounts, searching Shopify Discounts directly may not find an individual code. To trace a code back to an advocate or friend, see [Shopify] Find who a ReferralCandy discount code belongs to.