GenTech Discount Rules Documentation

Introduction

What the plugin does, what it needs, and where it fits in your WooCommerce store.

Welcome

Thanks for using GenTech Discount Rules. It adds a rules-based promotions engine to WooCommerce: BOGO offers, free gifts, cart discounts, bulk (tiered) pricing and coupon-code offers, all built from the same simple pattern — what the customer must buy and what the customer gets. This guide is for store owners and developers. No coding is needed to create promotions; the Developer Hooks section is optional.

What’s Included

Features

• BOGO offers — Buy X Get X and Buy X Get Y, based on a product or a category in the cart.
• Free gifts — add a free product automatically once the customer qualifies.
• Cart discounts — fixed amount or percentage off the cart.
• Bulk / tiered pricing — e.g. 5+ items save 10% each, 10+ items save 15% each.
• Coupon-code offers — unlock a reward with a code, without creating a WooCommerce coupon.
• Five conditions — product in cart, category in cart, cart subtotal, total cart quantity, coupon code applied.
• Priority and “Stop Other Rules” to control the order rules run in and prevent discount stacking.
• Scheduling with start and end dates.
• Limits — customer limit, require login, skip when the cart has sale items.
• Live promotion messages with placeholders, e.g. “Spend {remaining_amount} more to get {free_product} free!”.

Requirements

Compatibility

Getting Started

Install the plugin and have your first promotion running in a few minutes.

Install from WordPress

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin.
2. Search for GenTech Discount Rules.
3. Click Install Now, then Activate.
4. A new GenTech Discount Rules menu appears in the admin sidebar.

Upload the ZIP

If you have the plugin ZIP file instead:

1. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin.
2. Choose gentech-promo-engine.zip and click Install Now.
3. Click Activate Plugin.

Or upload the extracted gentech-promo-engine folder to /wp-content/plugins/ by FTP and activate it from the Plugins screen.

Your First Promotion

1. Go to GenTech Discount Rules → Starter Templates.
2. Pick a template, e.g. Spend $100, Get 10% Off. The editor opens with the conditions, reward and messages already filled in.
3. Adjust the amounts (and choose products, if the template needs them).
4. Click the status button next to Summary and choose Published.
5. Click Save Changes.
6. Add products to your cart on the storefront to see the offer apply.

How Promotions Work

Every promotion is a rule: conditions decide if it applies, rewards decide what the customer gets.

Each time WooCommerce recalculates the cart (adding an item, changing a quantity, applying a coupon), the plugin:

1. Loads all published rules that are inside their schedule, ordered by priority (lowest number first).
2. Checks each rule’s eligibility and conditions against the current cart.
3. Applies the rewards of every rule that qualifies — adding free items, setting bulk prices and adding discount lines.
4. Stops early if a rule that applied has Stop Other Rules turned on.
5. Removes rewards from rules that no longer qualify (for example, after an item is removed).

Promotion Rules List

Your dashboard of every promotion, at GenTech Discount Rules → Promotion Rules.

Columns

Filters & Bulk Actions

• Use the All / Published / Draft / Expired / Trash links to filter the list.
• Use Search Rules to find a rule by name.
• Select rules with the checkboxes and use Bulk actions to publish them, move them to draft, mark them expired, trash them, or (in Trash) restore or permanently delete them.
• Click the Title, Priority or Date column headings to sort.

Rule Editor

Create a rule with Add New, or click a rule’s title to edit it.

Editor Sections

Toolbar Buttons

• Status (shows Draft or Publish) — opens the Update Status panel: Published, Draft, Expired or Trash.
• Summary — a plain-language preview of what the rule does.
• Save Changes — saves the rule. A rule only runs on the storefront when its status is Published.

Rows in the conditions and rewards sections can be reordered by dragging the ✥ handle, and removed with Remove Condition / Remove Reward.

Conditions

Conditions live under What the Customer Must Buy. Add as many as you need — all must be met.

Condition Types

Condition Options

Rewards

Rewards live under What the Customer Gets. A rule can give several rewards at once.

Reward Types

How Often (Give Product)

• Once per order — the free product is given one time, however much the customer buys.
• Repeat for every set bought — the reward multiplies for each full set of required items. Buy 2 Get 1 with 4 in the cart gives 2 free; with 6 it gives 3.

Cart Discount Label

The label is what the customer sees on the discount line in the cart, checkout and order — for example 10% Off or Summer Sale.

Bulk Pricing

“Buy more, save more” — a lower price on every matching item once the customer buys enough.

Setting Up Tiers

Add one Bulk Discount reward row per tier, all pointing at the same product or category:

• Quantities are counted across all matching items in the cart (different hoodies add up).
• The highest tier reached wins and applies to every matching item: 7 hoodies get 10% off each; 12 get 15% off each.
• Discount Type can be % off each item or Fixed amount off each item.
• The discounted price is shown on the cart line itself, and the original price comes back as soon as the customer drops below the minimum.

Coupon-Code Offers

Unlock any reward with a code the customer types in the cart — no WooCommerce coupon to create.

Setting Up a Code

1. Add a Coupon Code Applied condition and type the code, e.g. FREEGIFT.
2. Add the reward(s) — a free product, a cart discount, or both.
3. Publish and save. Customers enter the code in the normal Coupon code box in the cart or checkout.

The plugin registers the code with WooCommerce for you as a zero-value coupon, so WooCommerce accepts it. The actual reward comes from your rule.

Scheduling

Run a promotion only between two dates — ideal for weekend sales and seasonal campaigns.

Start & End Dates

• Start date — the rule does nothing before this date and time.
• End date — the rule stops after this date and time and shows as Expired in the rules list.
• Leave both empty to run the rule for as long as it’s published.

Dates use your site’s timezone from Settings → General. The rule must also be Published; a draft never runs, even inside its schedule.

Priority & Stacking

Decide which promotions run first and whether customers can combine them.

Priority

Lower numbers run first: a rule with priority 1 runs before one with 10. Change it in the editor or directly in the rules list.

Stop Other Rules

When a rule with Stop Other Rules turned on applies, every lower-priority rule is skipped for that cart. If the rule doesn’t qualify, the next rules run as normal.

With Stop Other Rules off on every rule, all qualifying rules apply together (they stack).

Eligibility & Limits

Restrict who can use an offer and how often it can be used.

How Usage Is Counted

• Usage is recorded when an order containing the promotion is placed.
• Each customer counts once per rule: logged-in customers by their account, guests by their billing email.
• If the order is later cancelled, failed or refunded, the usage is released, so the place goes back to the pool. If the order becomes paid again, it’s counted again.

Promotion Messages

Nudge customers to qualify with live notices — “Spend $25 more to get a free cap!”

Before & After Qualifying

• Before Qualifying — shown while the cart doesn’t meet the conditions yet.
• After Qualifying — shown once the reward is applied.

For each message, choose where it appears: Show on Shop Page, Show on Cart Page and/or Show on Checkout Page. Messages update automatically when the cart changes, without a page reload, in both the classic cart and the Cart & Checkout blocks. Leave a message empty to show nothing.

Placeholders

Placeholders are replaced with live values from the customer’s cart. A placeholder with nothing to show is left blank.

# Before qualifying
Spend {remaining_amount} more to get {free_product} free!

# After qualifying
Congrats! {free_product} has been added to your cart for free.

Messages accept basic HTML such as <strong> and links.

Starter Templates

Ready-made promotions at GenTech Discount Rules → Starter Templates. Conditions, rewards, amounts and messages are pre-filled — choose your products and save.

Amounts use your store’s currency symbol. Templates open as a new Draft, so nothing goes live until you publish it.

Cart & Checkout

What customers see, and what’s saved on the order.

Free Items in the Cart

• Free products are added automatically at a price of zero and labelled Offer: Free item.
• Their quantity is locked, and they can’t be removed separately — they follow the rule.
• If the cart stops qualifying, the free items are removed automatically.

Discount Lines

Cart discounts appear as a negative line (a WooCommerce fee) using your Cart Discount Label. Bulk discounts change the item’s price directly on the cart line.

Order Data

When the order is placed, the promotion is stored with it: free items, bulk-priced items and discount lines are marked with the rule that created them, and usage is recorded for limits. This works for both the classic checkout and the Checkout block.

Developer Hooks

Filters for customizing the plugin from a theme or a small custom plugin.

Filters

Example: Release Usage on More Statuses

add_filter( 'gentech_promo_engine_usage_released_statuses', function ( $statuses ) {
    $statuses[] = 'on-hold'; // also free the place for on-hold orders
    return $statuses;
} );

Example: Add a Starter Template

add_filter( 'gentech_promo_engine_rule_templates', function ( $templates ) {
    $templates['spend_200_get_20'] = array(
        'level'       => 'simple', // simple | intermediate | advanced
        'label'       => 'Spend $200, Get 20% Off',
        'description' => 'A big-spender discount.',
        'title'       => '20% Off Orders Over $200',
        'messages'    => array(
            'before' => 'Spend {remaining_amount} more and get {discount} off!',
            'after'  => 'You unlocked {discount} off your order!',
        ),
        'rule_data'   => array(
            'conditions' => array(
                array( 'condition_type' => 'cart_subtotal', 'condition_qty' => 200 ),
            ),
            'actions'    => array(
                array(
                    'action_type'         => 'cart_discount_percentage',
                    'action_qty'          => 20,
                    'cart_discount_label' => '20% Off',
                ),
            ),
        ),
    );
    return $templates;
} );

Privacy & Data

What the plugin stores, and how to export, erase or remove it.

Data Stored

WordPress Privacy Tools

• Suggested text is added to Settings → Privacy → Policy Guide.
• Tools → Export Personal Data includes the customer’s promotion usage.
• Tools → Erase Personal Data anonymizes it.

The plugin doesn’t send any data to external services.

Deactivate vs. Delete

Troubleshooting

The most common problems, and how to fix them.

FAQ

Quick answers to the questions we hear most.

Changelog

Every notable change, newest first.

Support

Stuck on something this guide didn’t cover? Here’s how to reach us.

What to Include in a Support Request

The fastest way to get a useful answer is to include the details below in your first message:

When asking for support, please include:

- GenTech Discount Rules version
- WordPress and WooCommerce versions
- PHP version (WooCommerce > Status)
- Theme name, and whether you use the Cart/Checkout blocks
- The rule's conditions and rewards (a screenshot helps)
- What you expected and what happened instead