thread Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working in Payments Troubleshooting

Trouble with BOGO Discount

bubblygoatsoap — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:03:29 GMT

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: "Buy 3 Get One Free not working"

Good Morning. I can't seem to get the buy 3 get one free to work 😞

- I have the amount at 100%

- Discount Rules set to "when customer purchases any 3 items from" and have the items specifically listed

- I have the discount rule set to "Apply 100% discount to 1 additional item of equal or lesser value from" and used the same list noted above

- I've gone in on another device, incognito window etc - No matter what I do - It just doesn't take the 4th one off. I've confirmed the item(s) I'm choosing are in fact on both lists.

I just don't get it... I've also tried using a date range, minimum spend etc - it saves and says all is good - just doesn't work 😞

Any suggestions? Thanks

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

PartyManiaMD — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 15:13:13 GMT

Any chance you could upload a screenshot of the discount set up? The way I set up a buy 3 get 1 free is to Discount each item 25% when buying 4 or more rather than discounting 1 item 100%.

Screenshots would definitely help us be able to pinpoint any issues, if it's set up correctly and still not discounting contacting Support would probably be the best option so they can look into why it's not discounting correctly.

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

bubblygoatsoap — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:27:22 GMT

Thanks for helping! Doing it the way you suggested though - wouldn't that just discount anything over 3 at 25%?

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

bubblygoatsoap — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:30:22 GMT

Here's what the cart looks like after adding them. I set this up hours ago so I'm assuming it's pretty fast to apply...

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

PartyManiaMD — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:33:39 GMT

Ah I think I might understand the issue.

It appears you're making discounts in the Square POS Item Library. It's a bit confusing because while you'd think the discounts would apply online, for online discounts you would go here to set up your online discounts.

Unless I'm mistaken, the second pic appears to be an online transaction. I do use Square Register for my store and as far as the buy 3 get 1 free but doing 25% off, it works for me because people rarely buy more than 4 and even then as long as it's 4 or more I don't mind 25% off.

Hope this helps!

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

bubblygoatsoap — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:37:02 GMT

Oooofff. Thanks for that clarification - I guess I have more learning to do. So the "discounts" have to be done as Coupons then? I've had people order 12-15 bars so I'm not sure that will work with the 25% off 😞

I can't figure out how to make this work ugh...

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

PartyManiaMD — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:45:47 GMT

Yes, I believe what you're looking for is coupons (sorry, I don't do discounting online, only in store to provide more of a treasure hunt type of shopping).

You could use the "Specific Amount Discount: Discounts the purchase price based on the amount you enter."

Unfortunately the online coupon system doesn't appear to be as robust as the discount system provided for the Square POS

Looks like you can do a % of $ off but not a buy 3 get 1 free type of discount. If you have a moment stop by the Ideate forums to either chime in or create a feature request. Keep in mind feature requests aren't instant and coding is a massive process that can have consequences if they implement something poorly.

Re: Buy 3 Get One Free not working

bubblygoatsoap — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 17:03:20 GMT

Ok Thanks. Yah I'm all too familiar how dev work goes as I work for a sw company so I know that's going to be a long time coming if it's not already on their roadmap - Thanks for the help!

Re: Trouble with BOGO Discount

JTPets — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 19:49:52 GMT

Square is currently working on integrating discounts into the POS for Web and POS use - the beta is about to launch but has had a few delays