thread Can I EXCLUDE item from discounts? in Payments Troubleshooting

Can I EXCLUDE item from discounts?

experiencepts — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:50:43 GMT

I've searched for an answer and the latest thread I found was two years old, so I'm hoping the function has been added.

I want to be able to set up a discount (e.g., an employee discount) that will apply to the categories I select, but I need to be able to exclude certain items. Is there a way to set exceptions to a discount rule without having to choose item-by-item what the discount *does* apply to? I would rather not have to set all of these exceptions in separate categories because they're currently organized well.

To illustrate: I have ~50 different items in the Pokemon Boosters category; 3 of them were not purchased at wholesale but at secondary market prices, so my margin is very narrow on those 3; I want to apply the 30% employee discount on the category "Pokemon Boosters" but set those 3 items to be excluded from the discount.

Re: Can I EXCLUDE item from discounts?

Stacelyn24 — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:02:45 GMT

That’s a great question, and unless something very recently changed, the main limitation is that discounts in Square Point of Sale generally apply either by category or by selected items, but not by category with exceptions built into the same rule.

A practical workaround would be to create the discount around selected items instead of the full category, or move those few exception items into a small separate category if you want to preserve the broader discount behavior without affecting margin-sensitive products. I know that’s not as clean when your categories are already organized well, but at the moment it’s usually the simplest way to control exclusions without manual adjustments at checkout 🙂

Re: Can I EXCLUDE item from discounts?

experiencepts — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:20:28 GMT

I appreciate the response. I was hoping we'd actually have this extremely simple feature by now, considering it's been asked for many times and was on the developers' radar as a Feature Request at least as far back as 2021 [https://community.squareup.com/t5/Archived-Discussions-Read-Only/How-can-I-exclude-certain-Items-from-being-Discounted/m-p/287775] . Is there a specific way I can try to create a Feature Request for this now?