"Buy one, get one free" needs no explanation. Shoppers understand it in half a second, which is why it shows up on every high street during a sale. That same clarity makes it easy to run a BOGO offer that sells well and loses money.
This guide compares the common BOGO formats on margin, shows what Shopify gives you without an app, and walks through a product page setup that keeps the offer visible where the shopper decides.
The three common BOGO types
BOGO is a family of offers, and the members are not equally generous. Here is what each one works out to per unit:
- Buy one, get one free. Two units for the price of one. The shopper saves 50% per unit.
- Buy two, get one free. Three units for the price of two. That is a third off per unit, about 33%.
- Buy one, get one half price. Two units for the price of one and a half. 25% off per unit.
All three sound similar on a banner. On your margin report they are very different offers.
The margin math
Take a $30 body lotion that costs you $12 per unit, packaging included. At full price, one sale earns $18.
- Buy one, get one free: $30 in revenue, $24 in product cost, $6 of profit for two units.
- Buy two, get one free: $60 in revenue, $36 in product cost, $24 of profit for three units.
- Buy one, get one half price: $45 in revenue, $24 in product cost, $21 of profit for two units.
Buy one get one free ships twice the product for a third of the profit of a single sale. It only makes sense when your margin is very high, when you are clearing stock, or when the second unit brings a customer you expect to keep. For most stores, buy two get one free is the better default. It still reads as "free", and it earns more than one full-price sale.
The half price version keeps the highest margin rate of the three: 47% of revenue, against 40% for buy two get one free. It earns a little less per order, and "50% off the second" is a weaker headline than "free". Try it on products where the shopper already plans to buy two.
What Shopify covers natively
Shopify's own Buy X Get Y discount handles the checkout side. You choose what the customer buys, what they get, and how much off the free part is. It can be automatic or a code.
What it does not do is show the offer on the product page or set the quantity for the shopper. The customer has to know about the deal, change the quantity selector to the right number, and trust that it applies. An automatic discount shows up once the right items are in the cart. A code shows up only after the shopper enters it, often at checkout. Either way, unless your theme copy mentions the offer, the shopper sees the saving after the choice it was meant to influence.
Setting it up in Bundlex
In Bundlex Bundles, a BOGO offer is one card in the same widget as your quantity tiers. The shopper sees "Buy 2, get 1 free" next to the single option and picks it with one tap.
- Open a bundle deal and choose which products show it under Show widget on. Each product qualifies on its own: picking several products does not let a shopper mix them into one buy two get one set.
- Add a Buy X, get Y offer. Set Buy to 2 and Get to 1. The Total field fills itself in: three units in the cart.
- Keep a single unit option at full price, so shoppers who want one still have a clear choice.
- Write the title with variables. A title like "Buy {{buy_quantity}}, get {{get_quantity}} free" stays correct if you change the numbers later, and it carries through to the checkout label.
- Publish and test on a real product page. Check three units, four units and six units in the cart.
The help article on setting up a Buy X Get Y offer covers every field, and the BOGO feature page shows how the offer looks on a storefront.
Which unit becomes free
When the shopper picks different variants, the variants can have different prices. Bundlex Bundles makes the cheapest qualifying units free. With bags at $24, $30 and $30, the $24 one is free and the shopper pays $60.
This protects your margin. If the most expensive unit were the free one, shoppers would learn to put the priciest variant in every set. Mention it in the offer subtitle if your variant prices differ a lot, so nobody is surprised at checkout.
The offer also repeats. With buy two get one free, six units give two free units. Four or five units still give one, because the second free unit needs a complete second set.
Mistakes to avoid
- Buy one get one free on a thin margin. Run the numbers above with your own costs before the banner goes up.
- Using BOGO for a different gift product. In Bundlex Bundles, "buy a cream, get a free lip balm" is set up as a free gift on the offer, and BOGO is for free units of the same product. See our guide to free gifts with purchase on Shopify.
- Stacking with codes by accident. Decide whether discount codes combine with the offer. Read stacking with other discounts before launch.
- Running it forever. A permanent BOGO becomes the real price in the shopper's mind. Keep it for a season, a launch or a stock clearance.
If you want a softer, always-on version of the same idea, quantity tiers like "buy 2, save 10%" are easier on margin. Our guide to quantity breaks on Shopify covers how to price them.
