BOGO Promotion: 6 Types and the Margin Math

A BOGO promotion is any offer that rewards a shopper for buying one unit by giving them a second unit free or at a lower price. "BOGO" is short for buy one, get one, and the word hides a lot of variation: the second unit can be free, half price, the cheapest in the cart, or a different product altogether. Each version costs you a different amount per order, and the cheap-looking ones are often the ones that quietly lose money. This guide lays out the six common types, puts one set of numbers under all of them, and then maps each to the settings in Shopify's Buy X get Y discount.

It is a planning guide. The arithmetic behind a single variant is covered elsewhere: Is BOGO the Same as 50% Off? for the free-versus-half-off comparison, Buy 2 Get 1 Free = 33.3% Off for three-unit deals, and BOGO Margin Math for the cannibalization derivation. Here the question is different: which type belongs in which promotion, and what does the whole campaign cost?

The six types of BOGO promotion

1. Buy one, get one free. Pay for one unit, take two. On equal prices that is 50 percent off the pair.
2. Buy one, get one 50 percent off. The second unit costs half. The pair is 25 percent off.
3. Buy two, get one free. Three units for the price of two, a one-third discount when prices match.
4. Mix and match. The shopper picks the units from a set of products, such as any two candles in a collection. See Mix-and-Match BOGO.
5. Cheapest item free. The lowest-priced eligible unit in the cart is the free one, which holds the cost down when prices vary. See Cheapest Item Free.
6. BOGO with a different gift. Buying product A earns a free unit of a cheaper product B, so the giveaway costs you B's cost rather than A's.

Types 1 to 3 differ in depth. Types 4 to 6 differ in who gets the free unit, and that choice moves your cost more than the percentage does.

One set of numbers for all six

To compare fairly, assume a product that sells for 40 dollars and costs 16 dollars to buy and land, a 60 percent gross margin. These figures are assumptions for the example, not benchmarks. A single unit at full price earns 24 dollars.

The last row assumes the free product costs 6 dollars. The ranking is stable under changes to price, because it comes from one idea: every free unit costs you its landed cost, and the discount is only "free" to the shopper.

Who actually takes the offer

The table compares each order with a single full-price unit, which is the worst case for a discount. Some shoppers who take a BOGO promotion would have bought one unit anyway. They get a free unit for nothing. Others would not have ordered at all, and for them the offer created margin.

Call the share who would have bought one unit anyway s. For the free-unit offer, the margin change per shopper who takes it is 8 − 24s dollars: it is zero at s = one third and negative above that. If more than a third of takers were already going to buy one unit, the promotion loses money in aggregate, whatever it does for revenue. The half-off version stays positive for any realistic s, because the pair still earns 28 dollars against 24 for the single unit.

That is the whole margin logic of the category, and it explains why a deep BOGO suits two kinds of stock: products with a gross margin well above 50 percent, and units you want to clear. For the full derivation and a lookup table by margin, use BOGO Margin Math, or enter your own price and cost in the BOGO break-even calculator.

Pick the type from the problem

• You want a bigger basket on a high-margin staple: half off the second unit, or buy two get one. The depth stays under control.
• You need to move overstock: BOGO free on that SKU only, with a cap, because the unit you give away is stock you are glad to be rid of.
• Your catalog has mixed prices: cheapest item free, so a 12 dollar item cannot be the free item when a 90 dollar item is in the cart.
• You want to introduce a new product: BOGO with a gift, where the gift is the new item. The trial costs you its cost, and the shopper tries it.
• You are competing on a big weekend: see how Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers fit together before you choose a depth, because stacking a BOGO on a sitewide code is the most common way to give away more than planned.

Putting a cap on the campaign

Decide the ceiling before you decide the copy. If the free unit costs 16 dollars and you are willing to spend 3,200 dollars of product on the promotion, you can give away 200 units. That number is your usage limit, and everything else in the setup should keep you under it. In Shopify, a discount code can be limited in total and per customer, while the maximum number of uses per order applies to the discount itself. A hard cap on an automatic BOGO has to come from the per-order setting, stock levels or an end date. Limit BOGO per Customer walks through the options.

Setting up a BOGO promotion in Shopify

Shopify has no dedicated BOGO discount. All six types are built with Buy X get Y, under Discounts in the admin. According to Shopify's Help Center (read 2026-10-30), the discount has two sides:

• Customer buys: a minimum quantity of items or a minimum purchase amount, applied to specific products or collections. Only product prices count toward a purchase amount; shipping and taxes do not.
• Customer gets: a quantity, the products or collections, and a discounted value of Percentage, Amount off each, or Free. There is a setting for the maximum number of uses per order.

That maps onto the six types:

Two behaviors matter before launch. Shopify states that customers must add every item to the cart themselves, and that the free or discounted "get" item is never added automatically, so the banner has to tell the shopper to add both. And whether the offer combines with other discounts is controlled in the Combinations section of the discount; read Shopify Discount Stacking before you leave it open. The field-by-field walkthrough with a testing checklist is in How to Create a BOGO Offer on Shopify.

Say what the promotion is

The Federal Trade Commission's guide on the word "free" (16 CFR Part 251) treats offers such as "Buy 1-Get 1 Free" as ones to word with care and asks that the conditions be stated clearly at the start. Practical copy follows from that: say "one free pair per order" in the banner, not behind a link. A template for the wording is in BOGO Terms and Conditions. This is not legal advice.

Build it with the template

If you would rather start from a finished setup, the Buy one, get one (BOGO) template in Freebies Engine by Log Studio Lab covers types 1 and 6: choose the product, choose what the shopper gets, set dates. Compare the other apps in BOGO Alternatives, see the gifts section of the features page, and check plan requirements on the pricing page.

Native or an app?

As the table above shows, all six types can be built with Shopify's Buy X get Y and no app, as long as shoppers add the free item themselves. Shopify Bundles App vs a Promo App sets out where native is the better choice. If you need an app, Best Shopify Free Gift and BOGO Apps matches each one to the job, including where another app wins. To see a BOGO built on a real cart first, book a demo.

FAQ

What is a BOGO promotion? An offer where buying one unit earns a second unit free or at a discount. The second unit can be the same product, any product in a collection, the cheapest item in the cart, or a different product.

Is BOGO the same as 50 percent off? Only when the second unit is free. Buy one get one free is 50 percent off the pair; buy one get one 50 percent off is 25 percent off the pair.

Does Shopify have a BOGO discount? Not under that name. You create it with the Buy X get Y discount, setting what the customer buys and what they get, and Shopify never adds the free item to the cart automatically.

How do I stop a BOGO promotion from losing money? Put a number on the maximum giveaway before you start, limit it per order and per customer where Shopify allows, and check the share of takers who would have bought one unit anyway. If it is above your break-even share, make the second unit cheaper rather than free.