BOGO Terms and Conditions: A Plain Template

A buy one, get one offer fits in a banner, and a banner is where most stores stop. The questions come later: does the free item have to match the paid one, what happens if the shopper returns the paid item, can the offer run again next month. If the answers exist only in your head, your support inbox writes them for you, one email at a time. This page is a BOGO terms and conditions template you can paste into a terms page, and it explains each clause: what it covers, which part of the FTC's guide on the word "free" it follows, and where the guide says nothing and the decision is yours. It is a starting draft, not legal advice. Have a lawyer read your final text.

Why write the terms down: the "at the outset" rule

The FTC's Guide concerning use of the word "Free" is 16 CFR Part 251. Its section 251.1 names "Buy 1-Get 1 Free" among the offers it covers. Paragraph (c) says the terms of such an offer should be "set forth clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer." In plain terms, a shopper who sees "free" should not discover the conditions later, and a condition tucked behind an asterisk is not disclosure at the outset. The guide is guidance rather than a statute, but it is the yardstick for what counts as a misleading "free" claim.

Two further rules shape the template. Under paragraph (b), "free" means the shopper pays nothing for the free item and no more than the regular price for the item they must buy. You cannot raise the price of the paid item to pay for the free one. And paragraph (i) says that swapping "free" for words such as "gift" or "bonus" does not cure an offer that fails the guide, so rewording the banner does not rewrite your obligations.

The template, clause by clause

Replace the bracketed text. The commentary after each clause says what it does.

1. Eligible items. The offer applies to [product or collection name]. The free item is [the same product and variant / any item in the collection / the lower priced of the two].

2. Which unit is free. When two eligible items are in the cart, [the second unit of the same product / the item with the lowest price] is free.

3. Limits. [One free item per order / per customer.] The offer is limited to [number] units while supplies last.

4. Dates. The offer runs from [date and time, time zone] to [date and time, time zone].

5. Other offers. The offer [cannot / can] be combined with [discount codes / other automatic discounts / free shipping offers].

6. Returns and exchanges. [Return rule for the paid item, the free item, and both.]

7. Out of stock. If the free item is out of stock, [the offer is not available / the shopper may choose a substitute from the same collection].

8. Changes. We may end or change the offer [at any time / on notice on this page]. Orders placed while the offer was live are honored under these terms.

Clause 1, eligible items. Name the exact products or collection and say which variant is free. This is the clause that heads off "I thought it worked on everything." It also fixes the regular price question in paragraph (b): the paid item's price should be the price you normally charge.

Clause 2, which unit is free. With a same-item offer this is trivial. With a collection it is not, because the free unit might be the cheaper one. State the rule in words, then check your discount settings produce it. BOGO margin math shows what the rule costs when prices differ.

Clause 3, limits. Limits per order and per customer belong in the terms because a limit the shopper meets for the first time at checkout is exactly the late disclosure paragraph (c) describes. Limit BOGO per customer covers how to enforce the limit; this clause only states it.

Clause 4, dates. Give the time zone. Shoppers in other zones read a bare date as their own.

Clause 5, other offers. If your discount settings do not combine, say so. A shopper who stacks a code on top of a BOGO and finds it rejected at checkout should have been told on the page.

Clause 6, returns and exchanges. The next section handles this one.

Clause 7, out of stock. A free item that is out of stock while the paid item sells is how a BOGO becomes a complaint. Decide in advance, and write it down.

Clause 8, changes. Reserve the right to end the offer, and say that orders already placed are honored.

Returns of the paid item and of the free item

This is the clause where Shopify gives you least. Its help article on refunding orders documents applying a discount to a line item from the refund page, and says that discount "applies to the full quantity of that item, regardless of the quantity you select to refund." The article does not say how a refund amount is worked out for an item that was bought with an automatic discount, and it does not mention buy X get Y offers. We found no Shopify page that does, so treat the refund arithmetic as something to test on one of your own orders before you promise anything.

What you can do is decide the rule and state it, because the FTC's guide does not set a return policy. Three common choices, with the consequence of each:

A fourth rule, that returning the paid item requires returning the free one, protects margin and is clear to read. If you pick it, put it in the clause, because it is the kind of condition paragraph (c) says belongs at the outset. Free gift abuse covers the return patterns that make this worth deciding.

How often a free offer may run

Most BOGO terms leave out the frequency rule, and it is in the same section. Paragraph (h) says a single size of a product or a single kind of service "should not be advertised with a 'Free' offer in a trade area for more than 6 months in any 12-month period." It adds that "At least 30 days should elapse before another such offer is promoted in the same trade area," that "No more than three such offers should be made in the same area in any 12-month period," and that the seller's sales of the promoted size in that area with a "Free" offer should not exceed 50 percent of its total sales of that size there.

The guide measures this by trade area, a term written with stores in mind. For an online store we read it as the whole market you advertise to, which is our reading and not the FTC's. Applied to a BOGO, a plan that fits the limits is a run of bounded offers on a given product: no more than six months of "free" in any twelve, no more than three offers, and at least 30 days between them. A permanent "buy one, get one free" banner on one product breaks the first of those limits. Put a start and an end on the offer in the dates clause and track the gaps on your calendar.

Where the terms go

• Product page: the one-line condition next to the offer, with the limit and end date. Not a footnote.
• Cart: the same line in the cart where the discount applies, so the shopper sees it before checkout.
• A terms page: the full text above, linked from both. Link to it, but do not make it the only place the main condition appears.

BOGO offer on Shopify walks through the discount settings that make the cart match the terms.

Building a BOGO

Open the Buy one, get one (BOGO) template, which the app describes as "Buy a product, get another copy free." Fill the clauses above before you publish: the eligible product, the limit per order, the dates, and the combination rule. Then place a test order that buys the paid item, one that buys both, and refund each, and write down what your admin shows, because that is the text clause 6 has to match.

This is not legal advice. The FTC's guide is guidance on what it treats as deceptive; talk to a lawyer about your own terms and your state's rules.