Buy X get Y and tier deals in CS-Cart.

The offers CS-Cart promotions cannot express

CS-Cart’s promotion editor handles coupons, order discounts, free shipping and gifts well. It has no way to say "buy 2, get the cheapest free", "every third item half price", or "10% off from 3 items and 15% from 5". Stores end up with one add-on per offer type, or a discount on everything because that is the easy option.

Advanced Promotions adds new conditions and bonuses to the same editor. It does not replace anything: coupons, dates, priorities, user groups, storefronts and Stop other rules keep working, and you stay in Marketing, Promotions.

Buy X get Y and other promotion recipes

With the same set, every complete group of X + Y items earns Y discounted items, picked from the whole cart. Buy 2 get 1 free with 6 items gives 2 free. A limit (At most N times) and a discount cap keep the cost of a campaign known.

Time windows use the store time zone and can run past midnight: 22:00 to 02:00 belongs to the day it starts. New conditions combine with core ones in all or any groups.

Product sets and exclusions

Every condition and bonus works on a product set: all products, or selected products, categories (with subcategories) and, on Multi-Vendor, vendors. Exclusions then remove products, categories and vendors, and two switches protect margin: Skip items that already have a discount, and Skip sale items, meaning items with a list price above the price.

Free gift lines and zero-price lines are never counted or discounted, so a free gift cannot trigger another offer.

How the discount reaches taxes, totals and vendors

This is where promotion add-ons usually cause problems, so it is worth knowing. The discount of a line is spread over its units and written like a core product discount, so taxes use the discounted price in both tax calculation methods. Percentages come from the line’s current price, after catalog promotions and higher-priority promotions. A line never goes below zero.

A discount that does not split evenly leaves a cent or two: one free item out of three at $16.97. With Exact order total, the default, the remainder goes into the order discount so the total is right, and you may see an order discount of $0.01. Round per unit avoids that line, but the total can differ by a cent.

Each discounted line carries a note in the cart, checkout and order details, for example "Buy 2, get the cheapest free: 1 × free −$16.97". Clear notes mean fewer questions. On Multi-Vendor, the split is kept exactly in every vendor suborder. With Direct Customer-to-Vendor Payments each vendor’s cart is calculated on its own, and vendors who may manage promotions see the same editor, limited to their own products.

Limits worth knowing

• The new conditions and bonuses are for cart promotions, not catalog promotions, so the offer appears in the cart. Product page prices stay the same, which keeps them cache-friendly. To show the offer on product pages, use a banner or Product Labels & Stickers Pro.
• Tier tables have up to six rows.
• Amounts are in the primary currency, and shoppers see them converted.
• Editing a placed order keeps the stored discounts, as with core product discounts.
• Cart notes need a theme based on Responsive: Responsive, Bright, Nova and most third-party themes qualify.

One add-on or several single-offer add-ons?

If you run a seasonal coupon and nothing else, core promotions are enough. For bundle pricing on selected products, Frequently Bought Together & Cross-sell offers an optional bundle discount. If vendors want to run their own campaigns, see Vendor Coupons & Automatic Sales. Get Advanced Promotions on the store.

Versions and requirements

CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor 4.17.2 to 4.21.x on PHP 7.2.5 to 8.3. The add-on works inside the core promotion calculation, with no own tables or remote calls, and prints nothing on cacheable pages. On Ultimate, settings can differ per storefront. Turning off Apply the add-on’s conditions and bonuses stops only its offers; core promotions keep working.