Overview
Buy X, Get Y is one of three discount types available on an Offer (alongside Amount Off and Complimentary Gift). It rewards a client for meeting a purchase requirement — the "Buy X" side — with something else, the "Get Y" side. The two sides are configured independently, and the reward isn't limited to "one specific item for one specific item": it can be a choice from a list, more of what they already bought, or a gift card.
This article is for practice owners, managers, and admins configuring a Buy X, Get Y Offer.
Before You Start
You need Marketing, Manager, or Administrator permissions to create and configure Offers.
Buy X, Get Y — like every discount type — is only configurable for In-App redemption. If an Offer's Redemption is set to In-Office, the entire discount configuration section disappears, including the Offer Type picker. There's no way to build a Buy X, Get Y structure on an In-Office only offer in the current builder.
The "equal or lesser value" rule is only available when the Offer is built inside a Promotion — not on standalone offers, membership benefits, rewards, or automated offers. Those surfaces share the same builder, but that one rule is switched off for them.
Have your promotion mapped out before you start: what has to be purchased, what the reward actually is, and whether you want the reward capped to the price of what was bought.
Why It Matters
The version of this most practices actually run in-office rarely fits "buy exactly one thing, get exactly one other thing." Real Buy X, Get Y promotions have exceptions: any one of several qualifying services counts, the reward can be one of a few options, or the reward is a gift card so the client can choose later. The current builder supports all of that directly — including a genuine "of equal or lesser value" rule that protects your margin by checking, before you publish, that no reward option can ever cost more than what the client paid to unlock it.
How "Buy X" Works
Item Logic — three ways to define what counts as a qualifying purchase:
Any Item — any one of the items on your list qualifies.
All Items — the client needs every item on the list.
Combination — the client needs to hit one combined quantity or spend threshold across the whole list, with no per-item minimum.
Item Requirement Type — Quantity (the requirement is a number of units) or Value (the requirement is a dollar amount). This choice doesn't apply under the equal-or-lesser rule — see below.
Selecting items is optional. If you choose specific items, each one (outside Combination logic) gets its own required quantity or value. Under Combination logic, there's a single shared threshold for the whole list instead.
Require Minimum Spend — an additional, separate cart-level threshold on top of whatever the item requirement already is.
A gift card can be a qualifying item. If you add one to the Buy X list, the Get Y side automatically switches to Gift Card mode — see below. You'll also see a note that gift cards on Buy X default to rewarding another gift card, and that you can switch the reward to a different item if that's not what you want.
Bundle-priced items are handled automatically. If a qualifying item only sells in fixed quantities (a 6-pack, for instance), the item picker limits you to purchasable bundle sizes, and a bundle purchase counts its full unit total toward whatever quantity requirement you've set — the builder tells you exactly how many units a given bundle contributes.
"Get Y" Settings — Three Reward Modes
Pick how the client is rewarded from the Get Y Configuration dropdown:
Same Item — the reward is more of whatever they bought. This is the classic "buy 2, get 1 free" of the same treatment. You set how many additional units they receive. If the qualifying item is bundle-priced, the field's language adjusts to talk about bundles instead of loose units.
Different Item — the reward comes from a separate list of items you choose. Inside a Promotion, you also get an option logic choice: Client picks one (the client chooses a single reward from your list) or Client gets all (the client receives every item on the list). Outside a Promotion builder — standalone offers, memberships, rewards, automated offers — this choice isn't offered; the reward list always means the client gets everything on it.
Gift Card — the reward is a gift card at a denomination you select from your existing gift card listings. This mode is automatic (and the only option) whenever a gift card is part of the qualifying purchase. The gift card goes to the client themselves — it can't be redirected to someone else.
For a dollar or percentage discount on the reward instead of making it fully complimentary, set a Discount Value the same way you would for Amount Off. Same Item mode can't be chosen if a gift card is already on the Buy X side — a gift card can't sensibly reward "more of itself" through that path.
The "Limit to Equal or Lesser Value" Rule
This is a toggle that only exists inside one specific combination of settings, so it's easy to go looking for it in the wrong place.
Where to find it: set Get Y Configuration to "Client buys X and saves on an item from a reward list". Keep Buy X Item Logic set to Any Item. Only with both of those true does a toggle labeled "Limit to equal or lesser value" appear in Get Y Settings. It's also only available for Offers built inside a Promotion — not on standalone offers, memberships, rewards, or automated offers.
The toggle's own description says exactly what it does: "The client pays for the higher-priced item and the reward is applied to the lower-priced one." That's the real BOGO logic — the client doesn't get to pick an expensive reward for a cheaper purchase.
Turning it on changes the shape of the offer:
The Buy X item picker is replaced by a single "Must buy" field — a number of units, with the note "With the value limit on, the offer qualifies on item count — per-item quantities, value and minimum spend don't apply." Per-item requirements, Item Requirement Type, and Require Minimum Spend all disappear once this is on.
The discount-value control simplifies into one combined choice: % off, $ off, or Complimentary.
Above the reward item list, a callout reminds you: "Each 'Get Y' option a client selects must be of equal or lesser value than the item they purchased."
The builder actively checks your reward list against your qualifying items. If a reward is priced higher than every possible qualifying purchase, it's flagged unreachable — "[Item] costs more than every qualifying item, so no client can ever choose it" — and you can't save until you remove it or add a qualifying item expensive enough to unlock it.
With the rule on, you'll also see, before you publish:
A line telling you how many of your reward options the cheapest qualifying item actually unlocks — for example, "A client qualifying with [item] ($X) can choose from 2 of 5 options."
A line reading "Most a single client can save: [amount]" — shows the maximum amount of savings for this offer.
There's also a "Copy items from Buy X Settings" shortcut that appears once the rule is on: it populates the reward list directly from your qualifying items, instead of you re-selecting the same services twice.
Gift Cards as a Reward
Gift-card rewards always default the offer's Per Client Limit to One-Time Use. A gift-card reward pays out real, spendable value every time it triggers, so an unlimited-use gift card offer could otherwise be redeemed repeatedly by the same client in one order. You can switch it back to Unlimited Uses if that's genuinely what you want, but it's worth knowing this default isn't accidental — it exists specifically to stop that case.
Restrictions: Two Different Limits, Easy to Confuse
Per Client Limit (Unlimited Uses / One-Time Use) — controls whether the same client can redeem this offer more than once, across separate orders over time. Only shown for In-App offers.
Per Cart Limit — controls how many times the reward can fire within a single order. This is specific to Buy X, Get Y offers redeemed In-App: if a client buys enough qualifying items to trigger the reward multiple times in one cart, this caps how many times it actually applies. It's about quantity in one cart, not repeat visits.
Set both deliberately — leaving Per Cart Limit unset on a "Same Item" reward means a large enough single order can trigger the reward as many times as the cart allows.
Step-by-Step: Three Common Structures
Buy 2, Get 1 Free (Same Item)
Example: "Buy 2 HydraFacial sessions, get a 3rd free." A client buying a course of the same treatment gets the last one on the house — a straightforward package incentive for something patients already return for repeatedly, like HydraFacial, microneedling, or a laser package.
Set Offer Type to Buy X, Get Y.
Under Buy X, set Item Logic to Any Item, Item Requirement Type to Quantity, select the treatment, and set its required quantity to 2.
Under Get Y, choose Same Item, and set additional units to 1.
Set a Per Cart Limit if you don't want the reward stacking on a large single order.
A true BOGO of equal or lesser value
Example: "Buy any injectable, get a facial of equal or lesser value free." Your injectables range from a $200 lip flip to a $900 full-face Botox and filler combo, and your facials range from a $75 express peel to a $250 signature facial. You want a client who buys the $900 combo to be able to pick any facial, but you don't want a client who only buys the $200 lip flip walking out with a $250 facial for free — the reward has to scale with what they actually spent. This is exactly what the equal-or-lesser rule exists for; a flat "buy any injectable, get any facial free" would let the cheapest purchase unlock the most expensive reward.
Set Offer Type to Buy X, Get Y, inside a Promotion.
Under Buy X, set Item Logic to Any Item.
Under Get Y, choose Different Item, then turn on Equal or lesser value.
Set the Must buy quantity (usually 1).
Use Copy items from Buy X Settings to populate the reward list from your qualifying items, or build the reward list manually.
Check the maximum client saving figure before publishing, and resolve any "unreachable reward" warnings.
Reward a gift card
Example: "Spend $500 on filler in one visit, get a $50 gift card." Instead of a discount at checkout, the client walks away with credit to come back and spend on something else — a retention play as much as a promotion, since the reward only has value if they return.
Set Offer Type to Buy X, Get Y.
Under Buy X, select the qualifying item(s) as usual.
Under Get Y, select Gift Card, then choose the denomination from your existing gift card listings.
Confirm Per Client Limit is set the way you intend — it defaults to One-Time Use for this reward type.
Best Practices and Pro Tips
Use Any Item when any qualifying purchase should count; use All Items or Combination when the client needs to buy a specific set.
Turn on equal-or-lesser value whenever you want a real BOGO, not a fixed-item giveaway — it's the only mode that actively protects you from an expensive reward pairing with a cheap qualifying purchase.
Check the maximum client saving figure, not just the sentence you wrote. It's your real worst case, not your intended case.
Set a Per Cart Limit on Same Item rewards if you don't want a single large order triggering the discount repeatedly.
Remember Buy X, Get Y — like every offer type — only works In-App. If you need an in-office version of a promotion, it has to be communicated and applied manually; there's no equivalent structured builder for it.
FAQs
Q: Why don't I see any discount options when I set Redemption to In-Office?
A: The entire discount configuration section — Offer Type, Buy X, Get Y, all of it — is hidden for In-Office offers. This isn't specific to Buy X, Get Y; none of the three offer types can be configured for In-Office redemption in the current builder.
Q: Why can't I find the "equal or lesser value" toggle?
A: It only appears for an Offer built inside a Promotion, using Different Item reward mode with Any Item logic on the Buy X side. It's not available on standalone offers, membership benefits, rewards, or automated offers, and it's not offered under Same Item, Gift Card, All Items, or Combination.
Q: The builder says a reward is "unreachable." What does that mean?
A: With equal-or-lesser value on, a reward priced higher than every possible qualifying purchase can never actually be redeemed. Remove it, or add a qualifying item expensive enough to unlock it.
Q: Can the reward be a gift card?
A: Yes — choose Gift Card as the Get Y mode, or add a gift card to the Buy X side and the reward switches to Gift Card mode automatically.
Q: Why is my gift-card offer limited to one redemption per client?
A: That's the default whenever the reward is a gift card, to prevent the same client from collecting multiple gift cards in one order. You can change it back to Unlimited Uses if that's intended.
Q: What's the difference between Per Client Limit and Per Cart Limit?
A: Per Client Limit governs repeat redemption by the same client across separate orders over time. Per Cart Limit governs how many times the reward can apply within one single order.
Q: Can I let the client choose between several rewards?
A: Yes, inside a Promotion — Different Item mode with "Client picks one" lets the client choose a single reward from your list. Outside the Promotion builder, a reward list always means the client gets everything on it.
Q: Does a bundle-priced item count differently toward the Buy X requirement?
A: A bundle purchase counts its full unit total toward the requirement — a 6-unit bundle contributes 6, not 1. The builder tells you the exact contribution for any bundle-priced item you select.
Support
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