Discount stacking, limits & conflicts

This is the reference page to open whenever a discount won't save, won't apply, or won't stack the way you expected. It explains the exact limits that govern how many discounts you can run, how the app and Shopify decide whether two discounts combine, and the precise reasons a new discount can fail to create. Read it before you delete anything or file a support ticket.

The two layers of discount limits

There are two completely separate sets of limits at play, and confusing them is the single most common source of "why won't this create?" tickets.

Layer A — Plan limits (per subscription)

Your Llama Upsells plan caps how many discounts of each kind you may keep active at one time. These limits scale with your plan tier and are documented in full on the billing and plan pages. The active-count caps are:

Plan limits are about what your subscription entitles you to. Upgrade your plan and the limit rises.

Layer B — Hard app + platform ceilings

Underneath the plan limits sit fixed technical ceilings that apply regardless of your plan — even on Enterprise. These come from the app's internal constants and from Shopify's own platform cap. You cannot raise them by upgrading.

How each discount type consumes the Shopify 25-discount budget

Every discount you run ultimately becomes a Shopify automatic discount node backed by a Shopify Function. That node is what counts toward Shopify's store-wide cap of 25. Three things consume the budget:

• Each tier discount becomes one Shopify automatic discount.
• Each shipping discount becomes one Shopify automatic discount.
• The app's merged automatic-offer discount(s) — the discounts the app creates for your offer funnels — consume slots too, but with an important optimization described below.

The multi-campaign merge optimization

The app does not create one Shopify discount per offer campaign. Instead, when several campaigns point at the same underlying discount configuration, the app merges them into a single Shopify automatic discount to conserve the 25-discount budget. Internally it combines the discounts map (dsm) and the conditions map (csm) from all the campaigns into one node.

The practical effect: 8 offer campaigns may consume only 1 Shopify slot. This is why deleting a campaign does not always free up a Shopify discount slot, and why your Shopify admin shows far fewer automatic discounts than you have campaigns.

combinesWith: who decides stacking

Stacking is governed by a combinesWith setting on every discount, which tells Shopify which other discount categories it is willing to sit alongside. There are three categories — order discounts, product discounts, and shipping discounts — and the three Llama Upsells discount types treat them very differently. This is the heart of the page.

Offer (automatic product) discounts — fixed, always combine

The discounts the app creates for your offer funnels are hardcoded to opt in to every category: order, product, and shipping. They always say "yes, combine me." Merchants cannot change this — there is no toggle, by design, because an upsell discount that refused to combine would block the very order-level promotions merchants run alongside it.

Tier discounts — three merchant toggles

Each tier discount exposes its own combinesWith controls for all three categories: order discounts, product discounts, and shipping discounts. You decide, per discount, which it will stack with. All three toggles default to on, so a new tier discount combines with everything until you opt out.

Shipping discounts — two merchant toggles

Each shipping discount exposes combinesWith controls for order discounts and product discounts only. There is no shipping-with-shipping toggle, because two shipping discounts cannot meaningfully stack on the same shipment. Both toggles default to off, so a new shipping discount stacks with nothing until you opt in — the opposite of tier discounts.

Stacking matrix

Both sides must agree

A combinesWith setting is a permission, not a guarantee. Shopify only stacks two discounts when both of them allow the combination. If either side opts out, Shopify applies one discount and silently drops the other.

This matters most with discount codes the shopper enters. Suppose your tier discount is set to combine with order discounts, but the shopper applies a Shopify coupon code whose own settings say it does not combine with other discounts. Shopify honors the code's refusal: it applies one discount and drops the other, even though the app's discount said "yes."

Why a new discount won't create

When a discount silently fails to save or sync, it is almost always one of these exact failure modes. Work through them in order.

Three app discount types run independently

Tier discounts, offer discounts, and shipping discounts are three independent systems. All three can apply to the same order at once, and one not showing up is never caused by another being present.

If your tier discount isn't applying, do not blame your shipping discount or your offer funnel — they don't compete for the same slot and they don't suppress each other. Diagnose each type on its own terms using the failure modes above and the troubleshooting guide.

Worked recipes

Where to go next