Overview
The Spend X to get Y earning rule is a milestone-based promotional rule designed to drive higher order values. It rewards customers with points, discounts, store credit, gift cards, or free products once their order reaches a set spending threshold in a single transaction.
Benefits
Spend X to get Y earning action is a powerful tool to increase your Average Order Value (AOV). By showing customers how close they are to earning a valuable reward, you motivate them to add "one more item" to their cart.
You can create multiple Spend X to get Y rules in your program with different spending amounts and conditions to target different buyer segments (e.g., spend $50 to get points, spend $100 to get gift card, or spend $ 200 to get a free product).
Plan availability
Rewarding with Points or Discounts (Amount, Percentage) is available on all plans.
Rewarding with Free Shipping and Free Product is available starting from the Entry plan and higher.
Rewarding with Fixed store credit or a Gift Card is available starting from the Growth plan and higher.
Step-by-step configuration
To enable and configure this rule, follow these steps in your Growave admin:
Navigate to Rewards → Points → Ways to earn.
Click the Add ways to earn button in the upper right.
Select Spend X to get Y from the list.
Set the Status to Enabled or Disabled using the radio buttons in the right sidebar.
Configure the main settings described below.
Configure the following fields:
Title: The public name of the action (e.g., Spend $100 to get 100 points).
Description: A short explanation showing customers how to earn the reward (e.g., Get rewards for spending a certain amount).
Language: Select the language version of your storefront and translate the title and description. Learn more about multi-language translation.
Action icon: Upload a custom .jpg or .png file (under 10 MB) to change the icon shown in the storefront. If left blank, it defaults to the standard price-tag icon.
Review the How it will work summary box in the right sidebar to verify your settings before clicking Save.
Main settings of the Spend X to get Y action
Reward type
You can configure the Spend X to get Y rule to issue one of multiple reward types:
Points
Amount discount
Percentage discount
Free shipping
Free product
Gift card
Fixed store credit
✅ Tip: For details on how to configure each reward type (such as code prefixes, expiration reminders, or discount combination settings), see our How to set up rewardable actions guide.
Reward value
Depending on your selected Reward type, define the value of the reward (e.g., enter 100 for Point value, or select a specific Free product).
Limit how many times a customer can get a reward
Controls how often a customer can earn a reward for reaching this spending threshold. You can limit repetitions per lifetime, day, week, month, or year.
Delay the reward
Delays the reward distribution for a set number of days.
⚠️ Important: If you set a delay period for issuing a reward, the delay may reset when the order is updated. For example, if the order status progresses (when multiple statuses are selected in Reward management) or if items are added to the order, removed, or refunded.
Available exclusively for customers with listed tags
Restricts the rule to specific customer segments using Shopify customer tags.
⚠️ Important: If a customer does not have the required tag, this rule will be hidden from the storefront widgets and account extension to avoid confusing ineligible users.
Required amount
Defines the spending threshold required to trigger the reward (e.g., 100).
📘 Note: Only orders where the Rewardable amount (subtotal minus exclusions) meets the set value will trigger the reward.
Global settings and exclusions impact
The Spend X to get Y rule is highly sensitive to your global calculation and exclusion settings:
1. Global Rewardable amount exclusions
Exclusions directly influence whether the reward is triggered. The spending threshold is validated against the Rewardable amount (Subtotal minus exclusions), not the raw cart subtotal.
If you exclude discounts, gift cards, or store credit from your calculations, and a customer applies them at checkout, or if you do not include taxes and shipping, this lowers their rewardable total. If it drops below your Required amount, the reward will not be issued.
2. Product eligibility exclusions
If an order contains an item tagged as excluded from the rewards program:
The cost of that item is subtracted from the order total. Their prices will not count toward the required spending threshold.
If the order contains only a single item and that item is excluded, the reward will not be issued. See how to exclude customers or products for setup details.
Stacking, limits, & refunds
Action stacking: A single order can trigger both Spend X get Y and other transactional rules (like Place order or Buy X get Y) in parallel. Customers will receive rewards for all rules they qualify for. To learn more, see the How to set up rewardable actions guide.
Multi-order accumulation: Spending totals do not accumulate across separate orders. The customer must meet the threshold in a single transaction to qualify for the Spend X get Y action.
Tip: If you want to reward customers points automatically per dollar spent across purchases, use the Place order rule instead.
Refund recalculations: If a refund drops the order value below the trigger threshold, the reward is reclaimed.
Example: If you set up several Spend X to get Y actions (spend $100 to get 400 points, spend $200 to get 800 points), and a customer gets a refund that reduces their order total from $200 to $100, the system will adjust the reward to the $100 action and deduct 400 points from their balance.
Double reward prevention: To prevent exploit loops, if the customer has already spent the earned points before the refund occurred, no additional points will be awarded or adjusted into negative balances.
Best practice tip: Set a reward delay on the Spend X get Y action that aligns with your store's return and order-processing policy timeframe. This prevents rewards from being issued immediately and then spent before a customer requests a return/refund.
Customer experience
Depending on you Growave plan, the following storefront widgets and account extension can be displayed to customers where they interact with the Spend X to get Y action:
Rewards pop-up widget: Displays under Points program → How to earn points section with a dedicated card showing the title and get Y condition. On click, unfolds the description with a Shop now button that redirects the user to the general catalog (
/collections/all).
Rewards page: Displays in the Ways to earn points grid with a card showing the title, get Y condition, and a Shop now button on hover. Clicking the button opens a modal with the rule title, get Y condition, description, and Shop now button that redirects the user to the general catalog (
/collections/all).
Rewards page extension for new customer account pages: Displays in the Ways to earn points grid with a card showing the title, get Y condition, and a Shop now link. Clicking the button opens a modal with the rule title, get Y condition, description, and Shop now button that redirects the user to the general catalog (
/collections/all).
If you have any questions or need assistance, reach out to us at [email protected] or use the chat icon in the bottom-right corner of your Growave admin panel. We’re here to help! 🤗