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WooCommerce Coupon Not Working (Troubleshooting Guide)

WooCommerce Coupon Not Working

Sometimes when you’re setting up a new deal in your store you’ll find the WooCommerce coupon not working. If you’re trying to troubleshoot this issue you’ve come to the right place.

This guide will take you through all the common things that might cause a WooCommerce coupon to stop working.

Go through each of the potential causes and see if it helps.

If not, we have some further suggestions at the bottom of the article.

WooCommerce Coupon Not Working: List Of Potential Causes

There’s a number of potential causes for WooCommerce coupons to stop working. We’ll go through them together one by one.

Cause #1: The customer is using the wrong code

Yes, it’s an obvious one, which is why it’s first.

Double check the spelling, test it yourself and check as a Guest user as well to rule out any other issues.

Cause #2: Check the coupon is in Published status

If the coupon is working for you as an Administrator or Store Manager user role, but not working for Customer roles or Guests then it’s likely the coupon is not in Published state.

The only way to change the status of a coupon is via the Publish box on the top right of the screen when you’re editing the coupon.

Check Coupon Is Published

Cause #3: Coupon has been restricted by usage limits

WooCommerce has coupon features that restrict the number of usages of the coupon.

You can restrict coupons based on the following:

  • Total use the coupon has had
  • Times a single customer has used it
  • Max number of items it can apply to

WooCommerce Coupon Not Working Usage Limits

Firstly, ensure that the settings on your coupon are correct the way you want them.

Next, make sure that your customer hasn’t hit one of those restrictions already. If they have that would explain why it’s not working.

Cause #4: Coupons have been switched off globally

Another potential issue is if the global setting that enables the coupon system has been bumped and turned off.

If so, it should be fairly obvious as the coupons area will be missing from the WooCommerce menu in the backend.

To fix this:

  1. Navigate to WooCommerce->Settings
  2. Go to the General tab
  3. Looks for the settings marked “Enable coupons”
  4. Ensure the checkbox titled “Enable the use of coupon codes” is checked and hit save

WooCommerce Coupon Not Working Due To Coupons Being Disabled

Cause #5: Conflict with another plugin

If you’re confident that it’s not a configuration issue with the coupon itself or the general settings, it’s possible that another plugin is causing a code conflict.

In this case, it’s advisable to do a “general debug” which should help you isolate what is happening.

To do a general debug you should:

  1. Disable all other plugins except WooCommerce
  2. If possible switch to one of the default themes (like TwentyEighteen)
  3. Check to see if the issue is still present
  4. If the issue is no longer present, start re-enabling plugins one by one, testing in between for the problem
  5. Continue until you isolate which plugin or theme causes the malfunction

If you can eliminate the problem plugin, do so. Otherwise, it’s time to reach out to that plugin’s author. Ensure you give them all the evidence that points to their plugin being the cause.

Cause #6: Out of date plugins or WooCommerce core

Another potential cause might be due to an out of date plugin or even an out of date WooCommerce core.

If you have updates pending on your Dashboard you need to keep up to date.

By letting your store lapse you run the risk of being hacked or your site malfunctioning as things get out of date.

Scared of pressing update? If it’s a big update I don’t blame you and I would actually recommend you follow the next tip.

If it’s only a patch or two behind, it should be pretty safe to apply. But if you have a person contracted to work on your site, always check with them first before processing any updates you aren’t sure about.

WooCommerce Coupon Not Working Still? What To Do Next…

If you still can’t isolate the problem then I’m afraid you might need to enlist the help of a skilled developer to troubleshoot the issue for you.

It might be something you installed recently, a theme code change, or simply an out of date system.

I recommend you look at hiring a known WordPress expert via Codeable.io. They only use developers with proven WordPress and WooCommerce and it’s quite cheap and affordable for store owners.

Problem solved? Great! Here’s a bonus tip…

If you’re interested in using coupons to promote your store then you should check out Advanced Coupons.

Advanced Coupons is a WooCommerce extension that lets you:

  1. Check conditions before applying a coupon to enforce your coupon offer terms
  2. Easily run Buy One, Get One (BOGO) deals
  3. Automatically add products on coupon apply
  4. Set start and end schedules for coupons
  5. Restrict coupons to certain user roles
  6. Automatically apply coupons based on cart conditions
  7. Show a coupon notification with one click to apply buttons when it detects a valid offer
  8. Generate coupon URLs for use in emails to apply coupons with a link

Click here to read all about the Advanced Coupons features. You’ll be amazed by the flexibility and the new types of deals you’ll be able to run in your store.

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24 thoughts on “WooCommerce Coupon Not Working (Troubleshooting Guide)

    1. Might be that the coupon’s conditions are satisfied to be added, but there is nothing to apply it to in the cart.

      There really shouldn’t be any difference between cart and checkout page though.

  1. Nothing is working…I’m afraid to lost my website because of that. Mounts of work!!! I don’t know more what to do 😭

  2. The plugin has been correctly setup and is active.
    However, the BOGO deal activates in the cart (cart page/widget), but as soon as the customer proceeds to checkout, it defaults to the normal prices on the checkout pages. Any known reasons for this?

      1. Similar concern here. BOGO works until address is updated or proceeds to cart. Then it duplicates the discount.

        Instead of ‘price override’ for free item of $0 it discounts the sale AND the cart. Thus providing a ‘double dip’.

    1. If you came from a lower version of WC, it will show an admin notice to move it over. If you don’t see that, go into WooCommerce->Settings and it should show. If that doesn’t work, its possible the scheduled action which moves it is stuck. You might have to go to WooCommerce->Status, Schedule Actions tab and run it manually.

  3. Coupon code works approximately 65% of the time. 45% is too high to be someone typing incorrect code (we even added different spellings in case). My web people cannot duplicate the errors so say there they can do nothing. This means I cannot use a coupon code on my store as it creates too many emails and having to correct and send a refund to too many orders. Do you have any ideas what could be wrong. I am not at all technical but will pass it on to my webpeople.

    1. Hi Barbara, have you considered having auto-applied coupons or coupons you apply with a click? Advanced Coupons does this and it could reduce complexity if your customers are having trouble. I’d also encourage you to use more standard naming instead of the auto-generated/scrambled coupon codes that appear when you click the generate button supplied by Woo. Often if you name them more simply and people will not have as much trouble.

  4. Our coupon code applies a 100% discount for an event ticket but the checkout button completely disappears when the code is applied and stops the registration process for our event. Any ways around this?

    1. Hi Randi,

      Even if the cart subtotal is $0, they should still be able to checkout. This sounds like it could be something theme specific. Can you test it against one of the default WordPress themes and see what happens?

  5. I have applied the Bogof buy x get x rule, the coupon is set to apply automatically and the discount is applied in the basket and shows a 100% discount to the added product which is correct. However below that the cart totals box shows the full subtotal amount and so the discount is not actually being applied. Can anyone help with this?

  6. Hi, I have an ongoing issue right now:

    After enabling “Advanced Coupons for Woo Commerce Premium”, every time I enter a simple percentage discount code, it says that the coupon was applied, but no actual discount happens.

    There are no other conflicting plugins, the product in particular is a subscription. Any help would be deeply appreciated. Thanks.

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