Coupon/Discount System

A coupon/discount system allows you to offer reduced pricing through promotional codes that customers apply during checkout or that are applied automatically based on business rules. Stripe provides two related objects: Coupons (the discount definition: percentage or fixed amount, duration, currency) and Promotion Codes (customer-facing codes that reference a coupon with additional restrictions like expiration dates, first-time customer limits, and maximum redemption counts). Coupons can be applied directly to subscriptions or customers, while Promotion Codes are what you share publicly or with specific customer segments.

Coupon duration determines how long the discount applies to a subscription: 'once' applies to the first invoice only, 'repeating' applies for a specified number of months, and 'forever' applies to every invoice for the life of the subscription. For Checkout Sessions, you can configure allow_promotion_codes: true to render a promo code input field, or apply a specific discount programmatically via discounts: [{ coupon: coupon_id }]. For subscriptions created via the API, apply discounts with the coupon parameter on stripe.subscriptions.create() or add them later with stripe.subscriptions.update().

Building a comprehensive discount system requires more than just Stripe integration. You need an admin interface for creating and managing promotion codes with business rules (valid date ranges, eligible plans, customer segments, usage caps), analytics on code usage and revenue impact, abuse prevention (rate limiting code attempts, one-per-customer enforcement), and integration with your marketing attribution system to track which campaigns drive conversions. Consider implementing a discount stacking policy: whether multiple discounts can be combined, and if so, the order of application (percentage discounts before fixed-amount discounts is typical).