Hi - Our company is a Membership business where customers can choose between 2 standard membership prices. We offer price concessions for various reasons.
1) Is there a way to create a discount code that applies to recurring line item for a fixed number of payments (not indefinitely).
2) Is there a way for us at the company to apply a discount code to an existing subscription on the back-end, where the customer is not required to enter a code?
3) How can customers enter new discount codes if they are already on an autocharged subscription?
@juliachi1
Yes, it is possible to create a discount code that applies to recurring line items for a fixed number of payments.
You can set the discount code to expire after a certain number of payments have been made: Understand discounts when collecting payments
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
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This isn’t true in my experience. HubSpot Discount Codes can limited to a number of orders, not recurring payments. There appears to be no way to apply a Discount Code to subscriptions other than to the first payment. Unless I’m missing something it makes Discount Codes unusable for recurring payments.
Hubspot recommends Unit Discounts for recurrning payments, which would mean creating a different payment link for every class of customer. Online subscription commerce becomes impractical as you’re creating as many payment links as you have discounts and need to make sure customers use the right link. It also means you can’t practically limit the number of times a discount can be used.
In our case we offer online enrollment for courses with several possible discount codes. Hubspot just doesn’t work for applying discounts to the installment or “pay later” plans we offer.
While not explicitly spelled out, I confirmed this with testing myself. This is the table from the link above that describes the discount method to use for different scenarios. It’s a bit misleading because “Payment links” can have subcription line items:
Hi @PTancredi and thanks for your contribution on the HubSpot Community and for sharing the resources!
Just to confirm:
- You can set up recurring discounts for a fixed number of subscription payments by limiting the subscription’s duration.
- Admins can manually apply or edit discount codes on existing subscriptions in the HubSpot backend.
- Customers cannot add new discount codes to active subscriptions themselves; updates must be made by your team internally. If a customer is to receive a new discount mid-subscription, you might need to manually edit the subscription record or cancel and recreate the subscription with the new discount applied.
Thanks and have a great day!
Bérangère
Thanks for the response. Can you expand more on what you said about where you say:
- You can set up recurring discounts for a fixed number of subscription payments by limiting the subscription’s duration.
I don’t see anywhere where a discount code can be applied to a future payment when you use a payment link. All of my subscriptions are limited, but discout codes never apply to future payments. For example, for a payment link with a one-time payment of $50 and 3 monthly recurring subscription payments of $100 starting immediately (i.e. no delayed start date), and a 20% discount code, the payments will be as follows:
first payment: $120
- $50 one time payment
- $100 first recurring payment
- 20% discount
Second payment: $100
Third payment: $100
The discount is not applied to future payments. A unit discount would be applied, but not a discount from a discount code. Because of that, there’s no way to have a single payment link with a subscription that would support customer initiated discounts. You would have to supply a different payment link for each discount amount.
Hi @PTancredi and thanks for following up!
You’re right, discount codes entered on payment links only apply as a one‑time order-level discount at checkout, even if there are recurring items.
This means your discount affects just the first payment, while future subscription payments are billed at the full recurring price.
For example, with a one-time $50 charge, three recurring $100 charges, and a 20% discount code, you’d see:
- First payment: $120 (discount applied)
- Second and third payments: $100 each (no discount)
If you’d like discounts to carry through to all subscription payments, you’d need to set up a unit discount directly in the recurring line item ahead of time (using the line item editor). This lets you set a lower recurring price and limit the number of payments, but it doesn’t work with customer-entered codes at checkout.
Currently, discount codes on payment links can’t automatically apply to every subscription payment.
The workarounds are to create different payment links for each discounted price or to manually adjust the subscription after the initial purchase.
I’ve noticed a similar idea already present in our Ideas Forum: Discount Codes for Recurring Payments.
To contribute, you can upvote the existing idea and share more details about your specific use case in the comments.
Thank you and have a lovely day!
Bérangère
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