Run Promotions, Discounts & Referral Programs

OpenPOS includes a full promotion engine with 8 different discount types and a customer referral program — all free. Most POS systems charge $25-50/month extra for this.

Promotion types

• Percentage Off — 10% off your order, 20% off appetizers, etc.
• Fixed Amount Off — $5 off orders over $30.
• Buy X Get Y — Buy 2 entrees, get a free dessert.
• Free Item — Free drink with any order.
• Bundle Deal — Combo meal pricing.
• Tiered Discount — The more you spend, the bigger the discount (e.g., 10% off $50+, 15% off $100+).
• Spend Threshold — Unlock a discount when the order hits a minimum.
• First Order — Special pricing for new customers only.

Creating a promotion

1. Go to Promotions in the sidebar.
2. Click New Promotion and select the type.
3. Set the details: discount value, minimum order amount, max discount cap.
4. Optionally add a promo code (or leave it auto-applied).
5. Set limits: per-customer usage cap, total usage cap, date range.
6. Choose whether it's stackable with other promotions.
7. Select which locations it applies to.
8. Publish — it goes through a lifecycle: Draft → Scheduled → Active → Paused → Ended → Archived.

The referral program

Turn your best customers into your sales team. Enable the referral program in Referrals from the sidebar:

• Set the referrer reward — store credit or a percentage off their next order.
• Set the referee reward — what the new customer gets (e.g., $5 store credit on first order).
• Set a minimum order amount to qualify.
• Optionally require the referee to complete their first order before rewards are granted.

Track performance in the referrals dashboard: total referrals, conversion rate, rewards distributed, and your top referrers.

Strategy tips

• Use First Order promotions to acquire new customers, and referrals to make acquisition scalable.
• Tiered discounts are great for increasing average order value — "spend $50 get 10% off" naturally upsells.
• Time-limited promotions create urgency. Use the scheduling feature to run flash deals.