How do you offer a free gift with purchase on Shopify?

Does a Buy X get Y discount add the free gift to the cart?

No. Code or automatic, Shopify's Buy X get Y documentation leaves every item to the shopper, the gift included:

With an automatic discount, shoppers add the qualifying products and the gift, then the discount applies by itself in the cart and at checkout; with a code, they add the same items and enter the code at checkout. Before launch, add those items to your own cart and check what a shopper sees.

Which route fits your store: Buy X get Y or an auto-add app?

Buy X get Y alone fits when you can tell shoppers to add the gift; use an app whose listing promises auto-add when the gift must already be in the cart.

How do you set up the gift with Buy X get Y?

From Discounts, click Create discount, choose Buy X get Y and pick a code or automatic method. Under Customer buys, select Minimum quantity of items or Minimum purchase amount; the amount counts only the prices of Customer buys products, never shipping or taxes. Under Customer gets, add the gift product, and in At a discounted value select Free.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Discounts
2. Create discount
3. Buy X get Y

Zoom

• On a code or an automatic Buy X get Y discount, Set a maximum number of uses per order caps how often the gift applies to one order; see which limits an automatic discount can carry.
• If the gift's inventory drops to zero, it shows as sold out and shoppers can't use the discount.
• On an automatic discount, if both sections use the same product or collection, the lower-priced item the shopper chooses is the one discounted.
• Admin-created Buy X get Y discounts don't apply to the post-purchase page at checkout (see post-purchase offers).
• Except on Plus, products in the discount take no further product discounts; on Plus, the gift can combine with them on the same line (see how Shopify combines discounts).
• An automatic gift counts toward the store's maximum of 25 active automatic discounts.

Shopify's Help Center video below shows an automatic setup. It dates from August 2023, so trust the field names above over the video's screens.

Which apps add the gift to the cart automatically?

App Store apps whose listings promise it, like the four below. None of the Help Center or shopify.dev pages we read on October 27, 2026 (the Buy X get Y, automatic-discount, combination and Cart Transform docs) describes a built-in setting that puts a separate gift in the cart. Shopify's changelog of February 2025, which ended auto-add in checkbox upsell blocks of the Checkout Blocks app, says auto-added free gift promotions at checkout “will now require third-party apps available in the Shopify App Store.”

Read on each App Store listing on October 27, 2026; the promises are the vendors' own and untested by us.

Treat each listing as a promise: before launch, test the app in your own cart and, if you use Kite, check that it removes the gift when the cart drops below your threshold, as its listing promises.

For discount logic Shopify doesn't ship, shopify.dev points to Shopify Functions, which create discount functionality “that isn't offered out of the box with Shopify.”

The Cart Transform API changes how cart lines look and what they cost, with three listed use cases: expand a bundle line, merge lines into a bundle, or update a line's price, title or image. Its lineUpdate operation needs a Shopify Plus store (or a development store).