If you sell low-priced products in a narrow price range, a fixed amount with a minimum spend is usually the more controlled starting point for a first-order discount; if your prices spread across a wide range, a capped percentage usually is. The real answer comes from the values of your first orders. Divide the fixed amount by the discount rate and you get the basket value at which the two offers cost you the same: a 60 TL code and a 12% code are equal on a 500 TL basket. If most of your first orders fall below that value, the fixed amount gives those customers a bigger discount; if most fall above it, the percentage is the more generous offer.
With the calculations below you can find that point in your own order data and see how the two discount types behave on small and large baskets, on cheap and expensive products, and when they meet a sitewide sale. We also show, with examples, what to write in the WhatsApp message and at the cart for each offer, how to test the two offers fairly, and which three figures to judge the result by instead of code redemptions.
Find the break-even basket with your first orders
A fixed-amount code gives the same discount on every order, while a percentage code’s discount grows with the basket. The further you move from the 500 TL break-even point, the wider the gap. On a 300 TL basket the percentage drops to 36 TL while the fixed amount is still 60 TL; on a 1,200 TL basket the percentage comes to 144 TL and the fixed amount stays where it was. Whether to pick a fixed amount or a percentage in your coupon settings depends on which side of this point your first orders cluster.
From your order export, take the first orders of customers who bought from you for the first time in the last six months and work out three figures: the share of orders below the break-even point, the median value and the average value. The share tells you which of the two offers gives a bigger discount to most of your new customers. The average lets you work out the cost: a percentage code’s average cost per order is the rate multiplied by the average first-order value, while a fixed amount’s cost is the code itself.
Take a store selling home and kitchen products. The median first order is 460 TL and the average is 560 TL; 57% of orders are below 500 TL. A few high-value orders pull the average above the median. In this store a 12% code costs 0.12 × 560 = 67.20 TL per order on average, about 7 TL more than a 60 TL code. Yet most first-time buyers, the 57% below 500 TL, get a bigger discount from the fixed amount. A percentage spends most of the discount budget on the big baskets, which are fewer in number; a fixed amount splits the budget equally across orders, so small and mid-sized baskets get a larger share. This calculation does not yet include a minimum spend or a cap; we add both in the next section.
If you send the offer some time after sign-up, take the distribution from the right group. Pushouse’s WhatsApp first-purchase incentive message goes to members who have registered but not yet ordered, after a waiting period you set, and can carry a discount code if you wish. A customer who signs up at checkout and orders at the same time never enters that list, and their basket may differ from that of a customer who signs up, thinks it over and comes back. Run the calculation on customers who placed their first order in the days after signing up. We showed how to choose the waiting period from the same records in the article on when to message members who have not bought yet.
Redo the calculation whenever you update your prices. The break-even point stays where it is, but as baskets grow, a larger share of first orders moves above it. With every price increase the fixed amount becomes a slightly smaller share of the basket, while the percentage grows with the price. If you use a fixed amount, review the code and the minimum spend on the same schedule as your price list.
Cap the percentage, set a minimum spend for the fixed amount
With a percentage code, the basket itself decides how much a large order costs you. In the example store, 12% of a 3,000 TL first order is 360 TL. A cap stops that growth, and the point where it kicks in is again a single division: cap ÷ discount rate. If you write “up to 150 TL”, the 12% code works as a percentage up to 1,250 TL and as a fixed 150 TL code above 1,250 TL.
Set the cap at a value that only a small slice of your first orders exceeds. In a store where one in ten first orders is above 1,250 TL, a 150 TL cap never applies to nine out of ten orders and only fixes the cost of the largest baskets. If you set the cap too low, say at 60 TL, the code is no different from a fixed amount on every basket above 500 TL, and the 12% in your message is not what those customers get.
With a fixed-amount code, the discount’s share of the basket grows as the basket shrinks. 60 TL is 15% of a 400 TL basket and 30% of a 200 TL basket; on a single 150 TL product it reaches 40% of the price. That is why a minimum spend is an essential part of a fixed-amount code. We worked out what minimum to set, why even a percentage code may need a small one, and how much profit the coupon leaves on the smallest order in the article on welcome coupon validity and minimum spend.
A minimum spend also gives a fixed-amount code a target. Below the minimum the code does not work at all, and once the minimum is passed, adding products does not change the discount; if the minimum is 400 TL, a customer with a 340 TL basket has to add at least 60 TL of products to use the code. A percentage code creates no such target as long as its minimum is low: every extra product increases the discount a little, but there is no particular value the customer is trying to reach.
The difference becomes clear when you put the two offers side by side with their conditions. Suppose the example store is choosing between “60 TL off orders of 400 TL or more” and “12% off orders of 250 TL or more, up to 150 TL”. On a 300 TL basket the first offer gives nothing and the second gives 36 TL. On a 450 TL basket the first gives 60 TL and the second 54 TL; on a 2,000 TL basket the first is still 60 TL and the second 150 TL. The fixed-amount offer spreads its budget evenly over baskets above 400 TL and gives those just below the minimum a reason to add to their basket; the percentage offer gives every basket above 250 TL a share in proportion to its size until it reaches the cap. If you want to grow the first basket, the first offer serves you better; if you also want to make small first orders a little cheaper, the second does.
Whichever type you choose, check separately whether giving a code pays off at all. We explained the multiplier that shows how much a code has to increase orders to match the profit of a message without one in the article that weighs whether to give a code to a customer who left a cart; the same calculation works for a first-order offer.
Choose your starting type by your price range
In a catalog of low prices that sit close together, both types have a weak spot. Suppose a store selling phone accessories has most products between 120 and 350 TL and a median first order of 240 TL. A 10% code is worth 24 TL on the median basket; it does not grow single-item orders that barely cover shipping and packing, it only makes them cheaper. A fixed 50 TL with no minimum, on the other hand, comes to about 39% of the price of a single 129 TL phone case.
In a catalog like this it usually makes more sense to use a fixed amount with a minimum that ties it to a basket of two or three items. An offer such as “50 TL off orders of 350 TL or more” can turn a first order of a single case into a basket of a case, a screen protector and a charging cable, and the shipping cost is spread over a larger order. If your first orders already consist of several items, you can choose the percentage: the code stays proportional to the basket, and you can keep the minimum just high enough to cover your per-order costs.
When prices spread across a wide range, the picture reverses. In a store selling small appliances and furniture, a first order can be a 1,900 TL toaster or a 28,000 TL sofa set. A fixed 400 TL is 21% of the toaster’s price and 1.4% of the sofa set’s; it strains the margin on the cheap product and stays a small fraction of the price on the expensive one. A 5% code gives the same rate on both: 95 TL and 1,400 TL. Because the percentage stays in proportion to the product’s price, it is the more consistent offer in this catalog.
Use a cap here as well. A cap such as “up to 1,200 TL” fixes the discount on orders above 24,000 TL. If your platform supports tiered coupons, a second option is a fixed amount in several steps, for example 150 TL off 2,500 TL or more and 600 TL off 10,000 TL or more. Each step’s own minimum protects the margin on cheap products, and you know in advance what each order will cost you.
Free shipping, the third option, works like a fixed amount; and if your site has a free-shipping threshold, it only reaches baskets below that threshold. Its value to the customer is the shipping fee they would normally pay, and its cost to you is giving up that fee. To decide, look at your threshold instead of the break-even point. If your threshold is 1,100 TL and most of your first orders are above it, the offer gives most new customers nothing; if most are below it, each of them gets a discount equal to your shipping fee. You can find a calculation that compares free shipping with a discount and a gift voucher on profit in the article on birthday campaigns.
Use the same figures in the message and at the cart
A fixed-amount offer fits on one line with its amount, minimum spend and end date. In a percentage offer, the rate alone does not tell the customer how much discount they will see at the cart. If there is a cap, write it in TL right next to the rate; a customer who expects 240 TL from 12% on a 2,000 TL basket and sees 150 TL at the cart may think the code is broken. The example store’s two offers could read like this in a message:
Hi {{customer name}}, your 60 TL discount code for your first order is ready: {{coupon code}}
Valid on orders of 400 TL or more until 23:59 on {{end date}}. Browse the store: {{store link}}
To leave the list, just tap the button below.
Hi {{customer name}}, we’ve set up 12% off (up to 150 TL) for your first order. Your code: {{coupon code}}
The code is valid until 23:59 on {{end date}} on baskets of 250 TL or more. New arrivals: {{category link}}
To leave the list, just tap the button below.
Make the same figures visible at the cart. For both types, show the discount in TL on a separate line with the code’s name; for a percentage code, put the rate and the cap in that line: “First-order discount (12%, up to 150 TL): −150 TL”. On a basket below the minimum, a generic warning such as “Invalid code” does not tell the customer why. If your platform lets you change the warning text, show the amount missing: “This code is valid on orders of 400 TL or more; add 55 TL more to your basket.”
The minimum spend and the cap are among the terms that, under Article 5 of Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce (Elektronik Ticaretin Düzenlenmesi Hakkında Kanun), must be easy to find and written clearly enough to leave no room for doubt; since 1 August 2026 the rules on discounted-sale advertising have also applied to adverts for discounts tied to a minimum spend, and you can find the details in the article on spreading campaign announcements across the pages of your site.
If you give the offer at sign-up, the welcome message has to carry the same information in full. You can add a welcome gift voucher to the WhatsApp welcome message for new members if you wish; in this module the code is checked when a message with a coupon is sent, and no customer is sent a discount code that does not work. A working code does not prove that the amount, minimum and cap in the message match the conditions you entered when you set up the code; check the two together after every change.
If you also announce the offer on your site, the same three pieces of information belong there. In Pushouse’s discount tab you write the content in up to three blocks, a title, a description and a footnote; you can put the offer in the title, the minimum spend in the description, and the cap and end date in the footnote.
Recalculate both types before the sale week starts
During a sitewide sale, the first-order code sits on top of discounted prices, and this is where the two types part ways. If the code applies to the total after the sale discount, the TL value of a percentage shrinks along with prices. The fixed amount stays the same; as price and profit shrink, its share of the order grows.
Take a basket worth 550 TL at list prices in the example store. In a normal week, at a 42% margin, this basket leaves 231 TL of gross profit; the 12% code takes about 29% of that profit with 66 TL, and the 60 TL code takes 26%. With a 20% sitewide discount the same basket drops to 440 TL, and since the products cost 319 TL, gross profit falls to 121 TL. If the codes can be combined with the sale, the 12% code takes 44% of the remaining profit with 52.80 TL, and the 60 TL code takes 50%.
Even if the code’s conditions stay the same, sale prices pull baskets down. If your platform applies the minimum spend to the total after the sale discount, a basket worth 480 TL at list prices drops to 384 TL and falls below the 400 TL minimum; the code no longer works on a basket it worked on the week before. A larger share of the baskets above the minimum also drops below the 500 TL break-even point, which means that in these weeks the fixed amount gives a bigger discount than the percentage on more orders.
We weighed whether to combine the code with the sale discount, and what to do instead if you do not, in the article on welcome coupon terms; make that decision before the sale week starts. If you allow stacking, the percentage brings fewer surprises because its cost shrinks with the discounted price. If you leave the fixed amount stackable, recalculate the amount and the minimum at sale prices. When two percentages are applied one after the other, the total discount is smaller than the sum of the two rates; you can find how to state the total discount to customers in the article on announcing a sale.
Test both types under the same conditions and judge them by three figures
The calculations give you a starting point; the answer to the fixed-amount-or-percentage question for your own members comes from testing the two types. You cannot know in advance which one will move your new members more. Nor does the number of code redemptions measure it. The type that is more generous for your basket distribution can be expected to be used more, and some of the customers who use the code would most likely have placed their first order without it.
Set up the test in one of two ways. If your messaging tool lets you split members into two groups in the same period and send each group a different code, that is the most reliable approach; members with odd membership numbers could get the fixed amount and those with even numbers the percentage. If you cannot split them like that, alternate periods: two weeks of the fixed amount, two weeks of the percentage, then the same sequence once more. If you compare a single period with another single period, the difference may come from payday, the weather or an ad you ran that week; repeating the sequence spreads these effects across both types. Leave weeks with a sitewide sale out of the test. We listed the other conditions, such as counting orders over the same period and by the same rule in both groups, in the article on reading send, click and sales reports.
Judge each group by all the first orders that came from it; orders placed without the code count too. Look at three figures:
- Divide the total discount you gave the group by the number of first orders from that group; the result is the cost per first order.
- The median first-order value shows whether the minimum spend grew the first basket; count separately how many orders hit the cap.
- The second-order rate is the share of first-time buyers who order again within a period that suits your products, for example 90 days.
Do not skip the third figure. In a study of customer acquisition promotions published in the Journal of Marketing Research in 2006, Michael Lewis examined customer data from a newspaper and an online grocer; in both data sets, the deeper the discount used to win the customer, the lower the repeat-purchase rate and the customer’s long-term value. In the study’s example, customers won with a 35% discount had about half the long-term value of those acquired without a promotion. The finding we cite concerns the depth of the discount; still, if the type you choose gives some new customers a much deeper discount than others, for example small baskets just above the minimum, look at those customers’ second orders separately.
Suppose each group has 1,000 members. The fixed-amount group produced 78 first orders within 30 days, 64 of them with the code; total discount 64 × 60 = 3,840 TL, a cost of about 49 TL per first order. The group’s median first order was 520 TL, and 18 people placed a second order within 90 days, about 23%. The percentage group produced 85 first orders, 79 of them with the code; at an average of 63 TL per code, total discount 4,977 TL, a cost of about 59 TL per first order. Median 455 TL, and 14 people placed a second order, about 16%.
Someone looking only at code redemptions would pick the percentage, 79 against 64. The three figures point the other way. The percentage made each first order about 10 TL more expensive, the first basket stayed smaller and the share of customers coming back for a second order fell. Even so, the 7 extra first orders from the percentage and the four-person gap in second orders are small enough to arise by chance in groups of 1,000. Do not switch types until you see the same direction in a second round; if you have few members, run each round for longer.
Once the winning type is clear, move the offer line into your permanent message. You can see who the incentive message goes to, when, and which members it never reaches on the first-purchase incentive page.
