How to set up a 'Buy X units get cheapest product free' offer ?
Offering the cheapest item for free is a powerful promotional strategy for Shopify stores. It encourages customers to add more items to their cart while protecting your margins by discounting the lowest-priced product. Instead of manually calculating discounts, this offer allow merchants to automate the promotion with flexible rules and clear conditions. This makes it easier to run offers like “Buy 2, Get the Cheapest Free” or “Buy 3 Items, Get the Lowest-Priced Item Free.” Below is a step-by-step guide to setting up this promotion.
How to set it up?
Here is an example of what this offer will look like live at the product page and cart step -
Offer Creation
Go to 'Create Offer' on the top right of the Manage offers page in Monk > Create Offer > Go to Gifts, Shipping and Cart goals > General free gifts > Cheapest item
Under the 'Create offer' section, you'll find a variety of templates to choose from. If your offer structure aligns with one of these templates, you can proceed with it. If not, you also have the option to custom build your offer (from the top right) as shown below -
To automatically add a free gift to the customer's cart, please select display method as 'Cheapest item'.
Display
On step 1 of the offer setup, you can select where you wish to position the offer banner for the cheapest item free offer.
Eligibility Rules
After setting up the display, you can set up the eligibility rules for the free gift offer to be triggered - to set it up for a specific location, locale, customer tags etc. The 'count of items in cart' trigger will be selected by default with a minimum count of 2, which can be changed as per the offer requirements.
Offer Settings
Under Step 1 , you have the following settings with respect to auto adding the cheapest item as the free gift to the customer's cart -
- Free Gift setup
Show banner when eligible - This setting comes into picture if you are using the eligibility rule of 'Specific Products'. If enabled, the banner will be visible only for the selected trigger products. If disabled, the banner will be visible across all products on your store.
- Schedule offer for future
You can also schedule the offer for a specific date range from Step 1 of the offer set up, using this setting below -
Content and Display
Step 2 of the offer setup is where you can change and/or translate the text and design of the offer banner as per your requirements-
Clicking on 'Edit Display and Design' will open the global editing options of the widget including elements like font, colors, spacing of the widget for both mobile and desktop view. You can also edit the exact offer offer body configurations like the font, text styles or color. After making the changes you can click on Save changes > Activate offer to display the offer on your store.
Frequently Asked Questions
1) Can I use a discount code to add the cheapest item as a free gift to cart?
While the cheapest item cannot be added as free using a discount code, a discount code can be configured with the app that automatically add a pre-selected free gift to the cart upon usage. Please refer to this document on how to set it up. If you wish to set this up at Checkout, please click here (checkout features are exclusive for stores on Shopify Plus)
2) Why is the discount not getting applied?
In case the cheapest item is not getting added as free in cart, please reach out to us via live chat/email support and we will get it checked.
If you have any other questions or queries please reach out to us via chat support or write to us at support@monkcommerce.com
Updated on: 24/04/2026