How the calculator works
Each row is a quantity break. The unit price is the regular price minus that row’s discount, and the margin is checked against your cost:
- Unit price = regular price × (1 − tier discount)
- Tier margin = (unit price − cost) ÷ unit price
- Largest safe discount = 1 − (cost ÷ (1 − minimum margin)) ÷ regular price
“Suggest tiers” uses the last formula: it finds the deepest discount that still meets your margin floor and spreads the tiers evenly up to it, rounded down to half a percent so the floor is never crossed. Any row that drops below the floor turns red.
Worked example
A product costs $6, sells for $15 and you never want to go below a 30% margin. The lowest price you can accept is 6 ÷ 0.70 = $8.57, so the deepest possible discount is about 42.8%. With five tiers the suggestion is:
| Quantity | Discount | Unit price | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–9 | 0% | $15.00 | 60% |
| 10–24 | 10.5% | $13.43 | 55.3% |
| 25–49 | 21% | $11.85 | 49.4% |
| 50–99 | 32% | $10.20 | 41.2% |
| 100+ | 42.5% | $8.63 | 30.4% |
That’s the mathematical limit. In practice most stores choose gentler steps — edit the discount column and watch the margin update.
Designing tiers buyers respond to
- Put the first break just above your typical order. If most orders are 6–8 units, a break at 10 nudges people up; a break at 50 is ignored.
- Match packaging. If you ship in cases of 12, use 12 / 24 / 48 — and consider requiring multiples of 12.
- Show the saving. A visible price table on the product page (“10+ $13.43 each — save 10%”) converts far better than a discount that only appears in the cart.
- Keep it short. Three to five tiers. More looks like a spreadsheet, not an offer.
Tiered pricing in WooCommerce
WooCommerce doesn’t support quantity pricing out of the box. Qtyra (free on WordPress.org) adds a tier table to each product or variation — percent off, a fixed unit price or an amount off — shows it on the product page with a “from $X” hint in the catalog, and applies it in the classic and block cart. It also enforces minimum, maximum and step quantities if you sell in packs.
Selling to trade customers at a different price level? Build the wholesale price first with the wholesale price calculator, then add quantity tiers on top of it.