An Amazon coupon is a discount shoppers “clip” on the listing, and you pay a fee each time one is redeemed. A promotion is a broader group of offers, such as multi-buy discounts, social media promo codes and buy-one-get-one-free deals, that apply at checkout under different rules and costs. On Amazon UK, coupons appear as vouchers. Use a coupon when you want a visible badge in search and a clean per-redemption cost. Use another promotion when you want to reward bigger baskets or give a code to a specific audience.
This guide explains how each one works, what they cost in the UK, how they stack, and how to decide which to run on a given product without damaging your margin.
TL;DR
- Coupons are percentage-off or money-off offers that shoppers clip. On Amazon UK you must offer at least 5% off, and you pay £0.60 each time a shopper clips the voucher.
- Promotions cover multi-buy discounts, promo codes and buy-one-get-one offers. Their costs are separate from coupon costs.
- Deals (Lightning Deals and Best Deals) are time-limited, applied automatically and sit apart from both.
- Discounts can combine, so work out profit per unit with every active offer stacked before you launch.
- Decide per SKU: check your price floor, your break-even ACoS and your stock before choosing the mechanic.
Table of Contents
- What is the difference between a coupon and a promotion?
- How coupons work for UK sellers
- Which promotions can you use besides coupons?
- Coupons vs promotions: how to choose
- Stacking: how offers combine
- Setting up and measuring a voucher
- Coupons, promotions and PPC work together
- Our view on offers and profit
- See your offer profit in Osellpa
- A simple process for your next offer
- FAQ
- Sources
What is the difference between a coupon and a promotion?
Amazon’s own seller guidance says a coupon gives customers a percentage off or a set amount off through an offer they can clip. A promotion, by contrast, can give a percentage off for buying multiple items, a social media promo code, or a buy-one-get-one-free offer. You can read the definitions in Amazon’s guide to seller promotions, which is written for the US store but uses the same logic you will see in Seller Central in the UK.
The practical differences come down to four things:
| Coupon (voucher) | Promotion | |
|---|---|---|
| What the shopper does | Clips the offer, or sees it applied at checkout | Gets the offer automatically, or enters a code |
| Typical mechanic | Percentage off or money off | Multi-buy discount, promo code, buy one get one free |
| Where it shows | Badge in search results, detail page, Coupons page | Detail page and checkout, depending on the type |
| How you are charged | A fee each time the coupon is used | Separate costs for each type of offer |
The naming trips people up. In the UK, Seller Central and Amazon’s UK guidance use the word voucher for what the US calls a coupon. Searches for “coupons vs promotions” almost always mean this choice: a clippable discount with a badge, or a different promotional mechanic.
How coupons work for UK sellers
For UK sellers, Amazon’s UK promotions, deals and vouchers guide sets out the main rules:
- You create the voucher in Seller Central under Advertising, then Coupons.
- You must offer at least 5% off the current price.
- You pay £0.60 each time a shopper clips it.
- Amazon deactivates the voucher once it reaches your redemption budget cap.
- Amazon advises activating the voucher at least 3 days before your target promotion window, to allow for review.
The budget cap is calculated from the number of clips multiplied by £0.60, plus the discount value. That means the cap is not simply a spend limit on fees. It includes the money you give away in discount, so set it with both in mind.
How shoppers see a coupon
Amazon’s seller-facing material describes coupons as showing on product detail pages, and they can also be found in search results, on the Amazon Deals page and on items customers have added to their carts. The US coupon cost and budget page explains that costs differ by offer type. A coupon badge in search results is the main reason sellers use them: it gives your listing a visible reason to be clicked without changing your list price.
The shopper clips the coupon, the discount applies automatically at checkout, and Amazon treats the coupon as redeemed once the order is placed. That is the point at which your fee applies in the US programme, and your UK guide describes the fee per clip, so check the live terms in Seller Central before you set a budget.
What coupons suit best
Coupons suit products where a modest discount and a badge are enough to tip a click into a sale:
- A new listing that needs its first sales and reviews.
- A product in a competitive search result where rivals show the same price.
- A product with healthy margin where a 5% to 15% discount still leaves profit.
Which promotions can you use besides coupons?
Amazon groups several offer types under promotions. The main ones are below.
Percentage-off and multi-buy offers
These reward customers who buy several units. They raise average order value, which helps when your fulfilment and advertising costs are per order rather than per unit. If you sell products that people stock up on, this often beats a straight coupon.
Promo codes
Amazon describes promo codes, also called claim codes, as alphanumeric codes you create for a product. Customers redeem them to get a specific promotion. You control who receives the code, which makes it useful for an email list, an influencer, a social post or a customer-service gesture. It does not give you a search badge, so it brings no extra discoverability on its own.
Buy one, get one
Buy-one-get-one offers move stock quickly and clear excess units. They are expensive per sale because the free item carries its full landed cost, so run the numbers first. If you sell multipacks, a virtual bundle can deliver a similar basket-building effect without a freebie.
Deals
Amazon’s guidance describes deals as time-limited offers applied automatically without a code, in two types: Lightning Deals, which run for 4 to 12 hours, and Best Deals, which run for 1 to 14 days. Deals appear on the Amazon Deals page and add urgency. They carry their own eligibility rules and fees, so confirm the current terms in Seller Central, since these change.
Coupons vs promotions: how to choose
Use the goal of the product, not habit, to choose.
| Your goal | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Win clicks in search | Coupon | The badge shows in search results |
| Raise basket size | Multi-buy promotion | Rewards extra units per order |
| Reward a specific audience | Promo code | You control who gets it |
| Clear excess stock | Buy one get one, or a deal | Moves volume in a set window |
| Launch a new product | Coupon, then review | Visible discount, controlled budget |
Then check three conditions before you commit.
- Margin. Your discount plus the offer cost must still leave a profit per unit. Our price floor formula walks through the calculation.
- Advertising. A discount raises conversion, which can make your PPC look better. It also cuts your margin, so the break-even ACoS moves. Recalculate it using the UK PPC break-even guide.
- Stock. An offer that works will draw demand. Make sure inventory can cover the window, or the sales spike ends in a stockout.
Stacking: how offers combine
Amazon’s coupon training guidance states that percentage-off and amount-off coupons combine with discounts from other promotions running at the same time. That includes Lightning Deals, promotions, sale prices, business prices and giveaways. A shopper can therefore receive several discounts on one order.
This is where sellers lose money by accident. Say you list at £20, run a 10% coupon and a multi-buy discount. The shopper may pay far below the price you used in your margin sums. Before launch, add up every active offer on the SKU and calculate profit at the lowest possible price, not the list price. Remember VAT too: the UK guide advises accounting for VAT at 20% when you set your budget, and our UK VAT guide explains how it affects what you keep.
A worked example
Take an illustrative product (these figures are an example, not a benchmark). It sells at £25.00 including VAT. VAT at 20% leaves £20.83 net. Suppose Amazon fees, fulfilment and product cost total £16.00. That leaves £4.83 before advertising.
Now add a 10% coupon. The discount is £2.50 off the shelf price, which is £2.08 net of VAT. Add the £0.60 clip fee and your profit per unit falls to about £2.15 before PPC. If you also pay for a click that converts at a modest rate, the sale can turn unprofitable. The same coupon on a product with £10 of margin is a very different decision. Always work from your real figures, SKU by SKU. Our guide to SKU profitability shows how.
Setting up and measuring a voucher
Amazon’s UK advice for choosing and measuring a voucher is practical and short:
- Set a budget cap you are comfortable with, and allow for VAT at 20%.
- Activate the voucher at least 3 days before the window you are targeting.
- Monitor clip-to-purchase rates weekly.
- Pause vouchers where clips are high but conversions are low.
The fourth point matters because you pay per clip, not per sale. A voucher that gets clipped but not used costs you fees with no revenue behind it. Weekly checks catch this before the budget cap does.
Beyond clip-to-purchase rate, track these for every offer:
- Units sold during the offer compared with the weeks before.
- Profit per unit after discount, fees and VAT.
- Advertising cost of sale during the offer.
- Organic ranking movement afterwards, to see whether extra sales stuck.
The simplest overall test is whether the offer produced more profit than you would have made without it, after paying for it. If sales rose but profit fell, you bought volume, not growth. That can be right for a launch or a clearance, and wrong for a mature bestseller.
Coupons, promotions and PPC work together
Promotions do not replace advertising. Advertising pays for visibility and traffic, while an offer gives the shopper a stronger reason to buy once they arrive. Used together, an offer can improve the conversion rate on your ad clicks, which lets you bid more competitively. Used carelessly, it erodes the margin that pays for those clicks.
A sensible routine looks like this:
- Fix your target ACoS using your post-discount margin.
- Keep campaigns for the promoted SKU on a separate budget, so you can see the effect. A portfolio budget helps here.
- Check search terms after the offer starts, because a badge can change which queries convert.
- Pause or lower bids when the offer ends, since your margin returns to normal and so should your bidding.
A strong listing makes any offer work harder. If the title and images do not match the shopper’s search, a discount only softens the problem. Review your title first, and if your review volume is thin, our guide to review rate benchmarks explains how to build social proof.
If you want traffic from outside Amazon to use a promo code, you also need content that reaches buyers. Some sellers use automated SEO content planning to publish regularly for a brand site or blog, then hand readers a code that redeems on Amazon.
Our view on offers and profit
We see the same pattern with sellers who run offers. The mechanic is rarely the problem. The problem is that nobody knows what the product earns once the discount, the fee, VAT and the ad click are all counted.
That is why we built Osellpa around clear profit tracking connected to Amazon’s API, with PPC automation alongside it. When profit per SKU is visible, choosing between a coupon and another promotion stops being a guess. You can see which products carry the margin to afford a 10% offer and which ones need a different lever.
Our automated advertising is designed to reduce wasted ad spend while an offer is live, so your extra conversions are not undone by bids set for a different margin. We want sellers of every size to have this level of visibility, without juggling spreadsheets.
Harry
See your offer profit in Osellpa
If you want to know what each promotion really earns, Osellpa connects to your Amazon data and shows profit by product, alongside PPC optimisation and alerts. Plans are published on our pricing page: Launch is £10 per month or £96 per year, Scale is £20 per month or £192 per year, and Advanced is £40 per month or £384 per year. You can also see how our profit and loss software works before you decide.
A simple process for your next offer
- Pick the product and goal. Launch, clearance, basket size or search visibility.
- Calculate profit at the lowest stacked price. Include VAT, fees and the offer’s own cost.
- Choose the mechanic. Use the table above.
- Set the budget cap and dates. For vouchers, activate at least 3 days early.
- Match your PPC. Adjust targets and bids to the new margin.
- Review weekly. Pause if clips are high and purchases are low.
- Record the result. Note profit, rank movement and what you would change.
Keep a record of each test. After a few cycles, you will know which products respond to coupons, which respond to multi-buy offers, and which should never be discounted.
FAQ
Are coupons and promotions the same on Amazon?
No. A coupon is a clippable percentage-off or money-off offer that you pay for per redemption. Promotions are a wider group, including multi-buy discounts, promo codes and buy-one-get-one offers, and each type has its own costs. In the UK, coupons appear as vouchers.
How much does an Amazon voucher cost in the UK?
Amazon UK’s seller guidance says you pay £0.60 each time a shopper clips the voucher, and the discount must be at least 5% off the current price. Your budget cap includes both the clip fees and the discount value. Always check the live terms in Seller Central before launching.
Can I run a coupon and a promotion at the same time?
Yes, and the discounts can combine. Amazon’s coupon guidance says coupon discounts are combined with other offers running at once, including deals, promotions and sale prices. Calculate profit using the lowest combined price before you start.
How far ahead should I set up a voucher?
Amazon UK advises activating a voucher at least 3 days before your target window so it can be reviewed. Set a budget cap at the same time, and check clip-to-purchase rates weekly.
