Quantity Discounts

Volume pricing is how print shops win bigger jobs. The engine's discount system is designed to be generous where it's cheap (materials scale) and protective where it isn't (your time doesn't).

Discount rule sets#

Discounts live in reusable rule sets — build one ladder and attach it to any number of recipes:

The engine picks the highest tier the order quantity reaches. Customers see the tier pricing in the calculator — including what they'd save by ordering more, which reliably nudges order sizes up.

The golden rule: discounts touch materials only#

A tier discounts the variable part of the price — material and area-based costs. It never touches:

• Fixed per-item costs (finishing labour, application tape)
• Fixed per-order costs (setup fees — these amortise over quantity naturally)
• Option surcharges (e.g. "Rounded corners +$6")

So a 40% tier on a 100-unit job discounts the vinyl by 40% — while your setup fee and labour are recovered in full. You can be aggressive with volume pricing without ever selling your time at a discount.

unit price = (material cost × markup × (1 − discount)) + fixed costs

Checkout always applies the right tier#

Here's the subtle part: what if a customer gets quoted at 50 units, adds to cart, then edits the cart down to 10?

The engine handles it. The discount ladder rides along with the cart line, and the cart transform function recalculates the price at checkout from the actual cart quantity — so the 10-unit price applies, not the 50-unit one. No exploits, no manual checking. Details in How the Price Reaches Checkout.

Related guides#

• Ingredients & Cost Units — variable vs fixed costs
• Recipes — attaching a rule set to a recipe