Would you like to keep gift cards or a whole product category out of a reward’s discount, or stop them from earning points?
In this guide, we’ll walk you through choosing which items a reward discounts and which items earn points in RewardsWP. All you need is RewardsWP and a WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads store.
Requirements: Exclude items and Exclude sale items work on every plan, including Lite. Limiting a reward or earning to Specific items requires a Plus license level or higher.
- How Do Item Rules Work?
- Keeping Products Out of a Reward
- Keeping Products From Earning Points
- Giving a Reward to Only the Items You Pick
- Letting Sale Items Keep Their Sale Price
- Reviewing What Your Customers See
- Matching Items to a Rule
- Checking Store Versions for Dollar Off Rewards
- Changing a Read-Only Specific Items Rule
- Switching Between WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads
- FAQ
Before you get started, make sure RewardsWP is installed and activated on your WordPress site.
How Do Item Rules Work?
Two settings decide which items in an order a rule covers:
- Applies to, on a reward, chooses which items get the discount.
- Earns on, on Make a purchase, chooses which items earn points.
Each setting has two choices:
- Entire order covers every item, except the items you add under Exclude.
- Specific items covers only the items you add under Include. This choice requires a Plus license level or higher.
If you want to leave out a few items, such as gift cards, choose Entire order. If a reward or earning is for one product line only, choose Specific items.
A rule can name products, categories, and tags. On WooCommerce, it can also name brands.
Rewards That Have Applies To
Applies to is only on dollar off and percentage off rewards. You’ll find it in these places:
- Ways to Redeem: fixed amount discount rewards on every plan, and percentage discount rewards from the Basic plan.
- Advocate rewards: amount and percentage discounts on every plan.
- Friend rewards: the friend’s discount from the Basic plan.
- VIP entry rewards: discount entry rewards on the Pro plan, where the VIP program is available.
Free shipping, free product, and points rewards don’t have an Applies to setting. See Choosing reward types. Earns on, on Make a purchase, is available on every plan.
Keeping Products Out of a Reward
To get started, we’ll keep the Gift Cards category out of a dollar off reward’s discount.
Leaving items out of a reward keeps products such as gift cards from being discounted. The rest of the order still gets the discount.
Note: Referral rewards live on the Referrals tab, and VIP entry rewards live on the VIP tab. Their Applies to setting works the same way as the steps below.
From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to RewardsWP » Settings and click the Points tab.
Under Ways to Redeem, click Edit on a dollar off or percentage off reward.
In the drawer, find Applies to. With Entire order selected, click Exclude items.
In the search field, type the name of a product, category, tag, or brand. Then click the result you want to leave out.
The item now appears under Exclude. Items in this list don’t get the discount. To leave out more items, search again and pick each one.
The drawer’s summary now shows what the reward covers, such as “Everything except Gift Cards.” When it looks right, click Save at the bottom of the drawer.
The drawer’s Save only updates the page. To keep the change, click Save Changes in the bar with the settings tabs.
Next, we’ll keep the same items from earning points.
Keeping Products From Earning Points
Leaving items out of earning stops members from collecting points on products such as gift cards. The rest of the order earns as usual.
On the same Points tab, find Ways to Earn and click Edit on Make a purchase.
Under Earns on, with Entire order selected, click Exclude items.
Next, search for and pick the items that shouldn’t earn points, the same way you do for a reward. They appear under Exclude.
The drawer’s summary now shows what earns points, such as “everything except Gift Cards.” When it looks right, click Save at the bottom of the drawer.
After that, click Save Changes in the bar with the settings tabs.
Excluded items earn no points. RewardsWP counts points on the subtotal of the items that earn, after discounts and without tax or shipping. Points round down.
The points banner on a product page follows the same rule, so a product that earns nothing shows no banner.
See Earning points from purchases.
Giving a Reward to Only the Items You Pick
Sometimes you want the opposite, such as 15% off sun care products only. Specific items limits a reward, or earning, to the items you choose.
To start, open the reward, or Make a purchase, as in the steps above. Under Applies to or Earns on, select Specific items.
Under Include, search for and pick at least one product, category, tag, or brand. A Specific items rule needs at least one item to include.
The Exclude items link stays available below the Include list. An excluded item always stays out, even when it also matches an item you included.
With Earns on set to Specific items, only the items you pick earn points. Items you don’t pick earn nothing. A category you pick also covers the products you add to it later.
The Make a purchase row in the rewards widget then names the item it earns on, or says “selected items” when there are several.
See Understanding the rewards widget.
When your list is ready, save the drawer and then your settings, the same way as before. Your Specific items rule is now in place.
Letting Sale Items Keep Their Sale Price
On WooCommerce, a reward’s Applies to setting also has Exclude sale items. It stops a reward from stacking a discount on top of a sale price.
To use it, turn on the Exclude sale items toggle.
Items already on sale keep their sale price. The rest of the cart still gets the discount.
Exclude sale items is on rewards only, not on Earns on. It works on every plan, and only with WooCommerce.
Reviewing What Your Customers See
Your members see each reward’s item rules before they spend points, and again when they use the coupon.
Before a member spends any points, the rewards widget asks them to confirm. Under Before you redeem, it lists the reward’s terms, including what the reward applies to. It also shows how many points they’ll have left.
After they redeem, the coupon in the widget shows the same terms. They say what the reward applies to and whether sale items keep their price. The terms name up to five items.
At checkout, only the items the reward covers get the discount. If nothing in the cart matches, the customer sees a message that says why.
Next, here’s how RewardsWP decides which items match a rule.
Matching Items to a Rule
RewardsWP follows these rules when it checks an item against Include and Exclude:
- Exclude always wins. An item under Exclude stays out, even when it also matches an item under Include. This lets you include a whole category and still leave out one product in it.
- A category covers its child categories, and the products you add to it later. You don’t need to update the rule each time you add a product.
- A rule can name a single variation of a variable product.
- Brands are WooCommerce only.
Checking Store Versions for Dollar Off Rewards
A dollar off reward keeps its discount on the matching items with WooCommerce 8.8 or later, or Easy Digital Downloads 3.5.1 or later. With an older version, the store spreads the discount over the whole cart. The reward’s drawer also shows a warning.
If your dollar off rewards leave items out, update your store to one of these versions so excluded items don’t share the discount.
See Using RewardsWP with WooCommerce and Using RewardsWP with Easy Digital Downloads.
Changing a Read-Only Specific Items Rule
Below the Plus plan, a saved Specific items rule stays read-only and keeps applying at checkout. This way, the reward doesn’t start to discount items you never picked. The Specific items label shows a lock pill, such as Plus on the Basic plan. On Lite, the pill says Pro.
To change the rule without upgrading, select Entire order. The rule’s exclusions carry over.
After the switch, save the drawer and then your settings, the same way as before. The rule then covers the entire order, except the items under Exclude.
Switching Between WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads
With Easy Digital Downloads, the item search covers downloads, categories, and tags. Applies to has no brand option and no Exclude sale items toggle.
If you switch stores, RewardsWP keeps your item rules and free product picks. They work again when that store is active, so you don’t need to set them up again.
Until then, Specific items from the other store match nothing. Entire order rules skip the other store’s exclusions and cover the whole order.
That’s it! You now know how to keep products out of rewards and earning, and how to limit a reward to the items you pick. Next, to set how many points each purchase earns, read Earning points from purchases.
FAQ
Below, we’ve answered some of the most common questions about excluding products from rewards and points.
Do I need a paid license to exclude products?
No. Exclude items and Exclude sale items work on every plan, including Lite. Only Specific items, which limits a rule to the items you pick, requires a Plus license level or higher.
Why don’t I see Applies to on my free shipping reward?
Applies to is only on dollar off and percentage off rewards. To limit which items a reward covers, use a fixed amount or percentage discount reward.
Can I keep sale items from earning points?
Exclude sale items is on rewards only. To keep a product from earning points, add it, or its category, under Exclude in Make a purchase’s Earns on setting.