Welcome Discount Popups: How Much Should You Offer for a Signup?

Updated Nov 9, 2026 5 min read

TL;DR

5%, 10%, 15% or 20% off? We compared how often different discount sizes turned into real orders across PopupBoost stores, and where the extra discount stops paying for itself.

"How much should I give away for an email?" is one of the questions we hear most from new PopupBoost users. Most guides answer it with a guess. We wanted to answer it with orders.

So we looked at every percentage-off prize won in a PopupBoost campaign and checked how often it turned into a real, tracked order.

Data note: Redemption = tracked orders using a won code divided by prizes won. Averages are per campaign, for campaigns with at least 100 wins in a bucket. Data from February to November 2026, aggregated and anonymous.

What PopupBoost stores offer today

Percentage discounts are by far the most common prize. Across all live and draft campaigns, there are 5,435 percentage-off slices, with an average value of 15.9%. Next come free gifts (1,969 slices), "no prize" slices (1,549), free shipping (1,300) and fixed amounts off (965).

On real orders placed with a percentage code, the discount came to 13.8% of the cart value on average.

Redemption by discount size

Here is how often a won discount became an order, by size:

Discount size	Campaigns	Avg. campaign redemption
1% to 5%	38	4.3%
6% to 10%	61	7.4%
11% to 15%	24	7.8%
16% to 20%	41	10.1%
21% or more	19	11.6%

Share of won discounts that turned into an order, by discount size

Two things stand out.

The biggest jump is from tiny to modest. Moving from 1% to 5% off up to 6% to 10% off raised redemption from 4.3% to 7.4%. A token discount does not feel like a reason to buy.

After 10%, each extra point buys less. Going from 6% to 10% up to 11% to 15% added only 0.4 points. Going to 16% to 20% added more, but you pay that larger discount on every order, including orders that would have happened anyway.

The 21%+ group looks best, but one store accounts for most of the prizes in that bucket. We would not build a plan on it.

Run the margin check before you choose

Redemption is only half the story. The other half is what each order costs you. A quick way to compare:

Profit per 100 winners = orders × (average order value × (margin − discount))

Say your average order is $60 and your gross margin is 55%.

10% off, 7.4 orders: 7.4 × ($60 × 0.45) = about $200
20% off, 10.1 orders: 10.1 × ($60 × 0.35) = about $212

In this example, 20% off brings slightly more profit per 100 winners, but only because the margin is healthy. With a 40% margin, the result flips: about $133 at 10% off and $121 at 20% off.

Run this with your own numbers before picking a size. If your margins are thin, a bigger discount can grow orders and shrink profit at the same time.

Free shipping often beats both

Free shipping prizes turned into an order 15.0% of the time in our data, which is three times the rate of percentage discounts overall (4.4%).

Share of won prizes that turned into an order, by prize type

It also tends to cost less than it looks. On orders using a free shipping code, the saving came to 11.8% of the cart value on average.

There is one catch. The average order using a free shipping prize was smaller than with a percentage discount ($46 against $134, in USD orders). If your products are low-priced, add a minimum order value to the free shipping prize so it does not eat the margin on small orders.

Use a wheel to mix prize sizes

A spin wheel lets you offer a big headline prize without giving it to everyone. For example:

20% off: 5% chance
15% off: 15% chance
10% off: 35% chance
Free shipping: 35% chance
Try again: 10% chance

The shopper sees "up to 20% off", which is a strong hook. With these odds, the average percentage discount per spin is under 7%, plus the cost of the free shipping wins. You set these odds yourself with win chances for each slice.

For more prize ideas, read spin wheel prize ideas that protect your margins.

Should the code expire?

Many stores add a short expiry to create urgency. In our data, codes with an expiry did not redeem better than codes without one. The samples are small, so we do not read too much into it, but it does suggest that a ticking clock cannot rescue a weak offer.

If you use an expiry, give people enough time to actually buy, and remind them before it ends. We go deeper in countdown timer popups.

Our recommendation

Start at 10% to 15% off, or free shipping if shipping is a real barrier for your shoppers.
Avoid anything under 6%. It barely moves people.
Use a wheel if you want a bigger headline number without a bigger average cost.
Run the margin check above before going to 20% or higher.

Then test it. Run your current offer against one alternative for two weeks and compare orders, not just signups. Our guide on A/B testing Shopify popups shows how.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good welcome discount for an email signup?

For most stores, 10% to 15% is a strong starting point. In PopupBoost data, campaigns offering 6% to 15% off saw about 7.4% to 7.8% of wins turn into orders, compared with 4.3% for 1% to 5% off. Larger discounts redeemed more often, but you pay the bigger discount on every order, so check your margin first.

Is free shipping better than a percentage discount?

In redemption terms, yes. Free shipping prizes turned into an order 15.0% of the time in our data, against 4.4% for percentage discounts. It works best when shipping is a real cost for your shoppers and your average order is not very small.

Should the welcome discount expire?

A deadline can help when it is honest and long enough to be useful. In our data, short expiry times alone did not lift redemption compared with codes without expiry, so do not rely on a ticking clock to do the work of a good offer.

Article by

PopupBoost Team

We build PopupBoost, the gamified popup app for Shopify. Our posts use anonymized data from the campaigns running on PopupBoost stores, so the advice comes from real results, not guesses.