Every seller on Amazon has access to the same promotional tools — but not everyone knows how to use them strategically. Understanding all the types of discounts on range on Amazon available in Seller Central is one of the most direct levers you have to increase visibility, drive conversions, and manage inventory. The challenge isn’t finding a tool. It’s knowing which one fits your goal and your numbers.
This guide breaks down every type of Amazon promotion and discount — what it is, how it works, what it costs, and when it makes sense.
Sale Price / Price Discounts (Strikethrough Pricing)
A Sale Price, also known as a Price Discount or strikethrough price, is one of the simplest promotional tools available. You set a discounted price for a limited period (up to 30 days), and if your product has a validated reference price, Amazon displays the original price crossed out next to the sale price — both in search results and on the product detail page.
This visual cue has a measurable impact on conversion. Customers perceive a clear “before and after” that triggers purchase decisions faster. The key requirement is that the reference price must reflect a price at which you have genuinely made substantial sales — Amazon has tightened its policies on this significantly since 2024 to prevent fake discount inflation.
Fee: No direct promotional fee. You bear the cost of the reduced margin.
Best for: Products with a validated sales history at a higher price, seasonal campaigns, or situations where you want a visibility boost without additional fee exposure.
Watch out for: Setting a reference price that doesn’t reflect real historical sales can result in deal suppression by Amazon.
Amazon Coupons
Amazon Coupons are digital clip-or-click discounts that appear as a green badge on search results and product pages. Customers must actively clip the coupon before purchasing, which creates a sense of intentional saving. They can be set as a percentage off or a fixed dollar amount, and they run for up to 90 days.
Coupons are highly visible on search pages, which makes them effective for improving click-through rates (CTR), especially during product launches or competitive ranking situations. They also appear on Amazon’s dedicated Coupons page, giving additional discovery potential.
Fee (as of June 2, 2025): $5 flat fee per coupon created, plus 2.5% of total coupon sales. Previously, the fee was $0.60 per redemption. This new structure is more cost-effective for products priced under approximately $22, but becomes significantly more expensive for higher-priced items at lower volumes. If your product is priced over $24 with moderate volume, run the math carefully before activating a coupon.
Best for: New product launches, improving CTR on competitive listings, and products where the green badge creates meaningful differentiation in search results.
Watch out for: The $5 flat fee is charged whether or not your coupon drives significant volume. Low-velocity products can end up with a negative ROI on the coupon tool under the new fee structure.
Promotions: Percentage Off, BOGO, and Free Shipping
Amazon’s native Promotions tool (found under Advertising > Promotions in Seller Central) gives sellers three core options: Percentage Off, Buy One Get One (BOGO), and Free Shipping. These promotions work through discount codes or as automatic discounts applied at checkout when certain purchase conditions are met.
Percentage Off promotions can be set up with tiered logic — for example, “buy 1 unit and get 5% off, buy 3 and get 10% off” — which is useful for encouraging multi-unit purchases. BOGO promotions allow flexible configurations beyond the standard buy-one-get-one: you can set buy-three-get-one-free or spend-X-to-get-a-free-item. Free Shipping promotions let you gate free shipping behind a minimum order quantity or spend threshold.
An important option within this category is Social Media Promo Codes, which generate a unique shareable landing page and promo code you can distribute via influencer campaigns, email lists, or social channels outside Amazon.
Fee: No setup fee for any of these promotion types. Your cost is entirely the discount you offer.
Best for: Off-Amazon marketing campaigns, B2B customers buying in volume, rewarding repeat customers, and influencer or affiliate partnerships where a unique trackable code adds value.
Watch out for: Promotions set without claim codes can be discovered and shared publicly, potentially exceeding your intended promotional budget. Always set a maximum redemption cap.
Quantity Discounts
Quantity Discounts (also known as tiered B2B pricing) let you offer lower per-unit prices as customers buy more. You can create up to five pricing tiers — for example, standard price at 1 unit, 8% off at 3 units, 15% off at 6 units, and so on. These discounts are visible to both regular customers and Amazon Business buyers, and qualifying products earn the Business Savings Blue Badge on the listing.
For Amazon Business customers in particular, quantity discounts are a strong signal of a seller who understands professional procurement needs. This segment represents significant and growing purchasing power on Amazon.
Fee: No fee. You absorb the reduced margin at higher quantities.
Best for: Products with natural multi-unit demand (consumables, supplies, accessories), sellers targeting B2B buyers, and SKUs where you want to increase average order value without running a time-limited promotion.
Watch out for: Each additional tier must offer a lower per-unit price than the previous one — Amazon will remove invalid tiers automatically. Also, promotional prices run separately from quantity discounts and do not interact with them.
Lightning Deals and Best Deals
Deals are time-limited promotional offers that receive premium placement on Amazon’s Deals page, in search results, and on product detail pages. There are two main types: Lightning Deals and Best Deals. Lightning Deals run for 4 to 12 hours and create urgency with a visible percentage-claimed meter. Best Deals have flexible durations from 1 to 14 days (as of June 2025), with fixed dates only for major shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
Not all products are eligible — Amazon reviews deal submissions and requires a minimum star rating (typically 3.5 stars overall, or 4 stars for seller rating), and a minimum discount level based on recent price history.
Fee (as of June 2, 2025): Both Lightning Deals and Best Deals now cost $70 per day plus 1% of deal-attributed sales, with the variable fee capped at $2,000 per deal. The previous flat fees were $150 for a Lightning Deal and $300 for a 7-day Best Deal. During Peak Events (Prime Day, BFCM), fixed fees apply — $500 for Lightning Deals and $1,000 for Best Deals based on Prime Day 2025 rates.
Note: you pay the daily fee even if the deal generates no sales. The 1% variable fee only applies if the deal drives revenue.
Best for: Generating rapid sales velocity, clearing excess inventory, ranking boosts during high-traffic periods, and capitalizing on Amazon’s built-in deal shopper traffic.
Watch out for: A 14-day Best Deal costs $980 in fixed fees alone before the variable component. If your product doesn’t have proven demand, the daily fee can be a losing bet. Short, tightly timed deals during peak traffic windows typically outperform long deals with diffuse traffic.
Prime Exclusive Discounts (PED)
Prime Exclusive Discounts are available only to Amazon Prime members, displayed with a strikethrough price in search results and the Buy Box. They offer a different kind of visibility — not on a Deals page, but embedded directly into the standard shopping experience for the largest and most purchase-intent segment of Amazon’s customer base.
Eligibility requirements are stricter than coupons: the product must be Prime-shipping eligible, the seller must meet specific health metrics (late dispatch rate under 4%, cancellation rate under 0.5%, order defect rate under 1%), and the discount must be between 10% and 80% of the listed price, with additional constraints for Prime Day participation (minimum 20% off).
Fee: $100 per discount (increased from $50 in 2025). During Prime Day 2025, this fee remained fixed at $100.
Best for: Products targeting high-LTV Prime customers, improving Buy Box conversion without relying on the Deals page, and pre-Prime Day momentum building.
Watch out for: PEDs are only valid for 60 days, and eligibility requirements mean this tool isn’t available to all sellers or SKUs without adequate account health.
Brand Tailored Promotions
Brand Tailored Promotions (BTPs) are a newer and increasingly strategic tool that lets registered Brand Registry sellers offer personalized percentage discounts to specific audience segments — such as repeat customers, cart abandoners, brand followers, or high-spend customers. These are proactive, targeted offers rather than broad public discounts.
Unlike most other promotional tools, BTPs don’t appear as public badges in search results. They reach customers directly through targeted Amazon communications, making them a more efficient spend for brands focused on retention and lifetime value rather than raw acquisition.
Fee: No promotion fee. You only bear the cost of the discount itself.
Best for: Winning back lapsed buyers, rewarding loyal customers, reactivating cart abandoners, and building brand affinity with high-value segments without affecting public pricing or eroding perceived value.
Watch out for: BTPs require Brand Registry enrollment and are not available to all seller accounts.
There Is No “Best” Promotion — Only the Right One for Your Situation
After reviewing all the tools above, the key takeaway is this: no single type of Amazon promotion or discount is universally superior. Each one has a specific job. A Lightning Deal is a velocity and visibility play. A Coupon is a CTR and conversion tool. A Price Discount is clean margin management. A Brand Tailored Promotion is a retention strategy. Quantity Discounts serve volume buyers. Prime Exclusive Discounts target the most valuable consumer segment on the platform.
The sellers who get the most out of Amazon promotions are the ones who understand what they’re optimizing for — new product ranking, inventory clearance, LTV improvement, seasonal revenue spikes — and who match the right tool to that goal. Running a promotion just because it’s available, without calculating the fee impact and expected return, is how margins get quietly eroded over time.
At Capybaras Agency, we work alongside sellers to build promotional strategies that actually move the needle. We analyze the product’s price history, sales velocity, margin structure, and competitive positioning before recommending any promotional tool — and we run the numbers on fees under the current 2025/2026 structure before anything goes live. The goal is never to discount for the sake of discounting. It’s to use Amazon’s promotional ecosystem intentionally, as part of a broader growth strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I stack multiple promotions on Amazon? Yes. Amazon allows you to run a Coupon alongside a Lightning Deal or Price Discount simultaneously. However, each promotion is treated independently — and each carries its own fee under the June 2025 structure. Stack strategically, and always calculate the combined fee impact before activating multiple promotions on the same ASIN.
How much does it cost to run a Lightning Deal in 2026? Since June 2, 2025, Lightning Deals cost $70 per day plus 1% of deal-attributed sales, with the variable fee capped at $2,000. The daily fee applies regardless of sales performance. During Peak Events like Prime Day, the fee structure reverts to a fixed rate (approximately $500 per deal based on 2025 rates).
What’s the difference between a Coupon and a Price Discount? A Coupon shows as a green badge in search results and requires the customer to clip it before purchasing — this creates a sense of active saving. A Price Discount (sale price) shows as a strikethrough price and applies automatically at checkout. Both affect conversion, but through different psychological mechanisms and different fee structures.
Do Promotions (BOGO, Percentage Off) cost anything? The standard Promotions in Seller Central — Percentage Off, BOGO, Free Shipping, and Social Media Promo Codes — have no setup fee. Your only cost is the discount value itself. This makes them a low-risk tool for testing offer sensitivity, especially with claim codes to control volume.
What is a Prime Exclusive Discount and who can use it? A Prime Exclusive Discount is a price reduction visible only to Prime members, shown with strikethrough pricing in search and the Buy Box. It requires FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime eligibility, specific account health metrics, and a discount between 10% and 80%. The current fee is $100 per discount activation.
Ready to Build a Smarter Promotional Strategy?
Knowing the tools is the first step. Knowing how to deploy them — at the right moment, for the right product, with the right margin math — is where the real advantage lies. At Capybaras Agency, we manage Amazon promotions as part of a complete marketplace strategy, not as isolated tactics. If you want to maximize the return on every discount you run, let’s talk.