Otherwise
Shopify Functions
Every rule runs inside Shopify's checkout. No scripts, no theme files changed, no checkout of its own.
- On the Shopify App Store
- Built on Shopify Functions
- Works with Sidekick
Otherwise: discounts and checkout rules for ShopifyFor when a simple 
discount isn't enough
Tiered, mix-and-match and conditional discounts, delivery and payment rules, and limits at checkout. Start from a ready-made one, try it on a cart, switch it on. No code.
- Buy 3 save 5%, 6 save 10%, 9 save 15%+ free shippingDiscount
one discount, three tiers
Any 3 for $20, in any mix$20 for 3Discount
20% off, skipping what's already on sale20% offDiscount
At most 2 from the limited drop per orderCappedCheckout rule
No cash on delivery over $500HiddenPayment
VIPs over $150 get a gift, other VIPs 5% offGift or 5%DiscountSidekick drafted this one
Set it up yourself, or ask
Sidekick
Claude
ChatGPT
Grok Bot
MuseDiscounts
Every kind of deal, in one discount
Tiers, set prices, exclusions and conditions sit together in one discount, so each cart gets the deal you meant and never two that fight.
start from a ready-made one
what the customer gets
20% off, but not sale items
Quantity tiers
Buy 3 save 5%, 6 save 10%, 9 save 15%, all in one discount.
Spend tiers
Spend $100 save 10%, $200 save 15%, with free shipping on the top tier.
Mix and match
Any 3 for $20 from a collection, in whatever mix the customer picks.
Sale-aware
Skip what's already marked down, or take the discount off the original price.
Time of day
Happy hour from 5 to 7 pm, in your store's own time zone.
Different deals in one rule
A gift for VIPs who spend $150, 5% off for other VIPs.
Part-off shipping
50% off shipping, on the carts you choose.
Bulk discount codes
Thousands of unique codes on one discount, with a file to download.
The everyday ones too
BOGO, free gifts, free shipping and percentage off, next to the rest.
Checkout rules
A checkout that follows your rules
Cap what an order can hold and say why in your own words. Show each customer the delivery and payment options that fit their cart.
Block orders you don't want
one cap for the whole group
your own message
Delivery and payment, your way
renamed, moved to the top
hidden on big orders
Caps across a group
At most 2 from the limited drop, counted across every product in it.
Minimums, any mix
A minimum of 6 bottles per order, whichever 6 they choose.
Your own words
The message shows on the cart and at checkout, written the way you'd say it.
Hide, rename, reorder
Delivery options, by cart total, customer tag or shipping address.
Payment by order
No cash on delivery over $500, or only for customers you trust.
Wholesale terms first
B2B buyers see invoice terms at the top of their payment options.
AI agents
Tell Sidekick to handle it
Or Claude, ChatGPT, Grok Bot or Muse: any AI agent you already use. Describe the deal, it drafts the rule in Otherwise, and you check it before it goes live.
Give 3% off when a cart has 3 or more items, and 9% off at 9 or more.
SidekickClaudeChatGPTGrok BotMuseit builds the rule
you review it, then switch it on
Sidekick, or your own agent
In Shopify, ask Sidekick to create a discount with Otherwise. Or open Agents in the app, pick Claude, ChatGPT or another agent, and approve it in your admin.
It drafts, you approve
A draft never changes checkout. Whatever an agent saves is marked as its work, for you to read, test and switch on.
You set what it may do
Read your rules, also draft new ones, or also publish them. Remove an agent's access on the same page at any time.
Where it fits
A rule for every situation
The deals and limits stores ask for most, and how each one reads.
Limited dropsKeep a release fair, without a code or a queue.
One cap covers every product in the drop, so nobody gets around it by mixing sizes or colours.
- Counted across a tag or collection
- Your message on the cart and at checkout
- Switch it on for the drop, pause it after
Block checkout when the cart has more than 2 from Limited drops.
Bigger cartsA better deal at every step up, shown before they reach checkout.
Tiers by quantity or by spend, in one discount, with the next tier shown on the product page and in the cart.
- Free shipping on the top tier
- A volume table by the Buy button
- "$20 more for a free gift" in the cart
Spend $100, save 10%. Spend $200, save 15% and ship free.
VIPs and loyaltyA gift for some, a discount for others, in the same rule.
Use the customer tags you already have. Each customer gets one answer, worked out in order.
- VIPs over $150 get a gift
- Other VIPs get 5% off
- Everyone else pays the usual price
VIPs who spend $150 get a free tote. Other VIPs get 5% off.
Happy hours and flash salesOn at 5, off at 7, with nobody watching the clock.
Set the hours in your store's time zone, and leave out what's already on sale.
- By time of day
- Start and end dates, and a cap on uses
- Skips marked-down items
From 5 to 7 pm, 15% off everything that isn't already on sale.
Bundles and boxesThe customer picks, the cart shows one box.
Build-a-box bundles, where the items a customer chooses become one line in the cart.
- Any items from the box's collection
- Or a set price instead: any 3 for $20
- Box price and title on Shopify Plus
When the cart has the Snack box and 4 picks, show them as one Snack box.
Shipping optionsOnly the options that make sense for this cart.
Hide, rename or reorder delivery options by what's in the cart, who's buying and where it's going.
- Free standard shipping, moved to the top
- 50% off shipping on bigger orders
- By cart total, tag or address
Over $75, call Standard "Free standard shipping" and put it first.
Wholesale and B2BTheir own terms at checkout, from the same store.
Payment options and minimums for trade buyers, next to your usual checkout.
- Invoice terms first for B2B buyers
- A minimum of 6, any mix
- No cash on delivery over $500
When the buyer is B2B, put invoice terms first and hide cash on delivery.
Testing
See it work before it goes live
Make up a cart with your own products, pick who's shopping, and see what comes off and which step decided it.
a cart you make up
the path the rule took
Your own products
Real products, variants and quantities from your store.
Guest, signed in or B2B
See what each kind of customer would get.
Every version kept
Each save is kept with who made it, and any two can be compared side by side.
Storefront
Show offers before checkout
Theme blocks put the live discount on your product and cart pages, from the same rule that runs at checkout.
by the Buy button
on the product
in the cart
Added in your theme editor
Place a block, pick its colours and words, save. No theme code.
Always the live offer
Change the discount and the blocks follow.
Fast pages
Blocks read from your store's own data, so pages never wait on the app.
How it works
From install to checkout in five steps
What you'll do the first time, in order. Nothing reaches your checkout until the last step.
- 1
Open the app
After you install Otherwise it opens inside your Shopify admin. Home shows a short setup guide, how many of your rules are live, and ready-made rules to start from.
- 2
Pick a ready-made rule
Go to Templates and choose the one closest to what you need: a tiered discount, any 3 for $20, a sale that skips marked-down items, a limit on a product, delivery or payment rules, a bundle. It opens as a draft. Nothing reaches your checkout yet.
- 3
Make it yours
A rule is a short flow of steps, read from top to bottom. Click a step to change its settings: the percentage, which products it covers, the label your customer sees at checkout. Click a plus sign to add a step. Save keeps the rule as a draft.
- 4
Try it on a cart
Click Test. The tester starts with a few of your own products. Change the quantities, say who is buying (signed in or not, their tags, a business buyer, the shipping country), and see what comes off and which steps the rule took to get there.
- 5
Switch it on
Click Activate. Otherwise creates the discount or rule in Shopify and it starts working at checkout. Pause switches it off at once. When you change a live rule, checkout keeps running the earlier version until you click Publish changes.
Under the hood
Runs on Shopify's own checkout
Tested before it's live
The tester runs the same engine as checkout, so what it shows is what customers get.
No fees per order
A flat monthly price, however much you sell.
Pricing
Pay for what's live
A plan is how many rules run at checkout at the same time. Every feature is on every plan, Free included.
Free
$0 for any store
One rule live, of any kind.
- 1 rule live at checkout
- Unlimited drafts and tests
Starter
$19.99 per month
Room for a season of promotions and rules.
- 10 rules live at once
- Discount rules on metafields
Pro
$49 per month
More room, and the API for your own scripts.
- 25 rules live at once
- REST API for your scripts
Drafts and paused rules don't count toward a plan, and development stores are never charged. Shopify also has its own ceiling of 25 automatic app discounts in a store.
Guide
How to build each one
The steps to use in the builder for each kind of rule. Click a step to change its settings, and a plus sign to add one.
Tiers by quantity or by spend
Add a Split into tiers step and choose what it counts: items, or the cart's amount. Give each tier its minimum, then put a discount under each one. Buy 3 save 5%, buy 6 save 10%, buy 9 save 15% is one rule. Add a shipping discount under the top tier and that tier ships free too.
Any 3 for $20
The Set price step sells a number of items for one price. Every full set gets the price, and extra items keep their own.
A sale that leaves sale items alone
On a product discount, set Items already on sale to Skip them, and products with a compare-at price above their price are left out. Or choose to take the discount from the original price instead.
Conditions
A Check if step sends the rule one way or the other. It can look at the cart's subtotal, how many items are in the cart or in a group of products, a customer tag, whether the customer is signed in, how many orders they have placed, whether the buyer is a business, the shipping country or address, a discount code, a cart attribute or line item property such as an engraving or a gift note, the time of day, and whether the sale is in person. Use several at once, matching all of them or any of them.
Different deals in one rule
Each side of a Check if step can lead to its own action, so one rule can give tagged customers a free gift and everyone else a percentage off.
Codes, and combining with other discounts
A discount applies automatically unless you set it to need a code in its Settings. A code discount can have many codes: use Add codes in bulk to make them. Combines with decides whether your rule can apply together with other product, order or shipping discounts.
Rules for the checkout itself
- Block an order: a checkout validation stops checkout with your own message, for example when a cart holds more than 2 items from a limited drop.
- Delivery options: hide, rename or reorder them, by what is in the cart, the customer, or the address. The cheapest option always stays first, as Shopify requires.
- Payment methods: hide, rename or reorder them, for example no cash on delivery above an amount.
- Bundles: merge the items a customer picks into one line in the cart, or show a bundle as its parts.
Showing the offer on your storefront
Open Storefront blocks and click Add to theme. Your theme editor opens with the block in place; save it there. There are three: a volume pricing table and a discount badge for product pages, and a gift progress bar for the cart. They show only what your live discounts really give, and they need no changes to your theme's code.
Managing your rules
Functions
Lists every rule with its status and a switch to turn it off or on.
Versions
Every save is kept, with who made it and when. Open a rule and click Versions to compare two, or restore one: look it over in the builder first, restore it at once, or start a new rule from it.
Duplicate, export, import
Start a new rule from an old one, or move rules to another store and keep a copy.
Questions
Good to know
Which Shopify plans does it work on?
All of them. Two things need Shopify Plus, because Shopify limits them to Plus: changing the price or title of a bundle's line, and payment terms. The app hides those on other plans.
What does it add to Shopify's own discounts?
Tiers in one discount, any 3 for a set price, discounts that skip sale items, conditions like time of day, different deals in one rule, delivery and payment rules, caps across a group of products and build-a-box bundles.
How many rules can be live at once?
That depends on your Otherwise plan: Free runs 1 live rule, Starter 10 and Pro 25. Drafts and paused rules don't count, and development stores are free. Shopify also has its own ceiling of 25 automatic app discounts in a store.
My discount didn't apply. Why?
Open the rule, click Test, and build the same cart: the tester shows which step stopped it. The usual reasons are that another discount gives the buyer a better deal and yours isn't set to combine with it, that the rule needs a code and none was entered, or that a condition about the shipping address can only be checked once the buyer has reached checkout.
Can I try a rule without touching my checkout?
Yes. A rule stays a draft until you click Activate, and the tester runs drafts as well as live rules.
How do Sidekick and other AI agents work with it?
Ask Sidekick to create a discount with Otherwise, or connect Claude, ChatGPT or another agent from the Agents page. You approve each agent in your admin and choose whether it may read, draft or publish.
Does it work on draft orders and for business buyers?
Automatic discounts apply to draft orders when you choose Apply all eligible automatic discounts on the order. Rules can also tell a business (B2B) buyer from a retail one.
Will it slow down my store?
No. Rules run inside Shopify's own checkout. The app adds nothing to your storefront unless you place a storefront block, and each block is a couple of kilobytes.
What happens if I uninstall the app?
Every rule stops working at once. Two days later everything the app kept for your store is erased. If you want a copy first, use Export on the Functions page.
Do you keep my customers' data?
No. The app stores your store's details and the rules you build, and nothing about your customers. See the privacy policy.
Still stuck?
Email apps@spicydesign.ca with your store's address and what you were trying to build. We read every message.
Your checkout, your rules
Set up any discount or checkout rule yourself, or ask Sidekick. Free for your first rule.
