A quantity break table shows the price at each quantity tier — buy 3 save 10%, buy 5 save 15% — and it works or fails on three things: how many tiers you show, where the first one sits, and whether it appears before the shopper has already chosen a quantity. Most tables get the second one wrong, setting the first break above what people normally buy, which makes the whole offer invisible to almost everyone.
Three tiers, and why not four
Two tiers do not read as a ladder — they read as one discount with a condition. Four or more becomes a reading task, and a shopper doing arithmetic on a product page is a shopper not adding to cart.
Three gives the shape that moves people: a low commitment, an obvious middle, and an aspirational top. The middle is where most of the movement happens, which is why marking it matters.
If you genuinely need more granularity — wholesale-style pricing across a wide range — that is a pricing table rather than a promotional widget, and it belongs lower on the page where someone looking for it will find it.
Where the first tier sits
The decision that determines whether the offer does anything.
Put the first break at the quantity people already buy, not above it. If most of your orders are a single unit, the first tier belongs at 2. Setting it at 5 because that is where the margin gets interesting means the ladder's first rung is above head height, and almost every shopper walks past it.
Check your actual order data rather than assuming. Export a few months of orders, look at the quantity distribution for the product, and set the first tier one step above the mode.
The corollary is worth stating: if 80% of orders are already 3+ units, a discount at 3 is a straight giveaway. You are paying people to do what they were going to do, and the offer should start higher or not exist.
Step sizes
Steps should be noticeable and increasing.
5% / 10% / 15% reads as a reason to climb. 10% / 12% / 13% reads as diminishing returns, which is precisely the thought you do not want a shopper having while deciding.
A useful check: does moving from tier two to tier three save the customer more than the extra units cost in perceived commitment? If the jump from 3 to 5 units saves £2, nobody is moving.
Show the per-unit price
The number that makes a tier feel like a deal is what each one costs, not what the lot costs.
"£7.20 each" lands. "£21.60" is just a bigger number than £9, and the shopper has to divide to see the benefit.
Show both where you can — per-unit prominently, total quietly — since the total is what they will pay and hiding it feels evasive.
Whether to show the saving as a percentage or an amount depends on price point. Below roughly £20 the percentage usually looks bigger; above it the absolute saving is easier to grasp. On a multi-currency store, percentages avoid the problem of a saving quoted in the wrong currency.
Where the table goes
Above or beside the quantity selector. Never below the Add to Cart button.
The table exists to influence the quantity decision. A shopper who has already clicked Add to Cart has made that decision, and a table below the button is being read by people who are leaving.
On mobile this is harder and matters more, because the buy button is often the first thing in reach. If the table cannot sit above it, a compact single line — "Save up to 15% on 5+" — linked to the detail is better than a full table further down.
Marking the middle tier
A "Most popular" or "Best value" label on the middle option moves a measurable share of shoppers up a rung. It works because it removes a decision — someone unsure which tier is sensible is being told.
Two rules:
- Mark it, do not pre-select it. A pre-selected higher quantity feels like a trick and gets undone, often along with the visit.
- Make it true. If the middle tier is not actually the most popular, "Best value" is the honest label and does the same job.
The prompt that outperforms the table
Everything above is about a static table. The thing that converts better than any of it is a dynamic prompt near the cart: "Add 1 more to save 15%."
It works because it arrives at the moment of decision with a specific, small instruction, rather than asking the shopper to read a table and work out where they are. The customer with two items is one action from the next tier and is being told exactly what that action is.
Put it in the cart drawer and on the cart page. If your app supports it on the product page as quantity changes, better still.
What to check before launching
- Is the first tier at or just above your modal order quantity? Check the data.
- Do the steps increase?
- Is the per-unit price shown?
- Is the table above the quantity selector on desktop and reachable on mobile?
- Is the middle tier marked but not pre-selected?
- Does the discount apply without a code? If not, that is costing you more than the table design.
- What does the stacked worst case cost? Your tier plus a customer's own code.
Variants, and the table that lies
A quantity break on a product with variants raises a question the table has to answer visibly: does the tier count units of this variant, or of the product?
A shopper adding two smalls and one medium has three units of the product and two of a variant. Whether they hit a tier of three depends on which the rule counts, and a table that does not say produces a customer who expected a discount and did not get one.
- Counting by product is more generous and usually what shoppers assume. Right for apparel and anything bought in an assortment.
- Counting by variant is stricter and matches case-pack logic, where six of one thing is the constraint.
Either is fine; say which in the table. "Buy any 3 shirts" and "Buy 3 of this size" are different offers and one word tells the shopper which they are looking at.
The related trap is a table that shows tier prices while the quantity selector operates per variant. A shopper increments to three and the price does not change, because they have three of the product across two variants and the rule counts variants. Nothing is broken and it looks entirely broken.
Measuring it
Compare margin per order against a comparable period without the offer. Average order value always rises when you add a quantity break — that is arithmetic, not evidence.
Two things to look at alongside it: the share of orders landing on each tier, which tells you whether your first break is reachable; and repeat purchase interval, since selling six months of a consumable at a discount today can be worse than selling one month six times.
With Bundle, quantity break tables apply automatically without a code, and the free plan covers every offer type up to $500 of bundle revenue — enough to test a tier structure on one collection before committing.
Where to go next
For which offer shape suits which catalogue — quantity breaks, fixed bundles, mix-and-match or BOGO — see the volume discount guide. If your pool of products varies rather than repeating, mix-and-match is usually the better structure.
