Articles on: Free Gift/Gift With Purchase

How to automatically add a free gift with purchase to a customer's cart?

This guide is a detailed walkthrough on how you can use Monk to automatically add free gift products to a customer's cart using the app's Free Gift - Auto Add offer. This offer can be configured across a variety of rules and eligibility criteria and works seamlessly with types of themes and carts (cart drawer, cart popup or cart page).

If you wish to also display a progress bar & banner in cart along with the auto added free gift, you can refer to this document.In case, you wish to display the Free Gifts in a pop up, you can refer to this document.

How to set it up?

Here is an example of what this offer will look like live at the product page and cart step -

Offer Creation

Go to 'Create Offer' on the top right of the Manage offers page in Monk > Create Offer > Go to Gifts, Shipping and Cart goals.

Under Gifts, Shipping and cart goals, you'll find a variety of templates to choose from. If your offer structure aligns with one of those templates, you can proceed with it. If not, you also have the option to custom build your offer as shown below-

To automatically add a free gift to the customer's cart, please select display method as 'Auto add'.

If you want to create a BOGO offer, please refer to this article for more information.

Display

On step 1 of the offer setup, you can select where you wish to position to show offer banner for free gift auto add as well as the trigger page for the offer- Cart or Checkout.

Free Gift - Auto Add offer can also be configured at checkout, however, this is only exclusive for stores on Shopify Plus. You can click here for a walkthrough on how to set this up at checkout.

Eligibility Rules

After setting up the display, you can set up the eligibility rules for the free gift offer to be triggered - to set it up for a specific location, locale, customer tags etc.

To know more about the eligibility rules, please refer to this article. If you wish to set up a Buy A and B, Get C offer construct or you wish to understand the eligibility rule of 'Match any' and 'Match all', please refer this article.

Gift Products

On Step 1 , select the product(s) that will be automatically added to customer's cart as free gift. You can also click on 'Add Product' button to add more products as free gifts.

In order to test products which are not live, you can refer to this article.

To make sure the gifts are added, please go to your Shopify Product section --> Open the free gift product and ensure the following:The free gift product is in StockThe free gift product is in Active statusThe free gift product is available in the 'Online Store' sales channel

Offer Settings

Under Step 1 , you have the following settings with respect to auto adding the free gift to the customer's cart -

Cart Refresh and Behaviour

Auto refresh - The app will refresh the page to display the updated cart on gift addition/removal if this setting is enabled. This is required if your theme lacks a cart listener.

Auto Remove - If enabled, the customers cannot buy the gift product at full price. If a customer is eligible for the gift, they will receive it at 100% discount for free and if they are ineligible for the gift, the app with automatically remove it from cart. This is useful if the gift product are samples, limited edition products etc that you don't want customers buying directly. However, if it is disabled, then the customer can buy the gift product as well at full price even if the rule is not satisfied.

For more information about how the 'auto remove' setting works, please refer to this document.

Allow gift opt out - There can be instances when the customer does not want the free gift, they will have the option to remove the gift item from cart if this setting is enabled. However, if it is disabled, the customers will not have the choice to remove the gift. If they try to remove the product, the gift will be auto added again.

Free Gift setup

Increase gifts with more purchases - When this setting is enabled, you can configure offers to repeat automatically when multiple quantities of the trigger products are added. This allows for flexible offer structures like 'Buy X, Get Y,' 'Buy 2X, Get 2Y,' 'Buy 3X, Get 3Y,' and more—all within a single eligibility rule. It integrates seamlessly with BOGO deals, such as 'Buy 2X, Get 2X,' etc.

This setting is available only when you've configured the Rule on Step 1 to trigger based on specific products/collections/tags/vendors.

Set Maximum Limit

Once you enable ‘Increase Gifts with more purchases’ setting, another setting to ‘Set Maximum Limit’ appears in the same section as shown in the screenshot below. This setting lets you cap the total number of free gifts in a single order. Even if a customer qualifies for more gifts, the set limit will restrict the maximum quantity.

Example:

If you set up Buy X Get Y (Buy 1 → Get 1, Buy 2 → Get 2, etc.) but cap the maximum gifts at 5, then:

5X → 5Y

6X → Still 5Y (due to the limit)

Show banner when eligible

This setting comes into picture if you are using the eligibility rule of 'Specific Products'. If enabled, the banner will be visible only for the selected trigger products. If disabled, the banner will be visible across all products on your store.

Combine with free gift auto add offers

This setting is used if you wish to trigger multiple free gift auto add offers simultaneously. Please refer this doc for more information.

Schedule offer for future

You can also schedule the offer for a specific date range from Step 1 of the offer set up, using this setting below -

Content and Display

Step 2 of the offer setup is where you can change and/or translate the text and design of the free gift auto add banner as per your requirements-

Clicking on 'Edit Display and Design' will open the global editing options of the widget including elements like font, colors, spacing of the widget for both mobile and desktop view. You can also edit the exact offer offer body configurations like the text styles, currency, price and discount. After making the changes you can click on Save changes > Save and Activate to display the offer on your store.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Can I use a discount code to add the free gift to cart?

Yes, a discount code can be configured with the app that automatically add the free gift to the cart upon usage. Please refer to this document on how to set it up. If you wish to set this up at Checkout, please click here (checkout features are exclusive for stores on Shopify Plus)

2) If a customer qualifies for multiple Free Gift - Auto Add offers, how does the app choose which one to apply?

If multiple Free Gift - Auto Add offers are configured and a customer qualifies for several of them at the same time, the offer which is positioned higher on the Manage offers dashboard will be applicable. Please refer to this article for details on how offer priority is determined.

If you want your customers to receive gifts from all the eligible offers, you will have to enable the Combination setting on Step 1 of the offer set up. Please refer to this article for more information.

3) Why does the page refresh when gift is added or removed?

The page refreshes because the setting 'Auto refresh' is enabled. For instant cart refresh, you can add a cart listener to your theme. Please refer to this document for more details. If you have a developer who can add the same, kindly do so. If you want the Monk team to add the cart listener, please reach out to us via live chat/email support and we will get it added to your theme.

If you have any other questions or queries please reach out to us via chat support or write to us at support@monkcommerce.com

Updated on: 02/03/2026