Best Practices For Using Packages And Frequency Discounts

Packages and Frequency Discounts are similar in that they are both tools you can use to give clients a discount for booking a certain quantity of services, but each has some unique features that can make one more suitable than the other depending on how you want your quantity discount to work.

Packages

With packages, your clients prepay for a fixed quantity of services and then schedule those services as needed. Packages can have a flat fee or a percentage discount on the services in that package. You can optionally set limits on when the services in a package can be redeemed - on the same day, week, or month, or set a specific date for the package to expire. And packages can have more than one type of service included in them. Packages have to be manually added to a client’s account, and then services can be redeemed from that package when scheduling.

You can read more about this feature here: Packages.

Frequency Discounts

Frequency discounts are automatic discounts that are applied when a client schedules a certain minimum number of services within a specified time period - either within the same day, week, or month. Frequency discounts are set as a flat dollar charge for services and are set individually per service type. Frequency discounts can also have multiple levels - for example, one discount when a client has 2-3 services scheduled in a week and another discount when the client has more than 4 services scheduled.

You can read more about this feature here: Frequency Based Discounts.

When To Use Packages And When To Use Frequency Discounts

In most cases when you want to offer clients a discount for booking multiple visits, using a frequency discount will be preferable over creating a package because of the automation of frequency discounts. After setting up a frequency discount on a service, there are no additional steps for you or your clients - the frequency discount is automatically applied when the client schedules enough services to meet the minimum, unlike packages that have to be manually added to the client’s account and then have to be specifically selected when scheduling services from the package. This makes frequency discounts a great choice for things like giving clients a discount for booking recurring, weekly services - you can automate their recurring schedule with a template and automate discounts with a frequency discount.

But there are a few cases where you may want to use a package instead of a frequency discount; these include:

• When you want to offer a discount on a combination of more than one type of service - frequency discounts are set up on a service-by-service basis, while packages can be set up for combinations of different types of services.
• When you don’t want to limit services to have to be booked on the same day, week, or month - you can create packages that allow clients to book the services at any time instead of limiting them to a specific period.
• When you want to offer a percentage discount - if you have clients with custom rates and want to offer a percentage discount based on each client’s rate instead of a discount that is a flat dollar charge, you would need to use a package.