Offering discounts or rewards to referees is a powerful strategy for improving signup conversion for several reasons:
  1. Sense of Urgency: Time-limited discounts create a sense of urgency, encouraging referees to act swiftly to take advantage of the offer. This urgency can lead to quicker decision-making and increased conversion rates.
  2. Enhancing Referral Motivation: When referrers know that their referrals lead to tangible benefits like discounts for their contacts, they’re more likely to actively promote your product. This not only increases the number of referrals but also the likelihood of signups.
  3. Overcoming Price Resistance: Discounts can effectively lower financial barriers for potential users who are hesitant about the cost. By making the price more attractive, it can sway those who are undecided about trying your product or service.
  4. Building Initial Trust: Offering a discount can foster goodwill and build initial trust with new users. A special deal can create a positive first impression of your brand, setting the stage for a lasting relationship.
  5. Competitive Advantage: If your competitors do not offer similar incentives, your discount can give you a competitive edge. This unique selling point can make your product more appealing compared to others in the market.
This page describes how a discount to the new referred account can be automated using Stripe or Chargebee (e. g. 50% discount for the first 6 months).

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Configure discount information

Altho handling discounts needs to be done within your product and supporting systems like Stripe or Chargebee, you can specify discount information in Cello to be shown in the Referral Component and terms. Go to Campaign settings in Cello Portal and add discount information, by specifying discount percentage and duration in months: Discount configuration in Cello Portal How do I grant discounts in Chargebee? Chargebee uses coupons to apply discounts on subscriptions. To grant a discount for a new referred account, the following steps are required:

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How do I grant discounts in Stripe?

Stripe uses coupons and promotion codes to apply discounts on payments. To grant a discount for new referred accounts, these coupons and promotion codes have to be set up in Stripe. This can be done in multiple ways. For both solutions, you must first set up a coupon and then attach the discount rules (e.g. 10% off for 3 months).

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Using coupons for discounts

Coupons can be used to attach a discount directly to a stripe customer or a subscription. This can be achieved manually via the Stripe Web Console or the Stripe API. Attach manually via Stripe Web Console: Stripe Web Console coupon attachment Attach the coupon during customer creation as discount field via Stripe API: Stripe API coupon attachment during customer creation

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Attach the coupon to the customer or subscription

To give the discount to a new user, you need to attach the coupon to a customer or subscription. There are two ways to attach the coupon, manually or via API.If you attach the coupon to a customer, the discount is applied to every transaction or subscription. You can limit the coupon in settings with certain conditions.

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Manual attachment of the coupon to the customer in advance

This is only possible if the stripe customer is already created and no transaction has been created yet.
  1. Go to your Stripe Console
  2. Open the customer, go to Actions, and select Apply coupon
Stripe Console apply coupon action
  1. Select the coupon you want to attach
Coupon selection in Stripe Console 💸 If the customer subscribes now to a plan or performs a transaction, the discount will be automatically applied during the checkout.

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Attach the coupon during checkout with Stripe API

The prerequisite for this solution is to have implemented the Stripe.js in your front end so you can modify the customer creation or subscription.
Attach the discount already while creating the customer and adding the cello_ucc code.
Example for a NodeJS App — attach coupon while creating the customer (recommended): 
const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_51KiCYYCSMQAUBF...');

const customer = await stripe.customers.create({
  description: 'New Stripe Customer',
	coupon: 'lHTYr6Y9',
	metadata: {
		'cello_ucc': 'hdz7afhs7',
		'product_user_id': 'xcsdad'
		}
});
Example for a NodeJS App — attach coupon code during the checkout and re-use an existing customer: 
const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
      mode: "subscription",
      line_items: [
        {
          price: priceId,
          quantity: 1
        },
      ],
      customer: 'cus_dbhsahd7fhsd',
      discounts: [{
        coupon: 'lHTYr6Y9',
      }],
});
The Stripe UI will automatically pick up the discount and visualize it during the checkout Stripe checkout with discount visualization

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Using promotion codes for discounts

A Promotion Code represents a customer-redeemable code for a coupon. They can be used for the Stripe Payment Link or custom-built forms. Here are their key characteristics:
  • When using a Promotion Code, the setup of an underlying coupon is also required.
  • Promotion Codes can be used to create multiple codes for a single coupon.
  • Because Promotion Codes are used by customers to redeem a coupon, they are exposed to customers.
With the URL parameter prefilled_promo_code a promo code can be automatically passed to the UI. The form automatically picks up the parameter from the URL and pre-fills the promotion code field. More details can be found here. Example: 10% off for 3 months via promo code CELLO https://buy.stripe.com/cello?prefilled_promo_code=CELLO Stripe Payment Link with prefilled promo code