Troubleshooting
How many items can one rule cover?
Up to 100,000 variants in a single self-updating rule — far past Shopify's native 100-item cap. Here's how it works and what the limits are.
Short answer: up to 100,000 variants in a single rule — and the rule keeps itself up to date as your catalog changes.
Shopify's native cap (and why it doesn't apply here)
Shopify's built-in discount editor caps each discount at 100 specifically-selected items (a fully-selected product counts as 1, an individually-selected variant counts as 1). That ceiling breaks fast on real catalogs.
Variant Discounts is built on Shopify Functions and Shopify's Collection Sources API, so that cap doesn't apply. When you describe what to discount with conditions (vendor, tag, title, product type, variant title, price, and more), the app automatically builds a collection of every matching product and variant — up to 100,000 variants in one rule.
The rule keeps itself up to date
The collection behind your rule is dynamic. When you add products that match your conditions, they're covered automatically — no re-editing, no re-selecting. When products stop matching, they drop out. Your discount code and conditions never change.
You'll see this collection (named after your rule) under Products → Collections in your Shopify admin. It's a normal collection that the app maintains for you:
- Leave it in place — deleting it stops the discount from applying.
- It's unpublished by default, so it won't appear on your storefront unless you choose to publish it.
When a rule uses the fixed-selection engine instead
A few condition types can't be expressed as a self-updating collection yet — for example SKU conditions, sale-percentage conditions, product-option and variant-metafield conditions, and multiple condition groups joined with AND. Rules built on those use a fixed selection captured when you save, with a per-rule item ceiling shown right in the rule builder.
If your rule qualifies for the self-updating engine, the builder tells you — and rules covering thousands of items simply work, with no action needed from you.
If you hit the fixed-selection ceiling
- Tighten the conditions — add a filter to reduce matches
- Split into multiple rules — two rules with non-overlapping conditions
- Switch to collection-eligible conditions where possible (tag, vendor, title, product type, variant title) — those rules have no practical ceiling for most catalogs