How it works
Storewide Sale with Exclusions applies a single discount percentage to every product in your store — with the exception of the collections you choose to leave out. Set your percentage, pick the collections to exclude (clearance, new arrivals, a designer you can't discount), and activate. Everything else goes on sale automatically.
Under the hood, the app tags only your excluded products, not your entire catalog — so setup stays fast even on a large store, and any new products you add while the sale is live are included automatically without you lifting a finger. Gift cards are never discounted, so you don't have to think about them.
Shopify has no native way to do this. Its automatic discounts can target all products or specific collections, but there's no "everything except this collection" option — and smart collections can't express "is not in collection X" either. Custom Promos runs the entire calculation inside Shopify's checkout infrastructure using Shopify Functions, so customers see accurate pricing in real time.
🏷️ Example: Everything 50% Off, Except Clearance
You're running a sitewide event: the whole store is 50% off, but your Clearance collection is already marked down 50–75% and you don't want to discount it any further. You set a storewide 50% sale and exclude Clearance.
Here's what a customer sees with one regular item and one clearance item in the cart:
✓ The regular dress got the 50% storewide discount. The clearance dress kept its existing markdown, untouched.
Real-world use cases
🏷️ Storewide % Off, Protect Clearance
Run "everything 40% off" while your clearance rack — already deeply discounted — stays exactly as priced. The single most common boutique sale, finally possible in one step.
✨ Exclude New Arrivals
Put the whole store on sale but keep this season's newest pieces at full price. Move older inventory without cannibalizing your freshest, full-margin stock.
🔒 Protect a Designer or MAP Brand
Some brands prohibit discounting below a minimum price. Exclude that brand's collection from your storewide sale and stay compliant automatically.
🎉 Holiday Sitewide Event
Black Friday, anniversary sales, end-of-year clearouts — one flat percentage across the store, with just the categories you name left out.
Setting it up takes 2 minutes
Select "Storewide Sale with Exclusions"
Choose this promotion type from the new promotion screen.
Set your storewide percentage
Enter the single discount that applies to your whole store — say, 50% off.
Choose collections to exclude
Use the visual picker to add any collections you want left out — clearance, new arrivals, a protected brand. Leave it empty to discount the entire store.
Activate
Hit save. The sale goes live instantly across everything except your excluded collections.
Why Shopify can't do this natively
Shopify's automatic discounts let you target all products or a specific set of collections — but not "all products except these." There's no exclusion option, and smart collection rules can't express "is not in this collection," so you can't even build an "everything else" collection to point a discount at.
Store owners trying to work around this usually resort to manually selecting dozens of collections, or building fragile product-tag rules by hand — both of which break the moment you add new inventory. Custom Promos handles it as a single promotion: one percentage, one exclusion list, and the logic runs automatically at checkout for every customer — including on products you add after the sale starts.
Frequently asked questions
Not with Shopify's native discounts — an automatic discount can target all products or specific collections, but it can't discount everything while excluding a collection. Custom Promos does exactly that: set one storewide percentage and choose the collections to leave out, like clearance or new arrivals.
In a Storewide Sale with Exclusions promotion, you set your store-wide discount percentage and then pick the collection(s) to exclude with a visual picker. Everything in your store gets the discount except the products in those excluded collections.
They keep their existing price. Because the excluded collection is left out of the storewide discount entirely, your already-reduced clearance items aren't discounted further — they stay exactly as you priced them.
No. The promotion works by tagging only the excluded products, not your whole catalog, so setup stays fast even on large stores. Everything you don't exclude is discounted automatically, and new products you add during the sale are included without any extra work.
No. Gift cards are never discounted by a Storewide Sale, so you don't have to remember to exclude them — it's handled automatically.
No. Custom Promos applies the discount automatically at checkout based on what's in the cart. There's no code for customers to remember, type, or get wrong — they simply see the savings as they shop.
Your discount codes work normally when no Custom Promos promotion is active. When a Storewide Sale is running, discount codes can't be stacked on top of it — this is intentional, to stop customers from combining a storewide sale with a separate coupon and discounting more than you planned.
Custom Promos runs on Shopify Functions, which are available on all standard Shopify plans. You don't need Shopify Plus.
Ready to run your storewide sale?
Storewide Sale with Exclusions. One percentage across your whole store, minus the collections you choose. Set up in under 2 minutes.
Get Started — $24/mo →Explore other promotion types
🔥 Collection Sale + Volume Bonus
50% off clearance, buy 4+ get an extra 10% off
📈 Tiered Volume Discount
Buy 2 get 10% off, buy 3 get 15%, buy 4+ get 20%
💰 Spend Threshold Bonus
Spend $150+ get 15% off the collection
🎯 Buy X, Get Y for Flat Price
50% off collection, cheapest item just $10
🎁 Buy X, Get Y Free
50% off collection, cheapest item free
⭐ Discount on Select Item
20% off the most expensive item
🏪 Multi-Collection Sale
Shoes 50% off, clearance 75% off, buy 5+ get 80%