A discount voucher gives someone money off a future purchase. Businesses hand them out to bring customers back, attract new ones, shift slow stock, or reward a complaint — and the ones that work have a clear offer, sensible terms, and a number behind them. The free templates below are editable MS Word designs, and beneath them you’ll find the terms every voucher needs and how to work out whether the discount you’re planning actually makes money.
Discount Voucher or Gift Voucher?
They look similar and behave completely differently:
- A discount voucher (or coupon) reduces the price of a purchase someone has yet to make. You gave it away, no money has changed hands, and it costs you only if it’s used.
- A gift voucher was bought. The customer has already paid, you owe them goods to that value, and it sits in your accounts as a liability until redeemed.
The practical consequence: an unredeemed discount voucher costs you nothing, while an unredeemed gift voucher is money you’ve taken for something you haven’t supplied. Don’t use the same template, and don’t use the same wording.
Types of Discount
- Percentage off — “20% off”. Simple, but it scales with the basket, so a large order costs you proportionally more.
- Fixed amount off — “£10 off”. Predictable cost per redemption, which makes budgeting the promotion straightforward.
- Amount off with a minimum spend — “£10 off when you spend £50”. The most controllable option: it protects your margin and lifts average order value at the same time.
- Buy one get one, or buy two get the third free. Costs you product rather than cash, and moves volume — useful for stock with a shelf life.
- Free item with purchase — costs you the item’s wholesale price rather than its retail price, which is often much cheaper than an equivalent discount.
- Free delivery — frequently the most persuasive offer online, and often cheaper than a percentage discount.
- Second visit voucher — given at the till, valid on a later purchase. Designed to bring someone back rather than to discount today’s sale.
That last one is worth noting: a voucher given after a purchase costs you nothing on the sale you’ve already made and buys a reason to return. A voucher advertised before the purchase discounts people who were coming anyway.
What a Discount Actually Costs You
The arithmetic most promotions skip, and the reason so many of them lose money.
A 20% discount doesn’t reduce your profit by 20% — it reduces it by however much of your margin the discount consumes. If you sell something for £100 that cost you £50, your margin is £50. Discount it by 20% and you take £80, so your profit falls to £30 — a 40% cut. To make the same total profit, you now need to sell substantially more:
| EXTRA SALES NEEDED TO BREAK EVEN ON A DISCOUNT | ||||
| Your gross margin ? | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10% discount | +50% | +33% | +25% | +20% |
| 15% discount | +100% | +60% | +43% | +33% |
| 20% discount | +200% | +100% | +67% | +50% |
| 30% discount | not possible | +300% | +150% | +100% |
| Extra sales needed = discount ÷ (margin ? discount). A 30% discount on a 30% margin sells at cost, so no volume makes it profitable. | ||||
Two things follow. Low-margin businesses should discount cautiously — at 30% margin, a 20% voucher needs three times the sales to stand still. And a minimum-spend voucher is usually safer than a straight percentage, because it lifts the basket rather than simply cutting the price of what someone was buying anyway.
Framing the Discount
The same offer can be written two ways, and one of them sounds bigger.
Below roughly £100, a percentage sounds larger: “20% off” beats “£4 off” on a £20 item, though they’re identical. Above £100, the absolute figure sounds larger: “£100 off” beats “10% off” on a £1,000 item, again identically.
It costs nothing to pick the better framing, and it’s worth doing deliberately rather than by habit.
Two other framing points. “Free” outperforms a discount of the same value — a free item worth £10 typically pulls better than £10 off, and if your margin is decent it costs you less. And a deadline matters more than the size of the discount; a modest offer expiring on Sunday beats a generous one with no end date, because the second gives nobody a reason to act today.
Discount Voucher Example
HARBOUR STREET CAFÉ
£5 OFF
when you spend £20 or more
Bring this voucher in and enjoy £5 off your bill.
Valid until Sunday 30 November 2026.
NOV-FLYER-05
One voucher per customer, per visit. Minimum spend £20 before discount, excluding service. Cannot be used with any other offer or promotion. No cash alternative and no change given. Valid at Harbour Street only. Photocopies not accepted. We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time.
Note the proportions: the offer and the minimum spend are the headline, the expiry is stated twice over in plain words, and the terms sit in small type at the foot where they belong — present, readable, and not competing with the offer.
Free Discount Voucher Templates in MS Word
Each template below is editable in Word. Set your offer, expiry and terms once, then print a batch.
Money-Off Discount Voucher
A bordered coupon with a large offer panel, a voucher code box, an expiry line, and a terms block at the foot.
Percentage Discount Coupon
Built around a large percentage figure, with space for excluded items and participating locations.
Reference = Template.net
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the button below to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Click on the below button to download this Discount Voucher Template for free.
Terms and Conditions Checklist
Nine lines of small print that prevent most of the problems a promotion can cause. Print them on the voucher itself, not on a page somewhere else:
- Expiry date — an actual date, not “valid for 30 days,” which nobody can check at the till.
- Minimum spend, and whether it’s calculated before or after the discount, and whether it includes service or delivery.
- One per customer, per transaction — or state what you do allow.
- Not valid with other offers, which stops discounts stacking into a loss.
- Exclusions — sale items, alcohol, gift cards, specific brands. Be specific; “some exclusions apply” causes arguments.
- No cash alternative and no change given.
- Where it’s valid — which branches, or online only, or in store only.
- Photocopies not accepted, which matters for anything printed at home.
- The right to withdraw the offer at any time.
Brief your staff before the vouchers go out. Most disputes at a till come from a customer being told something different by two members of the same team, and a two-minute briefing prevents it. Make sure everyone knows what to do with a voucher that’s expired by a day — decide the answer in advance rather than leaving it to whoever is on the counter.
Codes and Tracking
Put a code on every voucher, and use a different code for each channel — one for the flyer, one for the email, one for the local paper, one for the vouchers handed out at the till. Recording the code at the point of redemption is the only way to find out which route actually worked.
Track three things through the promotion: how many were redeemed, what the average spend was on a voucher transaction compared to a normal one, and whether those customers returned afterwards. The third is the one that decides whether the promotion was an investment or a giveaway, and it’s the one almost nobody measures.
A voucher log — code, channel, date issued, date redeemed, transaction value — makes this straightforward. The same approach as the log on our gift voucher page, for a different purpose.
When Discounting Hurts
Worth saying on a page that hands out voucher templates.
Discount regularly and you train customers to wait. A business that runs an offer every month teaches its regulars that full price is for people who weren’t paying attention, and sales between promotions get worse rather than better.
Discounts attract the least loyal customers. People who come for 20% off are, on average, the people most likely to leave for someone else’s 25%. Vouchers aimed at existing customers — a thank-you at the till, a birthday offer — generally return more than vouchers broadcast to strangers.
And a discount is a statement about your pricing. Frequent, deep discounting tells people the normal price was never quite real, which is a difficult impression to reverse.
None of which means don’t do it. It means use vouchers for a specific job — bringing lapsed customers back, filling a quiet weekday, moving stock with a date on it, apologising for something that went wrong — rather than as a default response to a slow month.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a discount voucher?
A coupon giving money off a future purchase — a percentage, a fixed amount, or a free item. Unlike a gift voucher, nobody has paid for it, so it only costs you when it’s redeemed.
What should a discount voucher include?
The business name, the offer stated clearly, any minimum spend, an expiry date, a voucher code, where it’s valid, and terms covering exclusions, stacking, cash alternatives and photocopies.
How much can I afford to discount?
It depends on your margin. Extra sales needed to break even = discount ÷ (margin ? discount). At a 50% margin, a 20% discount needs 67% more sales; at a 30% margin, the same discount needs 200% more. A discount equal to your margin sells at cost, whatever the volume.
Is a percentage or a fixed amount better?
For perceived value, percentages sound bigger below about £100 and absolute figures sound bigger above it. For cost control, a fixed amount with a minimum spend is the safest, because it caps what each redemption costs and lifts the basket.
What is the difference between a discount voucher and a gift voucher?
A discount voucher is promotional and given away, so it costs nothing unless used. A gift voucher was purchased, which means you hold the customer’s money and owe them goods — a liability in your accounts until it’s redeemed.
How do I stop discount vouchers being photocopied?
State that photocopies aren’t accepted, add a unique code, print on coloured or textured stock, and set an expiry date so any that do circulate stop working. For home-printed vouchers, keeping the value modest limits the damage.
How long should a discount voucher be valid?
Long enough to be usable, short enough to prompt action — two to six weeks suits most promotions. Use an actual date rather than “valid 30 days,” since staff can’t verify a relative period at the till.
Pete Smith is a Business Management graduate and a passionate advocate for practical, accessible resources that empower professionals and entrepreneurs to succeed. With a strong foundation in organizational strategy and operational efficiency, Pete combines academic knowledge with real-world insights to simplify complex business processes. He is the creator behind a growing online platform dedicated to offering free, high-quality documents, templates, and actionable tips designed to save time and improve productivity.