A Buyer's Guide to Tiered Pricing: How Bulk Discounts Actually Work

Tiered pricing is straightforward in concept: buy more, pay less per unit. A product might cost R18.99 each normally, R16.99 at 50+ units, and R15.49 at 100+ units. But a few details are worth understanding before you place a large order for the first time.

First, minimum order quantities (MOQs) and price tiers are two different things. An MOQ is the smallest amount you're allowed to buy at all — often set because a supplier packs and ships in cartons, not individual units. A price tier is a threshold where, once crossed, your per-unit price drops for the whole order. You'll always meet the MOQ; you don't have to hit a price tier, but it's worth checking how close you already are before finalising an order.

Second, tiered pricing and item-specific discounts are usually independent of each other. A supplier might run a 15% discount on a product for a week, on top of whatever pricing tier your quantity already qualifies for — meaning the price you see at checkout is the tier price with the discount applied on top, not one or the other.

Third — and this is the one that catches people out — tiers almost always apply per product, not across your whole order. Buying 30 units each of five different products won't unlock a 100-unit tier on any single one of them, even though your total order is 150 units. If a specific tier matters to you, check the quantity for that exact product.

The practical takeaway: before placing a large order, look at the tier thresholds first, not just the sticker price. Sometimes ordering 10 units more than you planned crosses into a meaningfully cheaper tier — and sometimes it doesn't, and you're better off saving the extra spend for something else.