Catalog Price Rules
Price reductions that show directly in the product catalog, with no coupon code required.
Unlike cart price rules, catalog price rules (Marketing > Catalog Price Rules > Add New Rule) already apply directly on the product listing and product detail page – the reduced price (usually with the original price struck through) is visible immediately, with no input required from the customer and without adding anything to the cart.
Typical use cases
- Permanent or time-limited discounts on entire categories (e.g. "10% off all summer items").
- Automatic special pricing for certain customer groups (e.g. wholesale pricing, without needing a second price field maintained on the product).
- Seasonal promotions with a fixed start and end date, without having to edit every product individually.
Structure of the rule
The structure is similar to cart price rules: on the Conditions tab you define which products the rule applies to (e.g. category, an attribute like "Season = Summer", or a price range), on the Actions tab the discount type – Apply as "by Percentage", "by Fixed Amount", or "to Percentage of the Original Price", plus the value under Discount Amount. Under Websites and Customer Groups in the Rule Information you additionally scope who and where the rule applies.
Important: reindex required
After saving a catalog price rule, the price indexes need to be rebuilt (System > Index Management, see the "Understanding Indexers" chapter, or automatically depending on your indexer settings) – only then are the new prices actually visible in the store. This is the most common reason a freshly created promotion appears to "not be working".
Rule Information: active status and priority
As with cart price rules, Active controls whether the rule is considered at all, and From/To defines its validity period. If several catalog price rules apply to the same product at once, Priority determines the order of application – a lower number is applied first. This matters when, say, a category-wide discount rule overlaps with a product-specific special rule.
Applied via cron, not instantly
Contrary to what you might expect, a saved catalog price rule doesn't take effect in the store right away. Magento applies catalog price rules through a scheduled cron job (by default once a night) – only afterwards are the reduced prices visible. If you need a promotion to start exactly on time, go to the rule grid (Marketing > Catalog Price Rules) and click the Apply Rules button to trigger application immediately, instead of waiting for the next cron run.
Interaction with special prices and cart price rules
Catalog price rules operate on a different level than the product's own Special Price field (in the product form under "Advanced Pricing") – both reduce the displayed price but are technically independent and can overlap or override each other, which in practice can lead to confusing price displays. Cart price rules, on the other hand, always apply on top of the price already reduced by catalog price rules – so the two rule types can be combined (e.g. a 10% catalog discount on a category plus an additional coupon code in the cart).