Review our Understanding Rules guide here.
What is a Surprise & Delight rule?
A Surprise & Delight rule is a feature that helps you increase subscription retention by offering free products or discounts at strategic points in the subscriber lifecycle automatically.
This tactic helps reduce churn by:
Rewarding subscribers for staying active.
Offsetting common drop-off points (like after the third order)
Giving long-term subscribers something to look forward to.
For example, you could set up Surprise & Delight rewards on the following orders:
Order 2: Free trial pack of a different product.
Order 3: Extra 10% off.
Order 6: Extra 20% off.
Order 10: Free product that complements their subscription.
How does Surprise & Delight work?
Rules trigger after the previous order processes to ensure customers see the reward before their next shipment.
For example:
A reward on order 2 triggers right after checkout.
A reward on order 4 triggers after order 3 processes.
Skio checks eligibility anytime a subscription is edited. If the subscription no longer qualifies, the reward is removed automatically.
Surprise & Delight rules are order-based, meaning you can include multiple gifts or discounts within a single rule for a specific order (e.g., order 3).
If you want to apply rewards on different order numbers (e.g., order 3 and order 6), you'll need to create separate rules for each.
How to set up a Surprise & Delight rule
Step 1: Create a new rule
In the lefthand menu of your Skio Dashboard, go to Features > Rules > New Rule.
Select Surprise & Delight.
Choose the order number to apply the reward to.
Step 2: (optional) Add a discount
Input a percentage-based discount or a fixed amount discount to apply off the entire order.
Step 3: (optional) Add a free gift
Select the product(s) or variant(s) to use as the free gift.
Toggle on Enable gift swapping if you want to give customers the ability to choose an alternative gift.
Click Configure Alternatives to select which products and variants customers can swap to. Click Select all to allow any product or variant as a swap option.
Enable gift swapping when setting up a Surprise & Delight rule, and configure alternative variants customers can choose from.
Note
You can include multiple free gifts and/or discounts in a single Surprise & Delight rule.
Step 4: Select conditions for a rule
You can add filters to control when the Surprise & Delight rule should trigger. These conditions help you target specific subscriber behaviors, statuses, or order details.
Under Select conditions for this rule, choose from the available filters.
To add more options:
Click + OR Condition to apply the rule if any of the conditions are true.
Click + AND Condition to require that all selected conditions are true.
(Optional) Check Apply across all of the customer's subs if the condition should apply across all active subscriptions for the customer.
See all available conditions
Customer-based conditions
Customer tag: Filter by whether a customer has or does not have a specified tag.
Credit balance: Filter customers based on their available store or subscription credit balance.
Tier: Filter customers by their loyalty or subscription tier (for example, Silver, Gold, VIP).
Subscription-based conditions
Order number: Filter by the current order number (for example, a subscription with 3 orders would have order number = 3).
Total quantity: Filter by total quantity of products in the subscription (for example, 1 × Product A and 1 × Product B = quantity of 2).
Total value: Filter by total dollar value of the subscription (sum of each product's subscription price × quantity).
Subscription creation date: Filter by when the subscription was created.
Day of week: Filter subscriptions with a specific charge day of the week.
Discount code: Filter subscriptions that contain specific discount codes.
Is prepaid renewing: Filter prepaid subscriptions by whether they are set to renew (continue into another term) or end after the current prepaid cycle.
Migrated from another platform: Identify subscriptions migrated from another platform (only captures the migrated subscription, not new subscriptions created by the same customer).
Next billing date: Filter subscriptions where the next billing date falls on, before, or after a selected date.
Shipping interval: Filter by how often the subscription ships (for example, every week, every 2 weeks, monthly).
Subscription country: Filter by shipping address country (supports multiple selections).
Subscription ID: Enter specific subscription IDs to target with the operation.
Subscription note: Filter subscriptions based on keywords or text stored in the internal subscription note.
Subscription status: Filter by status (Active, cancelled, failed, under review, paused).
Product-based conditions
Contains products: Identify subscriptions that include a specific product.
Contains dynamic boxes: Filter subscriptions that include a specific dynamic build-a-box product.
Contains static boxes: Filter subscriptions that include a specific static build-a-box product.
Exclude products: Identify subscriptions that do not include a specific product (helpful when paired with “contains products”).
Other conditions
Audit log: Filter subscriptions based on specific audit log actions.
Cancel Flow: Filter subscriptions that had X rebuttal shown and was saved or not saved.
Quick action: Filter customers or subscriptions based on whether a specific Quick Action link has been actioned, or viewed but not actioned.
Surprise and Delight: Filter customers who were or were not qualified for a surprise and delight gift.
Once you're done selecting your conditions, click Continue to proceed.
Step 5: Complete setup
Give your rule a name and save your rule.
Note
To apply the rule retroactively to existing subscriptions, go to Features > Rules and click Sync Rules.
How do customers know when they receive a Surprise & Delight reward?
When a customer meets the conditions set in your Surprise & Delight rule, a banner appears in the customer portal on the eligible subscription.
If gift product swapping is enabled, customers will see a Customize your gift button in the portal, which lets them choose an alternative variant.
To enable or disable the banner, in Customer Portal V2, enable the Show “surprise & delight” banner toggle. In Customer Portal V3, this toggle can be enabled in the Branding tab under Subscription banners.
How can I tell which customers received a Surprise & Delight reward from my Skio Dashboard?
When viewing subscriptions from the Subscription Management tab in your Skio Dashboard, a Surprise & Delight gift badge will display beside the free product on any eligible subscriptions to indicate when a customer is receiving a gift. For discounts, it will be indicated in the discount chip underneath the Subtotal.
Surprise & Delight FAQs
FAQ
Is the discount recurring?
No, it applies to the specific order only.
Can multiple rules apply at once?
Yes, if eligibility is met for multiple rules, all rewards will be applied.
Can I target specific products or variants?
Yes. You can apply rules to all products, specific products, or individual variants.
What if the free gifts is out of stock?
The rule will still apply. Skio does not check stock levels for Surprise & Delight rules.
What happens if a customer has multiple subscription?
Rules will apply to each eligible subscription in the customer’s account.