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Order bumps & upsells

Up to three tick-box bumps on the checkout page, then a one-click chain of up to three steps after the sale — where the downsell only appears to someone who declined. This page covers what a buyer sees, the 30-minute window, how to build a chain by asking your AI, and when the answer is fewer steps rather than more. Selling several products side by side? See carts & bundles.

01 — The idea

What they are

Two different things, often confused, and it is worth keeping them apart because they happen at different moments and behave differently.

An order bump is a tick-box on the checkout page itself. The buyer has not paid yet; they tick it and it joins the same single payment. An offer can carry up to three.

Upsells and downsells come after the payment. The card is already on file, so accepting is one click with nothing to re-enter. An offer can run a chain of up to three of these.

Bumps per offer
3tick-boxes on the page
Chain steps
3upsell → downsell → upsell
One-click window
30 minfrom the main purchase
Built by
Your AIthe dashboard shows it read-only

02 — The shape

Anatomy of one sale

Everything below happens inside a single checkout, on your own Stripe account, as one main charge plus any one-click steps the buyer accepts afterwards.

Bumps and upsells, from the buyer's sideThe checkout page with two ticked bumps and one left unticked, then the one-click upsell, the downsell that only appears after a no, and the single receipt listing every item. Bumps and upsells — what the buyer actually sees One payment on the page. Then a chain on the card already on file — and the downsell only appears to someone who said no. 01 — ON THE PAGE Fernwood & Co. — Checkout The Joinery Course nine lessons · lifetime access NZ$49 ADD TO YOUR ORDER Measured drawings bump one NZ$19 Timber sourcing list bump two NZ$12 Bench review call left unticked — never charged NZ$99 Pay NZ$80.00 One charge. Three bumps is the ceiling. PAID 02 — STEP ONE, ONE CLICK Add the template pack? Every drawing, ready to cut. NZ$97 Yes, add it — one click No thanks Card already on file — nothing to re-enter SAID NO 03 — DOWNSELL, ONLY AFTER A NO Just module one's templates NZ$27 Yes, add it SAID YES — SKIPS IT 04 — RECEIPT Joinery Course NZ$49 Measured drawings NZ$19 Timber list NZ$12 Template pack NZ$97 Each item delivers on its own The whole chain runs inside 30 minutes of the main purchase. After that, remaining steps are skipped and the buyer lands on their receipt.
The main product and any ticked bumps are one charge on the page. The chain runs afterwards on the card already on file, and the downsell is shown only to someone who declined. Three bumps is the ceiling.

03 — The one conditional step

The decline branch

This is the part worth understanding properly, because it is the only conditional behaviour in the chain and it is what makes a downsell a downsell rather than just a third offer.

The downsell only appears to someone who said no. Accept step one and the buyer skips straight past it to step three. Decline step one and the downsell appears — once — and then the chain continues either way.

Why it works that way. A downsell is an answer to a specific objection: too expensive, too much, not right now. Showing it to someone who already bought the bigger thing is not a second chance, it is an insult and a refund risk.

04 — The clock

The 30-minute window

One-click charging works because the buyer's card is already authorised from the main purchase. That authority is not open-ended: it lasts 30 minutes from the moment they paid.

If the buyer wanders off mid-chain and comes back an hour later, the remaining steps are skipped and they land on their receipt. Nothing is charged, nothing is broken, and they keep everything they actually bought.

Design the chain to be finishable. Three steps of dense sales copy will not be read inside half an hour by someone who only wanted the thing they came for. Short steps, clear prices, obvious decline.

05 — Doing it

Building one

Some of it you click, the rest you say. The New offer wizard's third step, 3 · Bump & upsell, sets an order bump and one one-click upsell from two dropdowns — no agent needed. Going further than that one upsell, to a downsell or a second upsell, is not switched on for dashboards yet, so that part is a sentence to your agent. The dashboard shows you the whole chain either way.

Building a bump and an upsellStep three of the New offer wizard, where a bump and one upsell are set with two dropdowns, next to the sentence that adds the downsell and second upsell your dashboard cannot yet build. Building a bump and an upsell — and where the dashboard stops Step 3 of the New offer wizard sets the bump and the first upsell with two dropdowns. A downsell or a second upsell is a sentence to your agent. 01 — OFFERS › ＋ NEW OFFER 1 · Basics 2 · Checkout page 3 · Bump & upsell 4 · Selling rules Order bump (a tick-box on the checkout) The Workbook — NZ$27.00 ▾ One-click upsell (right after payment, no card re-entry) The Template Pack — NZ$97.00 ▾ Upsell headline Wait — add the templates? Go further — downsell & second upsell not switched on for dashboards yet — say it instead Create offer 02 — WHAT ONLY YOUR AI CAN ADD “On that offer — if they say no to the templates, offer module one at NZ$27. Then offer the group call at NZ$149 either way.” THE CHAIN THAT RESULTS Order bump NZ$27 on the checkout page Upsell NZ$97 one click, card on file Downsell NZ$27 only after a no Second upsell NZ$149 either way set in the wizard set by your agent Two of the four you can click today. All four you can say. Each step is its own page, shown once. At most two steps can charge — the downsell only appears when the upsell was declined.
The wizard's third step is two dropdowns and a headline. The dashed block is the part your dashboard cannot build yet — a downsell and a second upsell — which is why the same offer is often started by clicking and finished by asking.
Say this to your agent On my NZ$49 course checkout, add the workbook at NZ$19 as an order bump. After they buy, offer the template pack at NZ$97. If they say no, offer just the first module's templates for NZ$27. Then offer a group call at NZ$149 either way.

Your agent writes the bumps and the funnel steps onto the offer. Ask it to read the offer back to you afterwards if you want to check what it built, or open the offer in your dashboard and look at the chain there.

Everything must deliver. Each product in a bump or a chain step needs its own delivery — a link, an access note, or webhook delivery — exactly like a main product. A step that takes money and delivers nothing is the one state this platform treats as an incident.

06 — Their side

What the buyer sees

  1. The checkout page

    Your main product, with up to three tick-boxes underneath it. The total updates as they tick. They pay once.

  2. The first upsell

    Immediately after payment. One button to accept, one to decline. Accepting charges the saved card and moves on; nothing is re-entered.

  3. A downsell, only if they declined

    Accepted the upsell? They never see this page at all.

  4. The last step, then the receipt

    One receipt covering the main purchase, and each accepted step delivered on its own.

07 — The money

Money & tax

Every charge — the main purchase, the bumps, each accepted step — settles on your own Stripe account. GoCushy never holds any of it.

Tax is calculated and collected on bumps and upsells too, against the registrations you hold, which is a thing many tools get wrong. See Taxes & invoices.

Affiliates earn on upsell revenue too. When a referred buyer accepts an upsell, the commission is calculated on the upsell's own amount — in addition to what the base sale earned — exactly once, whichever payment rail booked it. Refund an upsell and its commission claws back on its own; the base sale's commission stays untouched.

The order drawer: what was actually charged, per itemA sketch of the gocushy dashboard order drawer for an order containing a main product, an order bump and an accepted upsell. The Payment section lists each item with its kind, then one Tax row naming the country and effective rate, then the Total. Only the upsell line carries its own Refund button, because it was a separate charge. The order drawer Orders → Manage on a row opens it. One order: main product + order bump + accepted upsell. Order 01K27B4Q8XJ3M0V6HTN9CDEF5R × Paid Stripe 8 Aug 2026, 04:12 UTC Buyer Email jane@example.com Name Jane Whitlock Payment The Joinery Course (main) NZD 49.00 Measured Drawings Pack (bump) NZD 19.00 Bench Review call (upsell) NZD 99.00 Refund Tax · New Zealand (15%) NZD 25.05 Total NZD 192.05 Processor ref: pi_3Rk8Qa2eZvKY · paid via stripe · View in Stripe ↗ Invoice ↗ Resend receipt Full Refund Blank amount = full refund of the remaining balance. Money returns to the buyer's original payment method; affiliate commission claws back automatically. This can't be undone. WHAT THIS SCREEN SETTLES Every line is pre-tax 49.00 + 19.00 + 99.00 = 167.00 subtotal. Tax and any discount are separate rows underneath. One Tax row for the whole order The label names the country and the effective rate on the taxable base, not a headline rate. The upsell charged separately The card was hit NZD 78.20 at checkout, then NZD 113.85 for this line, its own tax included. Its Refund button raises this confirm: Refund the Bench Review call upgrade (NZD 99.00) to jane@example.com? The main purchase stays paid. This can’t be undone. Hidden here because this order has nothing for them: Also from this buyer, Came from, Affiliate, Subscription. The drawer omits empty sections. The drawer is the receipt: every line, the tax, and which line can be refunded on its own. That per-item button reverses the upsell's own intent in full — NZD 113.85, its tax included — but the confirm box quotes NZD 99.00, the pre-tax base. The two figures do not match.
The order drawer (dialog #order-dlg, opened by Manage on an Orders row) is where a seller checks what was actually charged: a Payment section that prints one row per item tagged with its kind — main, bump, upsell — at its pre-tax amount, then one Tax row labelled with the buyer's country and the effective rate on the taxable base, then the Total. Only the upsell line carries its own per-item Refund button, because a one-click upsell is a separate charge with its own payment intent; the main product and the bump have no such button and must go through the whole-order refund control. That per-item button reverses the upsell's intent in full, tax included (NZD 113.85 in this example), while the browser confirm it raises quotes the pre-tax base instead (NZD 99.00).

A refund of an upsell is a refund of that charge, not of the whole order — the main purchase and any other accepted steps are untouched.

08 — The rules

Limits

RuleWhy
Three bumps maximumPast three, the checkout stops reading as a checkout and starts reading as a catalogue.
Three chain steps maximumShaped upsell → downsell → upsell. Other shapes are refused when you save them.
A downsell must follow an upsellIt is defined by the decline it answers, so it cannot come first.
One-time products onlyBumps and chain steps cannot be subscriptions yet.
A cart offer can carry a chain, but not bumpsA cart already is a page of tick-boxes.
30 minutes of one-click authorityAfter that, remaining steps are skipped and the buyer lands on the receipt.
Every funnel chain shape the engine accepts, and the ones it refusesThree-slot strips for the four accepted sequences, the four refused ones with the exact message each returns, and the orphaned chain that is kept but never runs. Every chain shape the engine will hold Three slots with fixed kinds. Four sequences map onto them; everything else comes back as a sentence. ACCEPTED — AND THE POSITIONS THEY LAND IN 1 · upsell 2 · downsell 3 · upsell WHAT THE ENGINE DOES WITH IT ✓ Upsell — — Position 1 only. On a non-cart offer it rides the One-click upsell fields — the row is mirrored. ✓ Upsell Downsell — The downsell renders only on a decline, so at most one of the two can ever charge. ✓ Upsell — Upsell Two upsells file at positions 1 and 3 — slot 2 stays empty. Both can charge. ✓ Upsell Downsell Upsell At most two steps can charge — the downsell only appears when the upsell was declined. REFUSED — THE SEQUENCE AS SENT, AND THE MESSAGE IT COMES BACK WITH ✕ Downsell — — A downsell must follow an upsell — it is shown when the first upsell is declined. Start the funnel with an upsell. ✕ Upsell Downsell Downsell Only one downsell is supported — it follows the first upsell. A downsell-of-a-downsell is not available. ✕ Upsell Upsell Downsell The downsell must come straight after the first upsell (it is shown when that upsell is declined). Order the funnel upsell, downsell, upsell. ✕ Upsell Upsell Upsell Funnel shape not supported. Use up to three steps: an upsell, then optionally a downsell (shown when the upsell is declined), then optionally a second upsell. THE SHAPE THE ENGINE KEEPS BUT NEVER RUNS — Downsell Upsell No position-1 row, so nothing renders. Author it this way and the save is refused. A funnel starts with a first upsell — pick its product, or clear steps 2 and 3. Clear slot 1 on an offer that already has 2 and 3, and it is kept. This funnel is switched off — it has no first upsell. Pick one above to start showing it again. Four shapes, one reason: a downsell is defined by the decline it answers, so it can never come first. Those refusals are what an agent hits — the dashboard's fixed slot cards make an illegal shape unrepresentable, so it never asks.
GoCushy's funnel engine accepts exactly four kind sequences — upsell; upsell then downsell; upsell then upsell, which files at positions 1 and 3 leaving slot 2 empty; and upsell, downsell, upsell — and returns a specific error string for every other arrangement, including a sequence starting with a downsell, one carrying two downsells, one ending with a downsell, and a catch-all for anything else. A chain with slots 2 and 3 filled but slot 1 empty is refused when authored that way, with "A funnel starts with a first upsell — pick its product, or clear steps 2 and 3", yet the same shape is kept when slot 1 is cleared on an existing offer: the steps stay saved and the chain never runs, because the resolver returns no next step without a position-1 row. Those refusal messages are reached through the agent API; the dashboard's fixed slot cards make an illegal shape unrepresentable rather than merely rejected.

09 — Restraint

When not to

When the main product is not finished. A chain multiplies whatever the buyer already thinks of you. If the core thing is thin, three more offers on top read as a shakedown.

When you would not say it to their face. The best test for a chain step: would you offer this, in these words, to someone who just handed you money in person? If not, cut it.

Three bumps and three steps is a ceiling, not a target. Most offers that sell well use one bump and one upsell.

10 — When it looks wrong

If something looks wrong

The buyer says they accepted an upsell but it is not in their receipt

Each accepted step is its own charge and its own delivery. Check the order in your dashboard — accepted steps appear as separate items on it.

Nobody is seeing the downsell

That is the expected behaviour when they are accepting the upsell before it. A downsell nobody sees is a step-one that is working.

The chain stopped part-way

Most likely the 30-minute window closed. The buyer keeps everything they bought; nothing needs undoing.

A bump is not showing on the checkout

Bumps attach to single offers, not carts, and the product needs a delivery method set. Ask your agent to read the offer back and check both.

Related

Customising your checkout · Prompt library · Taxes & invoices