DEV3 AI Smart Coupons & Dynamic Discounts for WooCommerce

WooCommerce plugin: it scores abandonment risk, lets the Google Gemini API propose a personal single-use coupon, then clamps every offer on the server to the merchant's caps, per-product margin floor and daily budget. Free download: sign in and click Download ZIP. Add your own Google AI Studio (Gemini) API key to switch on the AI features; the documentation says which features work without one.

How it works

We built DEV3 AI Smart Coupons & Dynamic Discounts as a WooCommerce plugin in PHP with a small React admin and a dependency-free storefront script. The AI is one step in a longer pipeline, and every step after it is deterministic.

Key design decisions

• Explainable risk, not AI risk. The abandonment score (0–100) is a weighted additive model of exit intent, idle time, cart value against the store's average order, visitor type, order history and repeat cart views. Every point has a named factor, shown in the admin simulator.
• The model only suggests. The Google Gemini API receives anonymous cart context (subtotal, item count, categories, risk reasons, the allowed ranges) and returns a typed JSON proposal. Rules::clamp() treats every field as untrusted: type, amount, time limit and copy.
• Margin floor per cart line. Room on each line is its total minus cost × quantity × (1 + minimum margin). The tightest line sets the maximum percentage, lines with no room are left out of the coupon, and the coupon is restricted to the products that passed the check.
• Copy that cannot promise a different deal. The model writes {discount} and {minutes} placeholders. Any copy that still contains digits, currency symbols, links or markup is replaced by the merchant's template, so the banner always states the clamped offer.
• Real WooCommerce coupons, locked down. Unique code, usage limit 1 and 1 per user, expiry equal to the countdown, email restriction when known, individual use, and a woocommerce_coupon_is_valid filter that binds the code to the shopping session it was issued to.
• Budget and rate gates. One offer per session, email and (optionally) IP per day, stored only as HMAC hashes; a global daily discount budget; a 15-minute evaluation cooldown per session; a deterministic rules-based fallback when the AI is off or fails.

Architecture

The storefront script watches for exit intent, idle time, tab switches and fast scroll-up, then calls a same-origin, rate-limited REST endpoint. The server builds a cart snapshot (line totals, unit cost from a configurable meta key), runs the gates, asks the AI, clamps, creates the coupon and logs the offer in its own table. Banners work on block and classic cart and checkout pages and stay compatible with full-page caching, because offers are fetched per shopper and printed inline only on cart and checkout. Action Scheduler removes expired unused coupons and resets the budget at midnight. The API client, licensing and settings screens come from a shared core used across DEV3's plugins.

What's in the download

• The installable plugin zip: upload it through Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
• Full HTML documentation (installation, settings, hooks, FAQ).

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer
• WooCommerce 7.6 or newer, active (classic and block cart/checkout are both supported)
• Optional: a Google Gemini API key. Without one, the plugin makes rules-based offers

Learn more

• How we built it: the AI Smart Coupons case study
• Engineering write-up on the DEV3 blog
• Also free in the DEV3 AI WooCommerce Plugins Bundle with every other WooCommerce plugin.