Pricing

Discount stacking

The accumulation of multiple independently-approved concessions on the same transaction, producing a combined reduction nobody authorised.

A contract discount, then a volume break, then a promotional allowance, then a ship-and-debit, then a year-end rebate. Each was defensible on its own merits and approved by somebody with authority to approve it. The stack was never approved by anyone, because nobody ever saw it.

Stacking is a governance failure that looks like a pricing failure. The control is not stricter approval on each concession; it is making the combined effective rate visible at the point of the last approval.

Related terms

Pocket price

What you actually keep from a transaction after every on-invoice and off-invoice reduction.

Price waterfall

The step-by-step decomposition from list price down to pocket price, naming every reduction along the way.

Price erosion

The gradual decline of realised price over time through accumulated concessions, without any deliberate decision to lower the price.

Margin floor

The minimum acceptable margin for a transaction, below which approval must escalate.

Still not clear?

Send it to us. We answer, and the good questions end up back in this glossary.

Ask us directly →

See the term in the product.

Thirty minutes, walking the mechanism you just read about through modelling, accrual, claim and settlement — against examples close to your own programmes.

Book a demo Back to terminology