What is the "Before discounts" line in the cart?

How Volume calculates the Before discounts and Savings rows in the cart, the compare-at price setting behind them, and why hiding the row also hides discount names.

Both the cart page and the cart drawer have a Price block with two checkboxes: Show 'Before discounts' and Show 'Savings'. Both are on by default.

Before discounts is the cart total as it would have been without any discount. Savings is the difference between that figure and what the customer actually pays. Together they make the discount visible at the moment it matters most, which is why they are worth keeping on for any store that runs promotions.

Why the row sometimes shows the same number as the total

By default Before discounts only counts discounts applied to the cart — automatic discounts, discount codes and Shopify Scripts. It does not count markdowns you made with a compare-at price.

So a product whose compare-at price is €100 and whose selling price is €80 shows €80 on both lines, and Savings shows nothing. Nothing is broken; the €20 is a price change, not a discount.

To count compare-at markdowns as well, turn on Theme settings → Cart → Include the compare-at price in the 'Before discounts'. It is off by default. With it on, Volume takes each line individually and uses whichever is higher — the compare-at price times the quantity, or the line price — so a mix of marked-down and full-price items still adds up correctly.

Turning Show 'Before discounts' off does more than hide a row: it also changes which discounts get named.

With the row on, the cart lists every discount applied to the cart, including automatic product discounts, right under the Before discounts figure. With the row off, only cart-level discounts are listed under the total — a discount that applies to individual line items stops being named anywhere in the cart summary.

If merchants complain that a discount "applies but is not shown", this is usually why.

Settings involved

In the Price block of Cart and Cart drawer:

• Show 'Before discounts' — on by default;
• Show 'Savings' — on by default;
• Cart total style, Before discounts style (only shown while Show 'Before discounts' is on) and Savings style — typography only.

In Theme settings → Cart:

• Include the compare-at price in the 'Before discounts' — off by default.

The words Before discounts and Savings are theme content, not fixed labels. Change them in Online Store → Themes → … → Edit default theme content, or translate them per language there.