Setting Up Promotions and Discounts for Your AI Phone Agent

Last updated: August 14, 2026

Running a promotion or discount and want it to work for phone orders taken by your Maple AI agent? This article covers where discounts need to live, how the AI handles pricing on a call, and a common setup mistake that causes promotions to silently not apply to phone orders.

Discounts Live in Your POS, Not the Maple Portal

Discounts and promotions are configured in your POS system, not directly in the Maple portal (a Discounts tab in the Maple portal exists for a small number of specific POS integrations — most merchants should set up promotions in their POS directly).

For Toast merchants specifically, set up your promotion as an Automatic Discount under Toast's Marketing → Discounts section.

The AI Quotes Regular Menu Price — Your POS Applies the Discount

When a customer places a phone order, the AI reads back and quotes your standard menu price. Your POS system is what actually applies the discount at checkout. This means the price the AI quotes on the call and the final receipt total can differ — that's expected, not a bug. The discount is still applied; it just happens on the POS side rather than during the phone conversation.

The #1 Reason a Toast Promotion Doesn't Apply to Phone Orders

If you've set up an Automatic Discount in Toast and it's working for walk-in and Toast Online orders, but not for phone orders taken through Maple, check the discount's "Applies To" / Order Source setting.

By default, Toast discounts often only include certain order sources, and can exclude third-party or API order sources — which is how Maple phone orders are received by Toast. If your discount's order source filter isn't configured to include the source Maple orders come through, the discount will silently not apply to phone orders, even though everything looks correctly set up.

How to fix it

  1. In Toast, open your Automatic Discount under Marketing → Discounts.

  2. Check the "Applies To" / Order Source settings for the discount.

  3. Make sure Takeout/Pickup and Third-Party/API order sources are both included, not just walk-in or Toast Online.

  4. Save your changes and place a test phone order to confirm the discount now applies.

Having the AI Proactively Mention a Promotion

By default, the AI won't bring up a promotion unless a customer asks about it or it's added to your Knowledge Base as an FAQ. If you'd like the AI to proactively mention a promotion during calls — for example, "we currently have 10% off everything from 11 AM to 4 PM" — contact Maple support to have a custom instruction added for your account.

Important: If your promotion is time-limited, remember to contact Maple support to remove the instruction once the promotion ends. Otherwise, the AI may keep mentioning a deal that's no longer active.

Bundled Discounts and Combo Pricing

The AI can handle straightforward bundled pricing rules (for example, "Lunch Special $7.95, add another entree for $4.50 more") when they're set up as a modifier group in your POS, paired with a note so the AI knows to offer or apply it. For more complex, multi-combo orders, the AI will transfer the call to your staff to complete rather than risk getting a complicated bundle wrong.