Create Mutual exclusion rule

The Mutual exclusion rule allows you to prevent two or more products (or collections) from being purchased together in the same order.

Use this when certain items should never end up in the same cart — for example, keeping a sale item from being combined with a full-price item, or preventing two incompatible bundle options from being bought together.

1. Open Limit rules and Add limit rule.

From the left-hand menu of the app, click Limit rules to open the list of your rules. Click + Add limit rule to open the limit type chooser.

2. Choose the Limit type

On the limit type chooser, find the Mutual Exclusion Rule card and click + Add limit.

Each mutual exclusion rule is independent, so you can run several rules at once with different exclusion groups and date windows.

3. Name your rule

Enter a name in the Rule name field. This name is for internal use only — customers will never see it. Pick something that tells you at a glance what the rule does.

4. Exclusion groups

Edit Exclusion groups

An exclusion group is a set of products or a collection that cannot be purchased together. Each group is applied separately, and you can create up to 5 exclusion groups within one rule.

You can choose:

• Exclude by product group: Select specific products that cannot be combined in the same order.
• Exclude by collection: Select an entire collection of products to exclude together.

How to add a group:

1. Click Add group.
2. Choose Exclude by product group and click Choose products to pick individual products, or select Exclude by collection to pick a full collection.
3. Save your settings.

Once active, if a customer adds products from different exclusion groups to their cart, they will see a warning and must adjust their cart before checkout.

Mutual exclusion rule – Example use case

A mutual exclusion rule lets you create independent exclusion groups of products or collections that cannot be purchased together. Each group acts as a separate rule, and you can create up to 5 groups in one mutual exclusion rule.

How it works:

• Exclusion group 1 and Exclusion group 2 are independent.
• Products inside group 1 will exclude each other only within group 1.
• Products inside group 2 will exclude each other only within group 2.

This means adding products from group 1 does not affect group 2, and vice versa.

Example:

• Group 1: Product A and Product B → a customer can buy A or B, but not both in the same order.
• Group 2: Product C and Product D → a customer can buy C or D, but not both.

These two groups are completely separate. If a customer buys Product A, they are still free to buy Product C (because A belongs to group 1 and C belongs to group 2).

5. Customer tags

Select customer tags to apply this rule. If no tag is selected, the rule will automatically apply to all customers.

Select customer tags

You can apply a rule to specific customer groups by using customer tags.

• To use this feature, open the Select customer tag dropdown.
• Choose one or multiple tags from the list (for example: uppush, VIP).
• You can also create a new tag by typing it in the Add custom tag field and clicking Add.
• If no tag is selected, the rule will apply to all customers by default.

This feature is useful if you want to create special rules for particular customer segments, such as VIP members or wholesale buyers.

Example:

If you select the tag VIP, the rule will only apply to customers with the VIP tag, and other customers will not be affected.

Require customer to login

If this option is enabled, customers who are not logged in will always see the exclusion warning banner. This ensures that your rule is consistently enforced, even for visitors who have not created or signed into an account.

6. Time conditions

You can control when a rule becomes active by setting a start and/or end time.

• Start time: Apply this rule only after the start time.
• End time: Apply this rule only before the end time.

This feature is useful for time-based campaigns, promotions, or seasonal restrictions.

Change timezone

When you click on Change timezone, you will be redirected to the Settings page of the Uppush Order Limit app. From there, you can select the correct timezone for your store.

This setting ensures that all time-based conditions (such as start time and end time) are calculated according to the actual local time of your store.

7. Behavior

The behavior settings define how and when the rule is enforced for customers.

Show warning banner when

Choose when the warning banner should be displayed to customers. You can select one of the following options:

• Conflict is detected The banner will appear as soon as products from two different exclusion groups are both in the customer's cart.

• Click to the add to cart button The banner will appear immediately when the customer clicks the Add to cart button on a conflicting product, even before the conflict is finalized in the cart.

NOTE

The exact wording of this option may differ slightly in your version of the app — please confirm against your own screenshot and update if needed.

Frequency limit

The frequency limit allows you to control how often a rule is applied within a specific time frame. This ensures customers cannot repeatedly bypass your rule.

Available options:

• No limit frequency: The rule applies every time without restriction.
• Once over all time: The rule applies only once per customer, ever.
• Once per year: The rule resets every year.
• Once per month: The rule resets every month.
• Once per week: The rule resets every week.
• Once per day: The rule resets daily, applying once per customer per day.
• Custom time: Define a custom time range (e.g., every 12 hours, every 3 days).

Important

Frequency limit only works on store pages. It does NOT work in Checkout Validation because Shopify does not provide the customer's last order data during checkout.

To ensure the frequency limit works correctly, customers must log in to the store before reaching the checkout page.

When testing on a development store, frequency-based rules may also not work as expected. This is normal behavior and not an app issue.

Show extra message

Enable this option if you want to display an additional message below the main warning banner. This extra line can be customized to provide more details or instructions for customers — for example, explaining why the two products can't be bought together.

Extra message customization

You can edit and customize the extra message shown below the warning banner. This allows you to provide additional instructions or helpful links for your customers.

To customize:

1. Go to the Translation tab.
2. Scroll down to the Extra message field.
3. Enter your custom text, add links, or format the message as needed.
4. Click Save to apply the changes.

8. Checkout validation

Enable this option if you want the exclusion rule to also be enforced at checkout, not just on the store pages. This prevents customers from bypassing the rule through direct checkout links, cart edits, or other checkout entry points.

NOTE

See Adding a checkout validation for the full setup guide. Confirm this section exists for Mutual exclusion rules in your version before publishing — it was inferred from the equivalent step on the Collection limit rule.

9. Activate the rule

After completing all the rule settings, click Save to save your changes.

Then, switch the rule status from Inactive to Active to enable the rule.

Once activated, the rule will start applying to your selected exclusion groups and customers.