Spin to win wheel: how to run one without giving away your margin

The wheel shows a handful of prizes, such as 10% off, free delivery or a free gift, plus a few slices that win nothing. The visitor spins, the wheel stops on a slice and a winner gets a code to use at checkout.

The slices are a picture, not the odds. What a visitor wins depends on the chance you give each prize, and on a well-built wheel that decision is made on the server before the wheel starts turning.

A discount that is won feels different from one that is handed out. Visitors who would close a plain sign-up box stop to spin, and winners are more likely to use a code they feel they earned.

In Omnisend's 2025 data, pop-ups with a wheel turned 3.5% of displays into sign-ups, against 2.0% for a plain pop-up. That is 75% more sign-ups from the same visitors.

Work it out before you publish. Say 1,000 visitors spin in a month and 30% of spins win: that is 300 prizes. If 40% of winners use a 10% code on an average order of $50, you give away 120 × $5, which is $600.

A win rate is an average, so a busy week can go well past that figure. Set a hard budget and a maximum number of winners as well. In DealCraft the wheel stops handing out prizes when either one is reached, and a code that expires unused returns its value to the budget.

Mix one or two prizes people really want with several cheap ones. Free delivery and 5% off cost little and still feel like a win. A larger prize, such as 20% off, can sit on the wheel with a small chance.

Put a minimum spend on percentage prizes so the discount comes with a bigger cart. A free product works well when it is something the shop already stocks in quantity.

Give every code a short expiry, such as seven days. A prize that never expires gets used whenever the customer would have bought anyway.

Not the moment the page loads. Let the visitor look around first, and show the wheel once per visitor rather than on every page.

On a phone the wheel must be easy to close. Google counts pop-ups that cover the content on mobile as a poor experience, and visitors who cannot reach the product leave. The DealCraft website pop-up lets you choose how often it appears and to what share of visitors.

Many wheel plugins pick the prize in the browser. The prize list, the odds and sometimes the codes sit in the page code, where anyone with developer tools can read them or replay the spin until they win.

Use a wheel where the server decides the result and the browser only plays the animation. Add a limit on plays per visitor and a cooldown, and ask for an email confirmation when the prize is large.

Create a wheel game, add your prizes and set the chance of winning for each. Then set the budget, the maximum number of winners and how long a code lasts.

Choose where it appears: a pop-up on your website from one script tag, an embed inside a page, a link, or a QR code at the counter. On WooCommerce, install the DealCraft plugin and codes are checked at the cart and spent when the order is paid.

Publish, then follow plays, winners and used codes in the dashboard. The free plan covers 200 plays a month.