Milestone rewards let you automatically award WooCommerce rewards when customers complete specific actions such as registering an account or leaving a product review.
Unlike cashback (which rewards purchases), milestones reward engagement with store credit.
Account Funds 4.0 introduced milestone rewards as a way to incentivize customer actions that benefit your business without requiring a purchase.
How WooCommerce Rewards Work
When you create a milestone reward, you define:
- Trigger — The action that earns store credit (account signup or product review)
- Amount — Fixed store credit amount awarded
- Eligibility — Which products qualify (for review milestones)
- Limits — Per-customer restrictions and global caps
Store credit appears in the customer’s account immediately when they complete the triggering action.
Milestone Trigger Types
Account Registration Trigger
Awards store credit when a guest creates a customer account. Use this for:
- New customer acquisition incentives
- Building your customer email list
- Encouraging account creation over guest checkout
This trigger is inherently limited to once per customer—each person can only register one account.
Product Review Trigger
Awards store credit when a customer leaves a product review. Use this for:
- Generating social proof and reviews
- Encouraging post-purchase engagement
- Getting feedback on specific products
You can configure which products qualify and whether reviews must be verified purchases.
Creating a Milestone Reward
Navigate to Store Credit > Milestones in your WordPress admin. Click Add New to create a reward.
Basic Settings
Label — Internal name for your reference (customers don’t see this).
Trigger — Choose “Customer account registration” or “Product review.”
Amount — Fixed store credit amount to award. Milestones always use fixed amounts (not percentages).
Currency — Defaults to your store’s base currency.
Account Registration Configuration
The account registration trigger has no additional eligibility options—it simply fires when a new account is created. The reward is automatically limited to once per customer since each person can only register once.
Product Review Configuration
When using the “Product review” trigger, you have additional controls:
Eligible products options:
- Any product — Reviews on any product earn the milestone
- Specific products — Only reviews on selected products qualify
- Products within specific categories — Reviews on products in selected categories
Verified purchase required — When enabled, only reviews from customers who actually purchased the product will earn store credit. This prevents abuse and ensures reviews are from real buyers.
Award limits options:
- Once per product — Customer earns once for each unique product they review (default)
- Once per customer — Customer can only earn this milestone reward one time, ever
- Unlimited — No restrictions (use carefully—customers could earn for every review)
Global Limits
Award limit (count) — Maximum number of times this reward can be triggered across all customers. Useful for limited promotions.
Award budget — Maximum total store credit to award from this milestone. When reached, the reward stops triggering.
Expiration Settings
Reward expires on — Date when this milestone configuration stops being active.
Awarded credit expires after — How long customers have to use their earned credit.
Common Milestone Configurations
Welcome Bonus for New Accounts
Incentivize account creation:
- Trigger: Customer account registration
- Amount: $5
- No additional configuration needed
This is automatically once-per-customer since you can only register once.
Review Reward Program
Encourage reviews on all products:
- Trigger: Product review
- Amount: $2
- Eligible products: Any product
- Verified purchase required: Yes
- Award limits: Once per product
Customers earn $2 for each unique product they review, but only if they actually purchased it.
Priority Product Reviews
Target reviews for new or key products:
- Trigger: Product review
- Amount: $5 (higher than standard)
- Eligible products: Specific products → Select your target products
- Verified purchase required: Yes
- Award limits: Once per product
Category Review Campaign
Generate reviews for an entire product line:
- Trigger: Product review
- Amount: $3
- Eligible products: Products within specific categories → Select category
- Verified purchase required: Yes
- Award limits: Once per product
- Award budget: $500 (caps total campaign cost)
First Review Bonus
Encourage customers to leave their first-ever review:
- Trigger: Product review
- Amount: $10
- Eligible products: Any product
- Verified purchase required: Yes
- Award limits: Once per customer
The “Once per customer” limit means they only get this bonus for their very first review, not subsequent ones.
How Customers See Milestones
Account Registration
When account registration milestones are active, customers may see messaging on:
- Registration/signup forms
- Guest checkout (encouraging account creation)
- My Account page after registration (confirmation of credited amount)
Product Reviews
When review milestones are active, customers may see:
- Incentive messaging on product pages near the review form
- Post-purchase emails mentioning review rewards
- My Account > Store Credit showing earned amounts
Display elements are controlled in Store Credit > Settings > Display.
Review Verification
The “Verified purchase required” option works with WooCommerce’s built-in review verification system. When enabled:
- The reviewer must be logged in
- The reviewer must have previously purchased the product they’re reviewing
- The order containing that product must have reached a completed status
This prevents gaming where people leave reviews for products they never bought just to earn store credit.
Multiple Milestone Rewards
Customers can earn from multiple active milestone rewards. For example, if you have:
- A $5 welcome bonus for registration
- A $2 per-review reward
- A $5 bonus for reviewing a specific new product
A new customer who registers, then reviews the specific product, would earn: $5 (registration) + $2 (general review) + $5 (specific product bonus) = $12 in store credit.
Combining with Cashback
Milestones work independently from cashback rewards. A single purchase can trigger:
- Cashback (when the order is paid)
- A later milestone (when they review the product)
This lets you create comprehensive loyalty programs that reward both purchasing and engagement.
Troubleshooting
Registration Milestone Not Triggering
Check these common causes:
- Reward status — Ensure the reward is “Active”
- Existing account — Customer may have had an account already (even if they forgot)
- Social login — Some social login plugins may not trigger the standard registration hooks
- Budget/count limits — The reward may have reached its global limit
- Expiration date — Confirm the reward hasn’t expired
Review Milestone Not Triggering
Check these common causes:
- Verified purchase required — Customer may not have actually purchased the product
- Product eligibility — The reviewed product may not be in the eligible products/categories
- Award limits — Customer may have already reviewed this product (once per product) or any product (once per customer)
- Review approval — If reviews require moderation, credit may only apply when the review is approved
- Guest review — Guest reviews don’t have an associated account to credit
Customer Didn’t Receive Credit
First, verify the reward should have triggered by checking the eligibility rules. Then check:
- Store Credit > Transactions — Search for the customer to see if credit was actually awarded
- Award tally — View the milestone reward to see its award count and total
Preventing Abuse
Review milestones can potentially be gamed. Recommended safeguards:
- Always enable “Verified purchase required” — Ensures only buyers can earn
- Use “Once per product” limits — Prevents multiple reviews of the same product
- Set an award budget — Caps your total exposure
- Monitor activity — Check Store Credit > Transactions for unusual patterns
For high-value rewards, consider manual review of transactions before customers can spend the credit.
Developer Notes
Milestone rewards use the Kestrel\Account_Funds\Store_Credit\Rewards\Milestone class. Key technical details:
- Account registration trigger hooks into
user_register - Product review trigger hooks into
comment_postfor product reviews - Verified purchase checking uses WooCommerce’s
wc_customer_bought_product() - All transactions are recorded in the wallet ledger with references to the triggering event
For developer documentation and available filter hooks, visit our developer program.