WooCommerce sale price not showing: symptom, cause and fix

When does WooCommerce cross out a price?

When it has two numbers to compare. In the product editor, in the Product data section, there are two fields: Regular price and Sale price. If both are filled in, the sale price is lower and no dates are holding it back, the store shows the old price crossed out with the new one next to it. Usually a sale badge appears on the image as well.

You will find a description of the fields and scheduling in the WooCommerce documentation on product editor settings. It shows something important when looking for the cause: the “to” date ends the sale at 23:59 that day, after which the product goes back to its regular price by itself.

Everything else that lowers the price (coupons, discount rules in plugins, prices for customer groups) works in its own way and often shows no strikethrough at all.

The symptom points to the cause

Start with what you see in the store. Each symptom narrows the list.

This article is about one product or a few that are missing the strikethrough. How to schedule the start and end of a whole sale is covered in the WooCommerce sale schedule, and a discount for a whole category in the post on a category sale.

How to set up a sale in WooCommerce so the price is crossed out

One simple product, from start to check.

1. Open Products, All Products and edit the product.
2. In Product data, on the General tab, leave the price from before the sale in the Regular price field. Do not lower this field.
3. Enter the new, lower price in the Sale price field.
4. If the sale should run for a set time, click Schedule and enter the from and to dates. Without dates the sale price lasts until you remove it.
5. Update the product.
6. Open the product in a private browser window, without logging in, and check the product page and the category.

For a variable product you do steps 2 to 4 on the Variations tab, in each variation or with a bulk action for all variations at once. This is described in the documentation on variable products, including the action for setting sale dates on all variations.

Variable products: a price range with no strikethrough

This is the most common “it does not work” that actually works. A hoodie in five sizes, with a sale on only two of them. In the category list WooCommerce then shows a range, for example from the lowest sale price to the highest regular price, with no strikethrough. The store does not yet know which variation the customer will choose, so there is no single old price to cross out.

The strikethrough appears in the list when all variations have the same regular price and the same sale price. When variation prices differ, WooCommerce core has no setting to show the old price next to the range. Store owners have asked about this for years on the WordPress.org support forum, and the answer is a code snippet or a separate plugin for displaying variation prices.

What you can do without code:

• put all variations on sale, if that makes commercial sense,
• say in the short product description which sizes the reduction applies to,
• check whether the strikethrough shows on the product page after choosing a variation on sale. If it does, the data is fine.

The data is right, but the price does not show

When the price fields and dates match, the cause lies outside the product.

The theme or a page builder. WooCommerce marks the old price with a separate tag in the page code, and the theme decides how to draw it. Sometimes the theme's styles or the price block in a page builder show only the current price. An example of this with a theme is described in a thread on the GeneratePress forum. A quick test: switch to a default theme for a moment on a test copy of the site, or in troubleshooting mode, which works only for you. If the strikethrough shows there, it is a matter for the theme author or whoever looks after the site.

A discount plugin. Rules such as “minus 10% on a category” in plugins often calculate the discount only in the cart. Some plugins have a setting to show the reduction on the product page, some do not. Look in its settings or ask the author.

The cache. A cache plugin or the server may still be showing the page from before the change. Clear the cache and check in a private window. When this is a frequent problem, the article on why changes are not showing in WordPress will help.

One more thing for every announced reduction: in the EU you have to show the lowest price from the 30 days before the reduction next to it. WooCommerce does not calculate it; a separate plugin does.

How the chat looks for the reason the strikethrough is missing

You name the product where the strikethrough is missing. Your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) reads the regular and sale prices, sale dates and variations, compares them with the table of causes and tells you which one fits. The TellMyShop plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce does this in TellMyShop Free already, because it only reads.