systeme.io Tripwire Funnel: Where Each Offer Is Delivered

A tripwire funnel has a familiar order: a small offer, a checkbox add-on at checkout, a bigger offer straight after payment, and a cheaper fallback if that's declined. systeme.io's learn page on tripwires describes the upsell as "often the core product". Most guides stop at the order and the pricing.

The detail that decides how you build it in systeme.io sits in the help center's notes. Each step accepts a different list of things it can deliver. A paid calendar event, which is how you'd sell a call or a session, can be the product on an order form. It can't be an order bump, an upsell or a downsell. So if your core offer is a session, it can't be the upsell, however often the guides put the core product there. The funnel has to be arranged around what each slot can hand over after payment.

So this guide works backwards: first what each slot can hand over, then the build, then the charges a buyer will see, and only then the plan. Bold text marks systeme.io's own setting names.

What each step can deliver

Physical products can go in every slot, and systeme.io leaves the shipping to you, as the bump article says outright. The order form article lists that form's resources, calendar events included.

Read down the calendar column and the layout follows: put anything bookable on the order form, and let the bump, upsell and downsell carry courses, bundles, community access or a tag. If you sell coaching, that usually means flipping the textbook order. The session is the front offer, and a course or community is the add-on. If you want to sell a session after a cheaper product, it needs its own order form, not an upsell page. A course-and-coaching ladder works the same way, one order form per tier, as my course, coaching and VIP tiers guide lays out.

Lay down the funnel and its order form

In Sites, open, Sales funnels and click Create. Enter a name, pick the domain and currency, and choose a funnel type. The Sell type comes preset with an order form and a thank-you page; Custom starts blank. Either works, because you'll add steps.

If the funnel has no order form yet, add one: Add step, then Order form as the type. On the order form's configuration, choose the offer type (Digital product or Physical product), add the resource and set a price plan. For a session, the paid calendar bookings article gives the route: choose Calendar events as the resource, save, then drag the Paid calendar element onto the page in the editor.

If a sales page comes before the order form, link it the way the funnel-links article shows. The sales page button's action is Open URL, pointing at the order form.

The checkbox offer: order bump

The order bump article starts on the order form, with Add order bump. Under Choose offer type, pick Digital product or Physical product, then add the resource: a course, a course bundle, a tag or a community (a calendar event shows an error, per the help article). The bump takes a single price, which the article marks as important. The step that's easy to miss comes last: open the page editor and drag the Order bump element onto the page, or buyers won't see it.

If the bump is a course, access is the delivery and nothing else is needed. If you want an email to go to bump buyers, the help article's method is to make the bump's resource a tag. A rule with the trigger "Tag assigned" (the automation rules article lists it as Tag added) then sends an email or starts a campaign. The automation rules article adds that the tag must be assigned after the rule exists, so build the rule before the funnel takes orders.

The after-payment offers: upsell and downsell

The upsell and downsell article works the same way. In the funnel, use Add step with Upsell or Downsell as the type, pick a template and open Edit page. Choose the offer type, click + to set up the product, and add a resource from the same list as the bump. The article says plainly: "It is not possible to sell a Calendar Event on upsell or downsell pages." Then add one or more price plans, and put Accept and Decline buttons on the page in the editor.

Order matters, and the help center repeats it: "The upsell page must be placed after the main order form, and the downsell page must follow the upsell page." The funnel-links article describes the routing that follows. A validated payment goes to the upsell, an accepted upsell goes to the thank-you page, and a declined one goes to the downsell and then the thank-you page. If you haven't made a thank-you page, a default one is shown.

Warn buyers about separate charges

Every add-on is its own charge. For the upsell and downsell, the upsell and downsell article says the customer and the seller "will see individual charges for each product instead of one single total." For the bump, the order bump article says both items are charged, "but they are processed as two separate transactions," and that a payment window like PayPal's "may only show the price of the main offer."

That's normal behavior by systeme.io's account, but a buyer doesn't know it. A tick in a checkbox that doesn't change the total on the PayPal screen, then two lines on a card statement, is a recipe for support emails. What I'd do with it: say on the order form, next to the bump, that it's billed as a separate charge, and repeat it on the upsell page by the Accept button. It costs a sentence and matches what the help center says will happen.

Count the follow-up rules

The plan question comes from the follow-up, not from the pages. Here is a typical tripwire's automation, built from the help articles' own triggers:

Resources need no rules, so delivery is free of automation limits. Each follow-up email is its own rule. A funnel that both starts a buyer sequence and emails bump buyers already needs two automation rules, one more than the free plan allows.

One seller on Free hit this in r/systeme_io. Their one tag already drove the email after the front-end purchase, and they asked: "Is the bump offer unusable with the free plan? I would like to send a PDF, is there any alternative way that I'm missing?" The bump's resource list includes a course, so a PDF placed inside a course reaches the buyer as access, with no rule. Sent by email, it needs the tag-and-rule route in the table, and that's the second rule Free doesn't have.

One tripwire on Free; follow-up emails on Startup

systeme.io's learn pages say the free plan includes order bumps, one-click upsells and downsells. That's true, and the pricing table puts numbers on it.

On Free you can build one complete tripwire. That's one order form with one bump and one upsell, delivered by resources, plus a single rule. Spend that rule on the buyer sequence (New sale → Subscribe to campaign), and let the bump and upsell deliver by access alone. The table doesn't list downsells separately, so check in your account whether a downsell counts against the upsell row before relying on one.

What tips a tripwire seller into paying is the email to the people who said yes twice. Bump and upsell buyers are your warmest list, and the moment they should get their own welcome or onboarding email, that's a second rule, and Startup is the plan: $17 monthly or $170 for a year ($14.17 a month), with 10 rules, 10 bumps, 10 upsells and 10 campaigns, enough for several tripwires with full follow-up. If your upsell only unlocks a course, Free still does the job. Compare the two on systeme.io's plan page once you know which buyers you'll be writing to. Webinar ($47) only earns its place here if you also need evergreen webinars or more than 5,000 contacts, and my evergreen webinar guide covers that build.

If your core offer is a booked session

If the core thing you sell is a booked session and you want it offered one-click after a cheaper purchase, systeme.io's upsell step can't do it, by its own help center. You'd send buyers from the thank-you page to a separate order form. The help center's upsell-versus-bump article describes the upsell as the step where a buyer pays "without re-entering their payment information", and a separate order form isn't described that way. If that matters more than having everything in one tool, a dedicated checkout or booking tool may suit you better; my coaching platform comparison looks at where a booked call lands on each.

Test the upsell page on a phone before you launch, too. A one-star Trustpilot reviewer, Chipo Mukonoweshuro, wrote in March 2026 that "key “Accept Offer” buttons on an upsell page (built using their own templates) do not display correctly when the page first loads." One review isn't a pattern, but an upsell whose button doesn't show is an upsell nobody can accept.

Of the two limits, only the bump one is worded as if it might change. The order bump article, revised August 27, 2026, says "Currently, it is not possible to add a calendar event as a resource for an order bump"; the upsell article, revised the same day, says flatly "It is not possible to sell a Calendar Event on upsell or downsell pages." One word isn't a roadmap, and neither article promises anything. If calendar events are ever allowed beyond the order form's main offer, though, that "Currently" makes the bump the likelier of the two. Put the session on the order form now and neither change would force a rebuild.

FAQ

Can an order bump be a coaching call in systeme.io? No. The order bump article says a calendar event can't be a bump resource. Put the call on the order form instead.

Are the bump and the main product one payment? No. The order bump article says they're processed as two separate transactions, and upsells and downsells are separate charges too.

Does the free plan include upsells? Yes, one order bump and one 1-click upsell, with one automation rule. The pages themselves fit, so one tripwire with a bump and an upsell runs on Free. The limit is the follow-up: each follow-up email is its own rule, so starting a buyer sequence and emailing bump buyers already takes two. If your bump and upsell only unlock courses, access is the delivery and Free still does the job.

What happens when a buyer declines the upsell? They go to the downsell, then the thank-you page. An accepted upsell goes straight to the thank-you page. If you haven't made one, systeme.io shows a default thank-you page.

How do I email only the people who took the order bump? Make the bump's resource a tag, then build a rule with the tag trigger that sends an email or starts a campaign. Build the rule first, because the tag must be assigned after the rule exists.

Do I need the Webinar plan for a tripwire? Not for the tripwire itself. Startup's 10 bumps, upsells and rules cover several. Webinar ($47) matters only if you also run evergreen webinars or pass 5,000 contacts.