Are you looking to sell custom print-to-size products? Or maybe you want to sell products in custom sizes on your WooCommerce site?
While WooCommerce by default lets you set up customizable products using the product variations feature, it’s quite limited for setting up and selling custom products like wallpapers or fabric.
One option is to let customers calculate the final price of the product themselves. The problem with this is that it can cause a poor user experience and makes it harder for customers to purchase products.
Instead, you can use formula-based pricing to automatically and dynamically calculate the price of products according to the inputs your customers make.
In this article, we’ll explain how you can set up formula-based pricing for WooCommerce products on your online store.
Why use formula-based pricing in WooCommerce?
Formula-based pricing essentially means the price of a WooCommerce product is calculated based on user inputs or selections in product options. For example, you can let customers enter custom sizes for purchasing fabric from your online store. While you can list the price by each square meter, e.g. “$7 per sqm”, customers will see the final price calculated based on the amount of fabric they entered.
You can set up formula-based pricing like “user input * per sqm price = final product price”. This formula will automatically display an accurate product price that corresponds to your customer’s input.
You can also use formula-based pricing to sell custom printable products on your online store. Customers can enter the length and height of wallpaper they require and automatically calculate the total cost of the product.
Formula-based pricing also works great for selling customizable products, such as custom business cards. Once customers are done making their selections, the final price of the product is calculated and shown near the Add to Cart button.
You don’t want your customers to make price calculations themselves, as that not only causes frustration but also increases the chances of them abandoning their shopping cart. By using a formula-based pricing plugin, you can automatically calculate the price of complex products, thereby improving the shopping experience.
In addition to helping your customers make informed purchase decisions, these plugins also enable you to sell custom products like printable items, fabrics, and customizable apparel products on your online store.
Setting up formula-based pricing in WooCommerce
Here, we’ll show you how to set up formula-based pricing on your WooCommerce site. You’ll need a WordPress site with the WooCommerce plugin installed. You’ll also need the Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce plugin to add formula-based pricing rules to your online store.
WooCommerce doesn’t have any built-in functionality for setting up formula-based prices for your products. However, you can easily add this functionality for your ecommerce store with the Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce plugin.
It lets you create complex formulas for calculating the final price of custom products. You can use it to add up to 16 different types of fields to regular WooCommerce products! This way, you can offer advanced options for your WooCommerce products and enhance the shopping experience on your online store.
The best part is that the Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce plugin is very easy to use, even if you’re not very tech-savvy.
Let’s take a look at how you can set up formula-based pricing for different types of products with this plugin!
Customizable products
The Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce plugin lets you set up customizable products and calculate pricing using formulas. For instance, if you run an online pizzeria, you want to give customers the ability to select their pizza size and toppings, and the final product price depends on their chosen options.
To do this, start by creating a product in WooCommerce and set a title, price, and product image. We’re assuming you know this part inside and out so we are not going into the details! Then, learn how to add your first input fields to your product.
Next, we will showcase the toppings options using Multi-select image swatches from the Type dropdown menu. This lets you better represent the extra topping options and set up formula-based pricing for the extra fields:
Creating the formula
Next, we want to dynamically change the price per topping. If a customer purchases a small pizza, each topping should cost $1. But when customers order a large pizza, the price per topping should be $1.5, because a larger pizza will require more toppings to even the spread.
We can achieve that by creating a variable. A variable can later be used in formula-based pricing.
Scroll down to the Custom variables section and click on the Add new variable button. Set up your variable like in the image below:
In this example, our variable has a default value of $1. Rules were added to account for the pizza size: when the customer orders a Medium pizza, the topping price increases to $1.25. When they order a large pizza, the topping price should change to $1.5 per topping.
Now let’s apply this pricing to our toppings!
Go back to the toppings field and select Formula-based pricing using the Price type dropdown menu. Now, you can create a formula like [var_pizza_size]*[qty] to automatically use the right topping price according to the pizza size your customer selects.
Make sure to save your work and then preview:
As you can see, this functionality is great for selling customizable products on your online store and makes sure you display an accurate final price based on the selections customers make. Customers have become used to this type of user-friendly experience, so you don’t want to miss out on offering this feature for a smooth check-out process.
Products with custom sizes
Formula-based pricing is also important for products that are sold in custom sizes, such as fabrics and prints. After all, you want to charge your customers a price based on the total area of print they order or the total size of fabric they need.
With Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce, you can quickly set up formula-based pricing that gives your customers a better idea of the price they’ll have to pay when purchasing specific sizes.
Let’s create an example fabric product below. Start again by creating a product in WooCommerce and set a title, price, and product image.
Using Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce, create 2 Number input fields. Both fields will allow your customer to enter a custom length and width for your fabric product:
Next, we’ll setup the pricing mechanism.
Given the length and width by the customer, we want to calculate the total square meters and multiply that with the product unit price ( = the price for 1 square meter). For example, if the unit price is $5, you need the following formula:
length x width x 5
Sounds complicated, but Advanced Product Fields makes it easy!
On the Width field, turn on the Adjust Pricing toggle and switch to Formula based pricing. Next, click the little help symbol to open the formula builder:
The formula builder opens in a new popup and allows you to easily select the Length and Width buttons to build your formula:
Click Done, save your WooCommerce product and preview the final result:
Manufacturing supplies
If you sell manufacturing supplies on your WooCommerce site, it can be difficult to display pricing that reflects all product options. This is especially true for products for which customers can specify a custom size, like steel sheets.
With formula-based pricing, you can accurately display the final price of the product according to the length or the size of the bolt your customer wants to purchase.
Let’s say you make and sell custom-sized bolts on your online store. With the Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce, you can let customers select the bolt size using attractive radio buttons.
Setting up this product works the same as the previous demos: you set up your fields and attach pricing to it. When you need to use a formula, you can use the formula builder to make your work a bit easier. We won’t bore you with additional details, you get the picture!
WooCommerce formula pricing made easy
With default WooCommerce functionality, store owners don’t have the option to display the final product price that corresponds to the customer’s selection.
Fortunately, by using dedicated product designer plugins, like Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce, you can set up formula-based pricing for products that require customer inputs to calculate a final price.
You can use this plugin to display extra product options using over 16 different field types, but also to set up custom variables and complex formulas for calculating product prices. This makes it possible to create professional-looking WooCommerce products with custom sizes and dynamically display an accurate price according to the inputs users make on the frontend.
Build powerful products with formula pricing in WooCommerce today!
Find out moreReady to start setting up formula-based pricing on your WooCommerce site? Get Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce today!
