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# Why can't we show one price on our configurable products?
- URL: https://blog.tsd.digital/why-cant-we-show-one-price-on-our-configurable-products/
- Published: 2026-11-02T08:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T07:59:59.000Z
- Description: A configurable product's price comes from rules applied once every option is chosen. Why variants multiply, and how to document the rules before a build.
- Author: Tim Gaunt
- Tags: QuestionsWeAsk, Agency, Advice

A configurable product doesn't have a price. It has a set of rules that produce one once every option is chosen. Each option multiplies the number of possible combinations, so one product page can sit over hundreds or thousands of real prices. Your website has to work the price out each time, the way your estimator does.

The video, transcript and FAQs for this episode of The questions we ask are on the [episode page](https://tsd.digital/questions/3?ref=blog.tsd.digital).

## "It depends" is the symptom

Ask a commercial director at a manufacturer what a product costs and the answer usually starts with "it depends"; on the size, the finish, the quantity, what else is already on the order.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/64/5b/645b11c2-b436-444c-a523-58dca4ca7bd8/content/images/2026/10/Questions-We-Ask-3-2-Desk.png)

So the quote takes a phone call. Sometimes two. On the website, where a number should be, there's "call for price" or a request-a-quote form.

The people on those calls know the price. They work it out in their heads from rules they've picked up over years, often so quickly it sounds as if they're reading it off a sheet. A website can't do that until someone writes the rules down.

## Variants multiply with every option you add

Take a product with three options, each offering five choices. That's 5 x 5 x 5, or 125 variants.

Add a fourth option with five choices and you have 625\. The order form gained five choices. The catalogue gained 500 variants.

Ten options at five choices each gives 9,765,625\. Nearly ten million variants, from a form a customer could fill in over a cup of tea.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/64/5b/645b11c2-b436-444c-a523-58dca4ca7bd8/content/images/2026/10/Questions-We-Ask-3-3-Soo-Many-Options.png)

So the growth is multiplicative. Each option you add multiplies everything that came before it, and the total runs away far faster than the order form suggests.

Pre-generating every variant stops working for the same reason. Many e-commerce platforms expect each sellable combination to exist as its own record, with its own SKU and price, and often its own stock level. At 125 records that's tedious. At a few thousand it turns into a maintenance job nobody owns, and every price rise means touching every affected record. At ten million, forget it.

## One product, one price (on paper)

We work with a manufacturer of architectural door hardware. On paper: one product, one price. An electromagnetic door closer, listed once, on one product page.

The buyer picks a power rating from four, a cover finish from 26, one of two cover styles, an arm finish from five and one of three accessories. Multiply that through and you reach 3,120 combinations. Some can't be built (a matching arm only pairs with certain cover finishes), so the true number is lower, though still well over a thousand prices sitting behind a single page.

A few of the specialist finishes are priced on application. Even the rules have exceptions.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/64/5b/645b11c2-b436-444c-a523-58dca4ca7bd8/content/images/2026/10/Questions-We-Ask-3-4-Colour-Swatches.png)

A sibling product in the same range offers two finishes and two cover styles, which makes four prices. Same catalogue, same page template, several hundred times the pricing complexity. A build planned around the simple one will struggle with the other.

## Pricing rules come in four shapes

Most pricing rules are sentences the business already says out loud, and they tend to fall into four shapes.

The simplest is a base price plus uplifts. The product starts at a figure and each choice adds a fixed amount or a percentage, so a stainless steel cover adds one sum and a bespoke colour adds another.

Quantity tiers drop the unit price at 10, 50 or 100 units.

Dependencies are where one choice changes what another can be, or what it costs. A higher power rating might need a larger body. A matching arm finish only exists if the cover finish has something to match.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/64/5b/645b11c2-b436-444c-a523-58dca4ca7bd8/content/images/2026/10/Questions-We-Ask-3-5-Product-Config.png)

Then exclusions, the combinations you won't sell at all, or will only sell once a person has looked at them.

Few businesses keep these rules anywhere tidy. They grew one customer request at a time, and they tend to sit in the head of your longest-serving estimator, or in a spreadsheet someone built years ago that still works as long as nobody touches the hidden columns. In our experience that spreadsheet is more accurate than its owners fear. Where it falls short is the handful of things the estimator handles by instinct.

## Pricing reaches stock, feeds, the ERP and returns

Once the price depends on the configuration, so does everything around it.

Stock feels it first. The door closer's standard silver finish is held on the shelf, while the specialist finishes are made to order with lead times that vary. The website needs to know which is which before it can promise a delivery date for the configuration in front of the buyer. In most cases stock belongs to components or a small set of held variants, and everything else gets a lead time.

Search and shopping feeds want one price per listing. Google Merchant Center expects each variant to be submitted as a separate item, grouped under a shared item group ID, with the landing page showing the same price as the feed. Pick the configurations people buy most and give each its own URL that opens with those options already selected. The long tail can stay in the configurator. A vague "from" price on a page that shows a different number at checkout is the sort of mismatch feeds reject.

Then the ERP, where most of the arguments start, over whether it holds the rules or only the results. Plenty of ERPs price an order line after it has been entered. If the website works the price out one way and the ERP another, they'll drift apart within months. Give the rules one owner. The website then either asks that system for a price or runs a copy that's synchronised from it automatically.

A cover finished in a special colour can't go back on the shelf. For consumer sales, UK law generally exempts goods made to the customer's specification from the 14-day cancellation right. For trade customers it comes down to your terms. Either way, the buyer should know before paying which configurations they can send back.

## Price your most complicated product out loud

Pick your most complicated product. Sit down with someone new to the business, a recent starter or your agency, and price a real order aloud. Say every step, including the ones that feel too obvious to mention, while they write each decision down.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/64/5b/645b11c2-b436-444c-a523-58dca4ca7bd8/content/images/2026/10/Questions-We-Ask-3-6-Configuration.png)

It takes about an hour. Expect to hear things like "we always add the longer bracket over 1,100mm", "that colour's a minimum of ten" and "I'd ring Dave for that one". Every one of those is a pricing rule, and the website will need all of them.

Do it before the build. A rule found in week one is a line in the specification. After launch, the same rule turns up as a change request, or as a quote someone has already sent that you can't honour. We'd call it the cheapest hour in the project.

## Write the rules down in four parts

An agency can build from a plain document. Start with the options, every choice listed with the code your ERP uses for it. Then the dependencies, meaning which choices allow, require or block others. The uplifts come next, with any quantity tiers alongside. Finish with the exceptions, which covers anything priced on application, minimum orders, and anything that has to go to a person before it can be sold.

A table is usually enough. The figures below are illustrative.

| Option       | Choice         | Uplift               | Depends on                       | Notes                           |
| ------------ | -------------- | -------------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| Power        | Size 3         | Base £180            | \-                               | Held in stock                   |
| Power        | Size 6         | +£45                 | Large body                       | Held in stock                   |
| Cover finish | Special colour | Price on application | \-                               | Made to order, lead time varies |
| Arm finish   | Matching       | +£15                 | Any cover finish except standard | Made to order                   |

Give the document an owner and keep one copy. When prices rise, it changes first and everything else follows.

## Questions to ask your agency or platform

Ask these before you sign, and listen for specific answers.

- Where will our pricing rules live, and who changes them when our prices go up?
- How many combinations can one product have before your approach stops working?
- What will a shopping feed see for a product with a thousand possible prices?
- If the website and our ERP disagree on a price, which one wins?
- How will a buyer know which configurations are made to order and can't be returned?

If the answer to the first is "in the product catalogue", they've probably pictured pre-generating every variant. Ask them to walk you through how that would work for your most complicated product.

## Where we start

Pricing rules are one of the first things we work through in [Discovery](https://tsd.digital/discovery?ref=blog.tsd.digital), usually by asking someone to price their hardest product out loud while we take notes. You come away with the rules written down in a form any competent team could build from, and a clear view of where they should live. If your configurable products still sit behind "call for price", [talk to us about Discovery](https://tsd.digital/discovery?ref=blog.tsd.digital) and we'll start with the product your estimator dreads.