How to change the display of WooCommerce variation prices in your store

If a product has variations with different prices then WooCommerce always displays the price as a range. This could be losing you sales. That's why you need the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin.

Imagine that a product has variations that are priced between $10 and $25. WooCommerce will display the price as $10.00 – $25.00 throughout your store. The problem is that this often isn’t the best way to sell your products and can put customers off, resulting in lost sales.

The WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin gives store owners complete flexibility in how to display variable prices. It lets you show the lowest (or highest) price only, sell variations by weight, display the maximum price, and more. It also has extras such as automatically updating the main product price when the customer selects a variation, or hiding prices until a variation is selected.

What’s wrong with the way WooCommerce normally displays variation prices?

As we mentioned earlier, WooCommerce displays product variation prices in a range that lists the lowest and the highest price. Here’s what’s wrong with this:

Showing the highest possible price

The problem with showing a range that includes the highest possible price is that it can be bad for buyer psychology. This is because you’re drawing attention to the highest possible price.

As a result, it can lose you sales and reduce your conversion rate – a disaster for any store owner!

Think of it this way: if the top of the range is above budget, the customer is likely to leave your store. Unless they select a variation with a lower price, they’ll never know which options are within their budget.

The solution is to use the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin to change the variation price format into something more buyer-friendly.

Select a variation to see the actual price

WooCommerce requires customers to select a variation to see the actual price. If you sell products that have lots of variations, customers might be clicking around for a long time to find one with a price they’re happy with.

The solution is to use the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin to list all variation prices at once.

Not suitable for all types of products

The default way WooCommerce displays variable product prices may simply not fit with the nature of the products you sell. For example, the lowest or highest price may be the norm and you only want to display this. Or, you might sell products by weight and need to add a ‘per KG’ price or something similar.

In this case, you’re better off using the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin to create a custom price format that meets your exact requirements.

Variation prices use cases

Let’s take a look at some use case scenarios where you might need to display variation prices in a different type of price format:

Show the lowest price instead of the range

Online courses and other subscription products that have plenty of add-on option fields might want to show the lowest price (the base cost) only on the front-end. This is especially useful for anyone that has add-ons that significantly increase the cost of the base product.

For example, if the online course costs $99 and you give customers several add-ons such as:

• A one-on-one session for $39 per month.
• Access to the Discord community for $9.99 per month.

Then you wouldn’t want to display the online course’s price in a range like $99 – $147.99. That’s a huge difference. Potential learners might be put off by the highest price thinking they can’t afford the online course.

Using a WooCommerce variation prices plugin, you can instead use wording like ‘Starting at $99’ or ‘Starts from $99’.

Show the highest price instead of the range

Restaurants might want to display the highest price instead of the range for each item. This is particularly useful for pizzerias that sell single slices, half pies, and full pies as options. This way, the customer won’t be led to believe that a full pizza pie costs $5 when that’s the price of a single slice.

In this sort of scenario, you’d be better of displaying the prices using a separator like ‘$5 / $11.99 / $23’ to display the prices of single slices, half pies, and full pies.

Sell variations by weight

Stores that sell products by weight might want to list all variation prices or choose a custom format depending on the product. For example, meat shops that sell meat in pre-packaged variations might want to display the cost of each variation.

You can list prices on the front-end:

• 500 grams - $5.40
• 1 kilogram - $10.20
• 1.5 kilogram - $15.99
• 2.0 kilograms - $20.00

You can list the prices of all variations on the single product page.

This is particularly useful if you want to sell product variations at different prices or offer a discount on specific variations.

Display the maximum price

Some stores might want to display the maximum price because the lowest variation price might be the price of a sample rather than the actual, full-size product. In this scenario, only the highest price matters.

For example, bakeries that sell cookies by the dozen might want to display the price of a full dozen instead of a price range that shows the price of one cookie and a dozen cookies. You could show the price as ‘Up to $25’ indicating that lower price options are also available.

Eliminate WooCommerce variation price display

Other store owners want to hide or remove the WooCommerce variation price display from the product page. For example, maybe you want to hide the variation price range when customers first visit the product page. The price of the selected variation then appears when they choose a variation.

How WooCommerce Variation Prices works

The WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin lets you change the price range separator. You can choose to display the minimum variation price only, maximum variation price only, list all variation prices, or choose a custom format.

In addition, the variation prices plugin also lets you hide the price for variable products on the front-end. This is perfect for stores that want potential customers or clients to get in touch for a quote.

The plugin also lets you configure settings to update variation prices when a customer selects a variation.

How to set up the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin

To start using WooCommerce Variation Prices straight away, watch this video or follow the step-by-step instructions below.

 

1. Get the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin. You’ll receive the plugin files and license key in a confirmation email. Install the plugin on your WordPress website and activate it.
2. Once that’s done, head over to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Variation prices to activate the license key. Click the Save changes button to continue.
3. Now that the plugin is activated, you can choose the format for your variation prices. Head over to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Variation prices to get started.

Set the price display format

Use the Options dropdown to select a price format. The available options include:

• Price range
• Starting price (short)
• Starting price (long)
• Maximum price
• List all variation prices
• Hide the price until a variation is selected
• Custom

If you choose the Price range option, you'll see the Price range separator field.

Here, you can enter a character to use as the price range separator. By default, this is set to a hyphen/dash character.

And, if you choose the Custom option, you'll see a Custom format field.

You can add any text you'd like to display here. It supports %min% and %max% tags. For example, from %min% to %max% + VAT would display the price as: "from $50 to $100 + VAT".

Choose product types

The option lets you choose the products types you want to apply the variation price format to.

You can choose to apply it to variable products, grouped products, or both.

Show selected variation price

Normally, the price range at the top of the WooCommerce product page remains visible even after the customer selects a variation. That's pretty limited, so you can use the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin to change this.

When the Show selected variation price option is enabled, the main price of the product page is updated to show the price of the selected variation. This is much more user-friendly than always showing the low and high prices.

Bonus: use in the admin panel

You can choose to show the modified variation price formats in the WordPress admin panel. By default, this option is enabled.

Where to get WooCommerce Variation Prices

The WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin is perfect for store owners that don’t want to display variable product prices in the default range. It lets you choose from different options including displaying the minimum (or maximum) price only, listing all variation prices, and choosing a custom format.

Get the WooCommerce Variation Prices plugin today!