Product Configurator Formula Calculation: Made to Measure Pricing

About the Extension

Add-on plugin – requires the Product Configurator (SwpProductOptionsSix). This plugin works exclusively as an extension of the base plugin Product Configurator (SwpProductOptionsSix). Without the installed, active, and separately purchased base plugin, this plugin has no function.

A customer wants a panel cut to 840 by 1,220 millimetres. Your product page shows a price per square metre, but the order form only knows fixed variants. So they send you an email, you work it out, you send a quote back. Two days later they might order.

The problem

Made to measure goods do not fit into a variant grid. If you sell cut to size panels, glass, fabric by the metre or privacy screening, you have thousands of possible size combinations on paper and no realistic way to create them all as variants. Every workaround costs time: an enquiry form instead of a basket, hand maintained price tables, or a one off development that somebody has to touch again after the next Shopware update. In all three cases the customer sees no price and no buy button.

The solution

You store a formula, for example a*b for the area, and you decide how the result feeds into the price. On the product page the customer gets input fields for their measurements, with a unit and an allowed range. When they add the option to the basket, the plugin works out the result and the surcharge and writes both into the line item. No quote by email, no price table with 400 rows.

What's in it for you

Made to measure sells without a conversation. Your customer gets a price the moment they enter their dimensions. What used to sit in your inbox as an enquiry is now an order in your shop.

You maintain prices in one place. If the formula result is calculated against the product price, your square metre rate stays where it belongs: on the product. Changing a price means editing a product, not hunting for a formula.

Customers can only order sizes you can actually cut. Each input field takes a minimum, a maximum and a step size. A pane with a four metre edge or a cut to a tenth of a millimetre never reaches the basket.

You decide what the basket shows. Formula and price, one of the two, or neither: four display modes, set per sales channel. Some ranges like showing the sum, others only want the result.

Trade and retail stay separate. The plugin has an on/off switch per sales channel, and every setting is read for the channel the customer is browsing. One channel calculates, the other stays untouched.

The basket keeps working when something goes wrong. A formula that does not resolve, a product deactivated while it sat in the basket: the plugin writes the reason into its own log file and shows a short notice on the line item. No white screen, no dead checkout.

How the plugin works

In the administration you will find a Formula entry under Product options. There you create a record: formula name, formula, unit of measurement and calculation method. You can use the basic arithmetic operators, powers and brackets, the variables a, b, c, d and r, the constants pi, e and Inf, and the functions sqrt, abs, sin, cos, tan, log and exp. For the calculation method you choose whether the result is combined with the product price (placeholder AP) or with a fixed value.

In the product configurator you then create an option group of the field type Formula and assign your formula to it. For each variable you define a formula value input with its variable letter, its unit and, if you want, a minimum, a maximum and a step size. Those become number fields in the storefront with the unit next to them. The basket recalculates on every basket run, including after a quantity change, and the order keeps the formula, the result and the customer values on the line item.

Seven ready made example formulas ship with the plugin: perimeter and area of a rectangle, volume of a cuboid, a cylinder and a sphere, plus circumference and area of a circle. One console command writes them into your database, which gives you a working template to adapt.

Typical use cases

Glass, panel and timber cutting. Formula a*b, result multiplied by the square metre price of the product. The customer enters width and height and sees the price for their exact piece.

Fabric by the metre and fencing. Formula (a+b)*2 for the perimeter, calculated against a price per linear metre. Useful for fencing, edging, borders and frames.

Signage and large format printing. Banners, stickers and vinyl priced by area, with the material cost sitting in the product price. A fixed value in the calculation method covers surcharges that do not depend on size.

Round cuts. Formula (r^2)*pi for table tops, lids and bases. The customer enters the radius, the formula does the rest.

Technical facts for your IT team

Shopware 6.7, any patch level, PHP 8.2 or newer.

Add-on plugin – requires the SwpProductOptionsSix product configurator from version 6.7.12 and does not run without that base plugin.

It creates one table of its own for the formulas and adds one column to the product configurator's table. Shopware core tables stay untouched. The plugin sends no data to external servers, sets no cookies and processes no personal data: the measurements a customer enters sit on the line item in the basket and on the order, like any other option choice.

Formulas are evaluated by an encapsulated parser that only accepts the five permitted variables and works without eval or exec. Errors go into a dedicated log file under var/log/, never into the page output. Product prices and units are loaded once per basket instead of once per line item. The formula area has its own privileges for viewing, editing, creating and deleting. On uninstall the "keep user data" checkbox decides whether the table, the extra column and the settings survive or are removed completely.

To be honest

This plugin calculates, it does not draw. There is no graphical preview of the cut, no volume based price breaks and no waste allowance on sheet sizes. Five variables plus basic arithmetic, roots, powers and trigonometric functions cover most cut to size and by the metre ranges. If your pricing is a rule book full of exceptions rather than a formula, this is notthe right tool. The quickest way to find out is to attach one of the example formulas to a test product and walk it through the basket once.

Legal notice

We accept no liability for legal requirements. Please check the use of this plugin with a qualified legal advisor.