Selling custom banners on Shopify means one price has to follow the size, the material, the finish and the hardware. The customer also needs to see their design at that size before they pay.
Appify Custom Product Options does both on the product page. The calculator prices the banner as the customer types a width and height. The built-in Product Designer opens an artboard cut to that same size, so the price and the design never drift apart.
Here is what banner pricing has to handle, a worked example, and how each piece is set up.
What does a banner price have to handle?
A banner is priced by its area, then adjusted by everything the customer adds. Some parts grow with the size, some are charged per banner, and one is charged once per order.
- Size. A width and a height, typed in or picked from your stock sizes. Area comes from the two.
- Material. Vinyl and mesh each have their own rate per square foot.
- Finish. Hemming and grommets, added per banner.
- Hanger. A hanger is a hardware product with its own stock and its own price.
- Quantity breaks. The price per banner falls as the run grows.
- A setup fee charged once. One artwork setup on an order of 5 banners is one fee, not five.
Shopify's variants top out at three options and cannot take a size the customer types. So the price has to be worked out from the size, not looked up from a variant. The hanger has to stay a real Shopify product, so your inventory stays right.
A worked example
All prices here are made-up examples, in dollars. Say vinyl is 4 a square foot, hemming with grommets adds 6 per banner, orders of 5 or more take 10% off the banners, and setup is 15. The hanger is a product in your store at 9.
The customer picks a 24 by 72 inch banner in vinyl, hemmed with grommets, adds a hanger, and orders 5.
- Area: 24 × 72 = 1,728 square inches, which is 12 square feet.
- Material: 12 × 4 = 48.
- Finish: add 6. One banner is 54.
- The run: 54 × 5 = 270.
- Quantity break: 5 or more takes 10% off the banners. 270 − 27 = 243.
- Setup fee: 15, charged once and never discounted. 243 + 15 = 258.
- Hanger: 5 hangers at 9 each, 45, added as their own line.
The calculator shows 243 for the 5 banners plus the 15 setup fee, 258 in all. With the hangers, the cart total is 303.
One banner on its own is 54 plus the 15 setup, 69, and one hanger at 9 brings it to 78.
Now the same customer changes the size to 36 by 96. That is 24 square feet, so the material line doubles to 96, while the finish, the setup fee and the hanger stay the same. They never see a price list. They see the new total.
How do you set it up?
You don't have to start from a blank page. The app comes with a catalog of ready-made calculators. Open one in the preview, click Install to my store, and it arrives in your calculators as a draft. Then put in your own sizes, materials and rates, assign your products and publish.
Or describe the banner to Chat with AI: "I sell vinyl and mesh banners. Customers enter a width and height, pick a material and a finish, and add a hanger. Here's my rate card." Attach the spreadsheet, and it adds the options and the pricing.
Here's what it builds, so you know what to ask for.
1. Width and height
Two number fields, one for each side, with the minimum and maximum you can actually print. If you sell stock sizes too, show them as buttons and add a Custom choice that reveals the fields. A Show if rule handles the reveal.
Whatever the customer picks or types, the price is worked out from the area.
2. Material and the price from area
Each material choice holds its own rate per square foot. A pricing variable holds the square feet once, so the finish, the fees and the discounts can all read it.
If your price isn't a straight rate per square foot, a pricing table keyed on size does the job. You can use the formula for the main price and a table for the one part that doesn't follow a rate. Here's how to price from a 2D pricing table or rate sheet.
3. Finish
A dropdown for plain edges, hemmed, or hemmed with grommets, each with its own added price per banner. Rules can keep the list honest: a Limit rule sets a smaller maximum width for one material, and Hide values removes a finish that does not go with the material picked.
4. The hanger, as a linked add-on
The hanger is a product you already sell. On a choice such as Hanger: None / Add hanger, open Add to cart and link a store product. When the customer picks Add hanger, the hanger goes into the cart with the banner, and the quantity can match the banner quantity.
- It is a normal Shopify line. It keeps its live price, inventory and shipping.
- The cart reads clearly. The hanger is listed under that option in the price summary. Turn on Add-ons and Total with add-ons to show the combined amount the customer will pay at checkout.
- Keep with custom product in cart offers to remove the hanger too when the banner is removed.
Don't also charge for the hanger inside the choice's formula, or the customer pays twice. For more on this, see how to add linked add-on products to custom products.
5. Quantity breaks, setup fee and a floor
- Quantity discount rules: percent off, amount off, or an exact price per banner at each break. Paste your tiers from a spreadsheet instead of typing them. The discount is applied at checkout automatically, with no codes.
- Breaks by size: the 2D mode gives a small banner and a big one their own ladders.
- Shown on the page: the inline price puts the price and the saving beside each quantity choice.
- Fixed fees: the artwork setup, charged once however many banners are ordered, as its own line that discounts never touch.
- Minimum price: a floor so one small banner still covers your costs.
Every size, every material, every finish, one native cart line. The calculated price is charged at checkout, and no width, height or quantity ever becomes a new variant.
How does the design match the banner size?
A banner is a design-is-the-product item, so the customer needs more than a text box. The app's built-in Product Designer is a full-screen design canvas, a different feature class from a text-and-photo personalizer. It opens from a button on the product page.
For a banner, the setup is short. It is the sized banner recipe in the app's own documentation:
- Bind width and height to the artboard. A canvas binding ties the two number fields to the canvas size. When the customer changes the width, the artboard changes with it, live.
- Show the Material option in the editor's right panel. The customer can change material without leaving the design.
- Turn on the cut-line SVG and the production manifest. They're what your print shop uses to produce the order.
The customer gets bleed and safe zone guides on the canvas, plus text, fonts, clipart, shapes and their own artwork on layers.
Low-resolution warnings matter more on a banner than on most products. A logo that looks sharp at 3 inches can be too small for a 6 foot banner. You set the recommended resolution, and the editor warns the customer while they work, before the file reaches your printer.
What does production get with the order?
When the customer saves, one Design Files link on the order opens everything your printer needs. You choose which files are generated:
- Proof PNG as the preview and the order check.
- Print-ready PNG with bleed, exported at 300 DPI by default.
- Cut-line SVG as the trim path.
- Production manifest, an HTML sheet listing each element's position and size and the calculator choices: width, height, material, finish, hanger.
Production notes from the customer's comment button land on the manifest too. For a closer look at the files, read why custom orders take so long to fulfill and how to automate production, and the print quality and production output help article.
What if a price comes out wrong?
Click Price looks wrong? under the preview price. The Troubleshoot tab runs the formula for those exact choices and shows every part of it.
Or tell Chat with AI what it should be: "A 24 by 72 vinyl banner, hemmed with grommets, qty 5 should be 258." It opens Troubleshoot with those choices filled in.
What happens after the order?
Production gets the whole job. Size, material, finish, hanger and quantity are saved on the order, with the design files attached.
A wrong choice is easy to fix. An Edit options button in the cart reopens the calculator with everything filled in.
The next event starts from the last one. Shopify's own Buy again button re-adds the product and drops every choice. The Appify Reorder block in customer accounts, and a Reorder this item link in the order confirmation email, bring the same banner back with every choice filled in.
Abandoned carts come back whole. A Restore your cart link rebuilds every configured banner in the cart.
Selling signs next to banners? How to price custom signs on Shopify by size, material and quantity covers stakes, double-sided printing and quantity breaks by size.
FAQ
Can customers enter any banner size?
Yes. Width and height fields take the size they type, with the minimum and maximum you set. The price comes from the area, using your own rates.
Can the price per banner drop as the quantity goes up?
Yes. Quantity discount rules take the price down at each break, as a percentage, an amount, or an exact price per banner. They're applied at checkout automatically.
Can a hanger be added to the cart with the banner?
Yes. Link the hanger product to an Add hanger choice. It goes into the cart as its own Shopify line, and the quantity can match the banner quantity.
Can the design canvas follow the size the customer picks?
Yes. Bind the width and height options to the artboard in the Product Designer, and the canvas resizes live as the customer changes them.
Does the order include files for my printer?
Yes. A print-ready PNG with bleed, a cut-line SVG and a production manifest can all be generated on save, behind one Design Files link.
Can a setup fee be charged once instead of per banner?
Yes. A fixed fee is charged once on top of the banners, and quantity discounts never reduce it.
Every banner priced at the size they design.
Whatever you sell, however you price it · The last options app you'll shop for