How are you calculating pricing for custom-shaped products?

Shopify Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I’m exploring a store concept where products are sold based on area (for example custom flooring, rugs, or sheet materials), and many customer requests involve irregular shapes rather than simple rectangles.

I’m trying to figure out:

  • How do you calculate pricing when customers submit irregular dimensions?

  • Do you require manual review before quoting?

  • Are there apps that allow custom area-based pricing?

  • How do you prevent underpricing when shapes aren’t standard?

Right now I’m considering whether to:

  1. Ask customers to break shapes into rectangles manually

  2. Build some sort of area calculator logic

  3. Charge based on bounding rectangle and absorb margin differences

Would love to hear from anyone selling custom-sized materials.

Thanks!

5

Thanks everyone — this is really helpful.

The bounding rectangle method seems practical from a margin perspective, especially for materials where waste is inevitable anyway. I like the idea of keeping checkout simple while protecting profitability.

For context, I’m evaluating this for higher-ticket materials where underpricing even small area differences can impact margins significantly. So I’m trying to balance:

• Automation for smooth checkout
• Accuracy in area estimation
• Avoiding friction with too much manual review

Has anyone experimented with letting customers visually define shapes (instead of entering segmented dimensions), or does that typically complicate the flow too much?

Appreciate the insights so far.