Remove Shopify variant limits with these 5 awesome apps

March 18th, 2024 9 minute read
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Katana Cloud Inventory

Katana Team

March 18th, 2024 9 minute read
Coffee roaster stood in a warehouse, filled with inventory and equipment, updating their Shopify variant limit on their Katana ERP software.

Scaling manufacturers like the guys at “Coffee People” often have to deal with the dreaded Shopify variant limit. But what many of them do not know is that there are solutions to this issue, some of which don’t need you to spend a penny.

Oh, the wonders of managing products on Shopify… how we do love thee!

How easy to add products and have them ready for purchase on demand.

How very simple to attach Shopify product variants and options.

How fluid the process of changing the order they are shown.

But what’s this?

A villain amongst the reeds…

Shopify variant limit.

Yes, for all its wonder, Shopify variant limit refers to the fact that there is a cap on the number of variants your products can have.

It’s often been referred to as the 3 variant limit on Shopify. But that’s not true.

Shopify gives you 3 options per product. But the total number of variants is 100 per product.

Now the Shopify 100 variant limit might seem like infinity to some sellers, but to many, this is the bane of their Shopify lives.

For example, if you are a Shopify store owner who sells silver necklaces with personalized options will quickly reach Shopify’s variant limit if you want to give your customers personalization options this limit can be reached very quickly; it basically means that you’ll have an ever-increasing SKU amount, and Shopify doesn’t allow that, nor it represents the best practice.

Thankfully though, there are ways around this.

There are apps out there that will remove this limit for you and allow you to add as many options as your heart desires.

We’ll go through the most popular tools that can do this for you.

You will still need a dedicated Shopify inventory software to be able to get more control over your manufacturing processes. But we shall come to that later.

Grow your store and save time with Shopify inventory software. Align your sales and production with real-time data and automatic scheduling with Katana ERP manufacturing. To see it in action, request a demo today.

1. Infinite Options ($9.99 per month)

Screenshot of Infinite Options, which removes the Shopify limit variant.

So, starting with number one, we have Infinite Options.

Infinite Options allows you to offer customized products with checkboxes, calendars, and dropdown menus.  

This makes the shopping experience so much more fluid, inevitably attracting visitors to the buy button.

Plus, there are lots of little nuggets that allow you to customize your new variants by enabling features such as “required” vs. “optional” fields.

All you need to do to get it up and running is enter a single line of code. 

Best of all, It gives users a 14-day free trial, so you can try before you buy ⁠— not sure what more you could ask for. 

2. Bold Product Options ($19.99 per month)

Screenshot of Bold Product Options, which removes the shopify variant limit.

Here’s an app with plenty to get excited about – Bold Product Options.

Unlimited options and variants to overcome the Shopify variant limit are, of course, included.

On top of that is also the feature for customers to be able to upload files to a products page. This way you can increase your make-to-order efficiency by just downloading their images or designs directly from Shopify.

But what makes this app special and justifies its premium price are the features that allow you to create customizable product pricing based on conditional logic. 

For example, if you have options for engraving and the customer is not interested, then you can choose not to show them that field. On the other hand, if they want a specific design, then you can start to show more options so they can delve into the details and get exactly the product they want.

The potential for increasing your sales and sprinkling additional add-ons on your products here is massive. This is an app that will take you further than just crossing the Shopify 100 variant limit.

3. Advanced Product Options ($3.99 per month)

Screenshot of Advanced Product Options which removes the shopify variant limit.

If you want to go truly up and beyond the basics of conquering the Shopify variant limit then you might have found it in Advanced Product Options.

There are plenty of option types to choose from right off the bat: checkboxes, radio buttons, multi-select, dropdowns, and more.

The options pricing offers advanced features such as adding percentages onto prices. For example, adding an extra pocket on a jacket could add 2% to the price for your customer. That way if you want to change the price of the jacket at any point you don’t have to go through and adjust all add-ons.

Aside from that, there is also conditional logic, color/image swatches, and stock management available.

The stock management is very basic and would only really help with drop shippers or resellers who don’t have materials or real stock to keep track of.

Nonetheless, there is plenty to get excited about here. Much more value here than you expect when just thinking about how to rid yourself of the Shopify 100 variant limit.

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4. Hulk Product Options ($8.90 per month)

Screenshot of Customer Product Options which removes the shopify variant limit.

Want an app that can scale with your business? Well, this might be the one, because Hulk Product Options has two plans available – one is free and the other premium.

The free version is going to sort your Shopify variant limit problem as well as a bunch of other features such as letting you make changes to options in bulk. You get swatches, full display customization, and even tooltips to help customers understand your options.

The premium version is easy to upgrade to and allows you to use conditional logic, in shopping cart editing, and bulk import/exporting of options data.

A perfect option if you haven’t got a load of capital right now but can see the advanced features being of use in the future.

5. Product Customizer (From $19.99 per month)

Screenshot of Product Customizer which removes the shopify variant limit.

Another great option for the Shopify maker that is interested in advanced features but isn’t sure is Product Customizer. They offer a 14-day trial for all three of their pricing plans so you can find out which one is right for you before committing.  

The basic version of the app will take you for a ride beyond just eliminating the Shopify variant limit. It allows you to make changes to multiple product changes at once, search and filter products for ease of use, as well as adding descriptions to make sure customers fill in fields correctly.

Moving up to the premium plans gives you access to conditional logic so you can customize the buying experience.  

The best thing to do is to take the trial versions and see how far your needs go!

Shopify inventory software

Thousands of Shopfiy manufacturers rely on Katana manufacturing ERP to keep their sales and manufacturing in sync. Katana automates your production, giving you and your team real-time overview of your business at all times.

How ambitious manufacturers can take their Shopify store to the next level

Glasses manufacturing on their shop floor, using a laptop to update their Shopify variant limit plugins.

Shopify’s native inventory system is great if you are a dropshipper or reseller. But if you are an ambitious manufacturer, you’ll also need to keep track of your raw material inventory, manufacturing processes, order fulfillment, floor-level, and much more.

That’s where implementing smart software like Katana comes in handy. With Katana, you can expect to find:

  1. Finished products and raw materials inventory management
  2. Fully functional Shopify Order Management Software
  3. Integrating with useful software like Quickbooks
  4. Moving on from tedious inventory Excel sheets
  5. Having your entire order fulfillment cycle in one place
  6. Visual color-coded dashboard for quick decision making

And in this way, you have full control of your inventory and manufacturing by having your entire order flow accessible on a single, visual dashboard.  Katana easily integrates with Shopify, which also means that your custom attributes will be displayed in Katana.

Once you’ve synced your Shopify account to Katana, the custom attributes you add in Shopify using one of the apps above will transfer over to Katana on every Sales Order line:

Katana ERP manufacturing screenshot showing how to update SKUs.

Better yet, these custom attributes on the Sales Orders also transfer over to Manufacturing Orders in the make-to-order workflow. This means that the custom attribute details are readily available for your floor-level team when they start production.

Katana ERP manufacturing screenshot showing how to update item variants.
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Katana Cloud Inventory

Katana Team

Katana’s cloud inventory platform covers the live inventory, production, accounting, and reporting features that give businesses the knowledge they need to make the right decisions.

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