Why an options app isn’t enough for custom sizes
In short: product options apps like Globo and Easify start from your product's price and add to it: +$5 for gift wrap, +$12 for a bigger frame. Custom sizes work the other way round: the size is the price. Area times a rate, a minimum charge, finishing priced by the edge, a supplier's table, cuts rounded to your increment. That's what Trimsize is built to do, and it's exact at checkout.
What an options app can't see
Take a 3 × 6 ft vinyl banner. At $3.50 a square foot it's $63.00. A 2 × 2 ft one would be $14.00, but your minimum is $25.00. Hemming it costs $0.75 for each of its 18 feet of edge. A blind comes from your supplier's width × drop table, rounded up to the next band. Fabric is cut to the next 10 cm, and flooring rounds up to whole boxes after the waste for the laying pattern.
Each of those prices depends on the size, so the app setting the price has to understand the size. An options app treats a width and height as two more fields; Trimsize prices from them. Shopify's own variants can't fill the gap either: a product has at most three options and 2,048 variants, and custom sizes in whole inches run to thousands before you add a single material.
Why custom size shops choose Trimsize
- Price by area or length, per square foot, square metre, metre or foot, with a minimum charge per material.
- Extras that follow the size: hemming per foot of edge, lamination per square foot, frames per foot of perimeter, grommets per piece. See add-ons.
- Your supplier's table, pasted in. Copy a width × drop price list from a spreadsheet; sizes round up to the next band. See price tables.
- Size limits enforced at checkout, so nobody orders a banner wider than your printer.
- Artwork upload with a resolution check for the size the customer ordered.
- The options you'd add an app for, built in: images on choices, a text field priced per letter, fields that show and hide on earlier answers, and your words in every language your store publishes. All on Free and Pro.
- 18 trade starters, from sign shops to flooring stores.
- The production side: a queue with material totals, job tickets, proofs and quotes on Pro, because Trimsize knows every item's size and material.
Side by side
| Trimsize | Product options apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Pricing by size, length or table | Adding choices and add-on prices to a product |
| Area or length × rate | Yes, per material | Not in Globo's or Easify's plan features |
| Minimum charge per material | Yes | Not in their plan features |
| Extras priced by edge length or area | Yes | Not in their plan features |
| Supplier width × drop tables | Pasted from a spreadsheet | Not in their plan features |
| Size limits checked at checkout | Yes | Not in their plan features |
| Production queue, material totals, job tickets | Pro | No |
Images, text and show/hide, without a second app
A custom-size product still needs the things an options app is known for. Trimsize has them beside the size, priced by the same engine and checked at checkout:
- Images on choices: materials and options as tiles, cards or swatches with a picture from your store's Files. A choice can switch the product's main photo when you pick one for it. See images.
- A text field you can price: lettering, a name or a house number, priced per character or flat, and read by your formulas. See text add-ons.
- Show and hide: an add-on can depend on the material, a size, a number, a ticked box or a text field, with up to five tests as all of or any of. Checkout applies the same tests, so a hidden add-on is never charged.
- Translations: translate a word once for your whole store, and it appears in the shopper's language on the product page, in the cart and at checkout. The block's built-in words come in English and German. See translations.
None of these is a higher plan. Some calculator apps put show and hide on theirs: SE: Option Price Calculator lists conditional logic on its Pro plan at $29.99 a month, and Options Price Calculator lists conditional fields (show / hide) on its Ultimate plan at $39.99 a month. In Trimsize it's on every plan, the free one included.
Moving custom-size products to Trimsize
- Install Trimsize: free for up to 5 products, or try Pro free for 14 days.
- Pick your trade on Trimsize's Home, choose a product, and change the starter's rates to yours.
- Add the Trimsize block to that product's page, and remove the options app's size fields from it.
- Place a test order at an odd size, then move your other custom-size products with a template.
Your fixed-size products can keep their options app: each app prices only its own cart lines. Not sure which products need size pricing? The guide to different prices for different sizes walks through it.
Questions
Can a product options app price by square foot?
Options apps are built to add prices to a product, not to price it from its size. Custom sizes need area and length rates, minimum charges, extras priced by edge length, supplier tables and size limits at checkout, and Trimsize has all of them built in.
Can I use Trimsize and an options app in the same store?
Yes. Use Trimsize on your custom-size products and the options app on the others. Each app prices only its own cart lines, so give each product one of them.
Does Trimsize have image swatches, text fields and conditional options?
Yes, on every plan: images on tiles, cards and swatches, text fields priced per character or flat, and add-ons that show and hide on the material, the size and earlier answers, all priced exactly at checkout.
How much does Trimsize cost?
It's free for 5 priced products. Pro is $29 a month or $290 a year, with unlimited products and the production tools, and a 14-day trial.
Globo Product Options and Easify Product Options details from their Shopify App Store listings, read on 4 November 2026. SE: Option Price Calculator and Options Price Calculator plans from their Shopify App Store listings, read on 5 November 2026. Prices in US dollars.