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Variants or options? How to model a custom product on Shopify
Shopify allows 3 options and 2,048 variants per product. Here is how to decide what belongs in variants and what belongs in a configurator.
Composa team · October 30, 2026 · 2 min read
Shopify products can have up to three options and 2,048 variants. That is enough for most catalogues — and not enough for most custom products.
Put inventory in variants
If it changes what you stock or what SKU you pick, it is a variant: metal, size, frame colour.
Put personalisation in steps
Engraving, uploaded artwork, gift messages and add-ons do not need their own SKU. They belong in configurator steps with their own prices.
Mixing both
Composa reads your variants as the first steps and adds your custom steps after them, so a shopper sees one flow.