WooCommerce Printing Options Price Matrix Setup Guide

Applies to Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) 2.17.0 · Updated October 2026. The Printing Options screens are where you turn quantity breaks, material upcharges and per-product base prices into one price matrix: this chapter covers the Settings > Printing Options tab and the Cmsmart > Printing Options manager, field by field, for anyone setting up or auditing print pricing.

In short

  • Outcome: every field on these two screens controls exactly one thing — how option prices are calculated, displayed and applied — so you can set them once and trust the product page, cart and order screen to agree.
  • How it works: the Settings > Printing Options tab controls display and cart behavior store-wide; the Cmsmart > Printing Options manager builds the actual price matrix (quantity breaks, discount type, Apply for) per product or category.
  • What it takes: about 20 minutes to read every field once with this guide open next to your own install, plus a plan for the pricing rules these screens can't express, which Cmsmart builds as custom development.

This chapter assumes the Cmsmart Product Designer plugin (formerly NBDesigner) is already installed and a product has the online designer turned on — if not, start with the installation guide first. Two screens do the work: Settings > Printing Options is store-wide, deciding how prices are formatted, laid out and added to cart everywhere options appear; Cmsmart > Printing Options is per price matrix, where you build the quantity-break table and attach it to products or a category. Both are covered below, field by field.

What's the real cost of a messy Printing Options screen?

Cmsmart sees the same pattern across web-to-print shops that skip this screen: pricing lives outside the system, so quotes are slow, discounts are inconsistent and the total a shopper sees can drift from what production bills. Configuring Printing Options once closes that gap for every product it's applied to.

  • Re-quoting by hand. Every custom order gets a manual price check against a spreadsheet, which does not scale past a handful of orders a day.
  • Inconsistent discounts. Two staff members quote the same bulk order differently because the quantity-break rule was never entered as a setting.
  • A blank Printing Options list. A product with the designer enabled but no option set applied shows only the base price — any pricing logic has to be added by hand, order by order.
  • Display settings nobody owns. Decimals, table layout and add-to-cart behavior default to whatever shipped until someone reviews Settings > Printing Options for the business.

Cmsmart insight: shops that struggle most with this screen treat it as a one-time setup instead of a tab worth revisiting. A quantity break that matched last year's material cost, or a decimal setting nobody checked after a currency change, quietly drifts out of date. Review it the way you'd review a price list.

Pricing confusion is not a minor annoyance at checkout. Baymard Institute's checkout research found that 40% of shoppers who abandon an online cart do so because extra costs were higher than they expected — exactly the gap a price that is configured once and read everywhere is built to close.

What does a working price matrix look like for your buyers?

Imagine a shopper raising the quantity selector on your sticker product and watching the per-unit price drop at the exact break you configured, with no call to your office and no mismatch at checkout. That's what the Printing Options manager gives every product it's attached to, once the matrix is built.

Example scenario. A print shop sells door hangers with a base price and three quantity breaks. A buyer raises the quantity; the price updates to the matching break before they add to cart. The cart and checkout totals agree, and the order reaches production with the option, quantity and design file already attached — nothing for staff to reconcile.

How does the printing options price matrix work inside Cmsmart Product Designer?

Cmsmart splits this into two screens on purpose: one tab sets how pricing behaves across your whole store, the other builds the actual matrix per product or category. Together they are what the storefront, the designer and the order screen all read from — no code request needed for a new price matrix.

Settings Printing Options tab with decimals, table pricing type and cart behavior fields for a WooCommerce printing options price matrix setup
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, WP Admin > Cmsmart > Settings > Printing Options: the store-wide General, Catalog and Cart fields this guide's settings table covers.
Cmsmart Printing Options manager list showing price-matrix option sets, their applied products and status
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, WP Admin > Cmsmart > Printing Options: every option set, its priority, the products or categories it applies to, and its status.
Woocommerce printing options price matrix setup editor with quantity breaks and Apply for products field
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, WP Admin > Cmsmart > Printing Options > Edit Options: the quantity-breaks table, the discount type and the Apply for (Products/Categories) field that attaches the matrix.

Every field on both screens defines a printing field, builds a price-matrix row, scopes which products read it, formats the price, or changes how the option is added to cart. The table below lists the fields in this capture set, what each does, its default, and a starting point for three business types.

Field (as shown)What it doesDefaultRecommended: print shop / POD apparel / B2BShows on storefront
Discount type base on quantity breaksHow the quantity-break table calculates its discountPercentagePercentage fits all three; match it to how you already quoteProduct page price and designer total
Quantity breaks (Break / Discount / Default)The price-matrix rows: a quantity, its discount, and the default rowOne row, no discountSmall/medium/bulk runs · pack-size breaks · one break at the PO minimumProduct page table, cart, order line item
Apply for (Products / Categories)Scopes the option set to products or a whole categoryProductsOne flagship item · a whole apparel category · one category per accountWhich product pages load this matrix
PriorityDecides which set wins when more than one could match a product1 (as installed)Default is fine · default is fine · raise for an account override setAdmin only
Hide table pricingHides the quantity price table on the product pageNoKeep visible · default is fine · keep visible for transparencyProduct page, under the options
Table pricing typeShows the table as quantity ranges or quantity breaksQuantity rangeQuantity breaks mirrors the matrix · either works · Quantity range for broad tiersProduct page pricing table format
Change original product priceOverwrites the displayed price as options change itYesLeave on Yes for all three — the price shown must match what's configuredProduct page listed price

The base price each product starts from, before any option or quantity break is applied, is set separately on Cmsmart > Product manager — the price matrix adds to or discounts from that number, it doesn't replace it.

Cmsmart Product manager list showing base price per design-enabled product that Printing Options adjusts
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, WP Admin > Cmsmart > Product manager: the base price (with any sale price) for every design-enabled product, before Printing Options applies.

What's the business value of getting these printing options settings right?

Cmsmart frames the value of this screen in mechanisms, not promises: fewer manual quotes, fewer checkout mismatches, and settings that match how your business actually prices, instead of whatever shipped by default. None of it needs a developer once the matrix and the display settings are set.

Manual pricingPrinting Options in Cmsmart Product Designer
Quantity breaks live in a spreadsheet or a quote emailQuantity breaks are rows in the price matrix, attached to a product or a whole category
Every channel can show a different totalThe product page, cart and order screen all read the same configured price
A new product needs a fresh pricing conversationAn existing option set applies to a new product in minutes under Apply for
Decimal formatting, table layout and add-to-cart behavior vary by whoever last touched the themeThey live on one Settings > Printing Options tab, set once for the whole store
  • Faster quotes to checkout. Fewer emails before an order is placed. KPI: average time from first product view to completed checkout.
  • Fewer pricing errors. Fewer refunds or reprints caused by a wrong total. KPI: reprint rate attributed to pricing, not production.
  • A settings tab your team owns. Fewer "why does this product look different" tickets. KPI: how often the tab is touched outside initial setup.

Rough ROI check: multiply your custom orders per month by the minutes a manual quote currently takes, by your fully loaded hourly staff cost. That is roughly what a correctly configured price matrix gives back every month, before counting the orders you stop losing to a wrong or late quote.

The opportunity is not small: the global web-to-print market was valued at $36.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $52.9 billion by 2034, a 4.15% CAGR, according to IMARC Group. Shops that quote accurately keep a larger share of that growth than shops still pricing by hand.

How do you complete the WooCommerce printing options price matrix setup in Cmsmart Product Designer?

Cmsmart's Printing Options setup takes about 20 minutes for a first product: review the store-wide display settings once, then build one price matrix and attach it. The same matrix then applies to every product or category you add it to, with no repeat work.

  1. In wp-admin, open Cmsmart > Settings > Printing Options and review the General section: Number of decimals, Options display style, Hide table pricing and Table pricing type set how every price matrix will look on the storefront.
  2. In the same tab, check the Catalog and Cart sections: Force Select Options, Show options in archive shop pages, and Ajax cart control what happens before and after a shopper reaches the product page.
  3. Open Cmsmart > Printing Options and choose Add new, or open an existing option set to edit its price matrix.
  4. Under Printing fields, add the fields the shopper needs, then open Printing options > Quantity and choose a discount type, such as Percentage.
  5. Add a quantity-break row for each tier with Add more, enter the discount for that tier, and mark one row as the default.
  6. Under Apply for, attach the option set to specific products or to a whole category, and set a Priority if more than one set could match the same product.
  7. Publish the option set, then open Cmsmart > Product manager to confirm the product's base price is what you intended.
  8. Open the product on the storefront and confirm the price updates as quantity changes, then check a test cart and checkout before taking real orders.

Common mistakes and troubleshooting:

  • The matrix doesn't apply to a product. Check Apply for: it must list that exact product or its category, with no higher-priority set claiming it instead.
  • The price table isn't visible to buyers. Check Hide table pricing — if Yes, the matrix still calculates but the table stays hidden.
  • Two option sets fight over one product. Give the one you want to win a higher Priority; the manager list shows every set's priority in one column.
  • A field seems to do nothing. Table pricing type only matters when Hide table pricing is No.
Storefront product page showing the base price before Printing Options quantity breaks are selected
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, storefront: the product page price a shopper sees before opening the designer — this demo product has no price matrix attached, which is also how an unconfigured Printing Options setup looks.
WooCommerce checkout carrying the same product price through to order review
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, storefront: WooCommerce checkout carries the same price through to order review, with the custom design attached to the line item — the consistency a correctly applied price matrix is built to guarantee.
Mobile product page where printing options and price display must still stay readable
Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.0, storefront (mobile): Display product options on and Options display style both affect how much a shopper scrolls before reaching the price on a phone.
Cmsmart video thumbnail for configuring print pricing options on NBDesigner
Video: How to configure print pricing options on NBDesigner (Cmsmart on YouTube).

For the designer-side fields a pricing rule can depend on — sides, DPI, upload limits — see the individual product settings guide instead of repeating every field here.

Going further: what custom pricing can Cmsmart build on top of these settings?

Cmsmart's project team builds pricing logic beyond what a price matrix covers: account-tier pricing, ERP-synced cost, PO-approval gates. The Printing Options screens stay the base your storefront runs on, and Cmsmart builds the rules your business actually operates under as custom development, on top of them.

  • Rules a matrix can't express. A price depending on two option fields together, an account tier, or a negotiated B2B price list is custom pricing-engine work, not a Printing Options setting.
  • ERP or MIS-synced cost. Pull a live cost basis or a stock-dependent price from your ERP or MIS, so the storefront price never drifts from production cost.
  • Approval-gated quoting. Route a B2B account's configured price through a purchase-order approval step, building on the approved-artwork lock Cmsmart Product Designer already applies.
  • Pricing tied to print-ready output. Connect pricing rules to the print-ready PDF that matches the order, rendered by Cmsmart Cloud.

Get a custom pricing engine quote

Delivery runs the way every Cmsmart project does: discovery, solution design, sprints, QA and launch, with support afterward — see how we run ecommerce projects, see the pricing engine service, or start from the web-to-print solutions hub if you're still scoping the wider build.

Why work with Cmsmart on your print pricing settings?

Cmsmart has built web-to-print storefronts since 2012, with 6,300+ client projects and 1,800+ live stores behind that experience. The Printing Options screens in Cmsmart Product Designer are the product of that work, and Cmsmart builds the custom pricing engines as custom development when a price matrix isn't enough.

Cmsmart is a Netbase JSC division since 2012, with 6,300+ client projects and 4,600+ delivered, serving stores in 80+ countries, and holds a 4.2 Trustpilot rating from 404 reviews (verified on Trustpilot); the project history is open on the Cmsmart platform page.

“I would like to highlight that the price is competitive, especially in relation to the quality of the software delivered.” — Oscar Hernnan, Trustpilot review, 2024

Related chapters in this settings guide

This chapter is part of Cmsmart's admin settings guide for Cmsmart Product Designer. Start from the installation guide if the plugin isn't set up yet, then see these neighbouring chapters:

Frequently asked questions about printing options and the price matrix

Do changes to Settings > Printing Options apply right away?

Yes. Both screens are read live by the storefront; you don't need to edit or republish the products an option set is attached to.

Can one Printing Options set apply to several products at once?

Yes. Under Apply for, attach the set to a whole category instead of a single product, and set a priority if more than one set could match the same item.

What happens if two option sets could both match the same product?

The set with the higher Priority wins. The Printing Options list shows every set's priority in its own column.

Is there a limit to how many quantity-break rows I can add?

The editor shows no fixed limit in this capture — use Add more as needed and mark one row as the default.

Can print pricing depend on which customer is buying?

Not out of the box. Account-tier or negotiated B2B pricing is custom development Cmsmart builds on top of Printing Options.

Can Cmsmart connect these settings to our ERP or MIS?

Yes, as custom development — Cmsmart syncs a live cost basis or stock-dependent price from your ERP or MIS.