Variation Templates on IndieMade: Share Sizes, Colors and Price Grids

If many of your products share the same choices (the same 68 frame sizes, the same paint colors, the same fabric list), you should not have to build that list again for every product. A Variation Template is a variation you build once and use everywhere it is needed. Change the template, and one click updates every product that uses it and, if you sell on Etsy, sends those changes to your Etsy listings too. Variation Templates are included on every plan.

Templates are part of the upgraded variations editor. Combined with per-variation vary settings, they are the fastest way to run a store with complex variations.

The Variation Templates dashboard

Go to Dashboard → Variations. Each template appears as a card, with every product using it listed underneath.

The Variation Templates dashboard with sync badges and associated products

Reading a card:

The template name and a short summary: the option count, and how it prices ("each option sets its own price" or "each option adjusts the base price").
The product list: each product using the template, with its full attribute mix (for example Fits Photo / Art Size (68) × Color (8)) and how many variation combinations that makes.
New template creates one from scratch; Edit opens the template editor.

Two kinds of template: Single and Multi

The badge on each card tells you which kind it is, and they work differently.

Single: one shared variation

A Single template is one variation, one list of options like "Fits Photo / Art Size (68)", shared across products. Each product combines it with whatever else that product needs: one product pairs it with its own Color (8), another with Color (39), another with Finish (8). The shared part stays identical everywhere; the rest is per product.

Sharing one variation across products this way is uncommon among store builders, and it is exactly what a catalog full of frames, prints or apparel needs: the size list is the same everywhere, the colors are not.

Multi: a group of variations applied as one

A Multi template, also called a template group, bundles several variations into one package, say Size (4) × Material (2), and applies them to a product together. The card shows the member math and the combination count. A product using a Multi template gets its whole variation setup, and its full price grid, from that one template.

When to use which: use a Single template when products share one list but differ elsewhere. Use a Multi template when a family of products should have the identical complete setup, every variation and every price, managed from one place.

You will also see a Per-product card on the dashboard: it gathers products whose options were built directly on the product and are not shared from any template. They get the same Up to date / Update Products treatment, but you edit their options on the product itself.

Saving a product's variations as a template group

Already built a product whose price depends on two variations together, such as pin size and number of pins? You can turn that whole setup into a Multi template in one step, prices included, and give it to other products.

Open the product on Dashboard → Products. The button shows when the product has two or more variations and is not using a template group yet.
In the Variations box, click Save as template group, next to Add from template.
Name the group and save.

The top of the Variations box on a product, with the Save as template group button circled beside Add from template and New variation — Save as template group sits at the top of the Variations box.

Every variation on the product, with every combination and every price, becomes one template group. Add that group to another product with Add from template and it gets the same combinations at the same prices. The product you saved from keeps its variations and prices. From then on the group owns the price grid: change a price in the group, click Update Products, and every product using the group follows.

This is the right tool for products imported from Etsy where the price depends on two properties at once. Saving just one of those variations as a Single template would leave its prices blank, because no single option owns the price. The group carries the whole grid, so nothing is lost.

The badges tell you what is in sync

Up to date (green): every product using this template matches it. Nothing to do.
Update Products (amber button): you have changed the template since some products were last built from it, or a product is missing its option photos. Click to rebuild their variations from the template.
Etsy up to date (green): every Etsy-linked product's changes have been sent to its listing.
Update Etsy (amber button): linked listings have changes that have not been sent. Etsy is always updated from what IndieMade has, so if products are also out of date, the button waits until you have clicked Update Products first.

That order is the whole workflow: edit the template → Update Products → Update Etsy. Three clicks to change 68 sizes across your entire catalog and every Etsy listing.

The template editor

The Template Variation Editor with Prices Vary, Option Photos, and per-option prices

Name and description: the name customers see ("Fits Photo / Art Size"), and a note to yourself.
Associated products: expand to see everything this template is applied to before you change it.
Prices Vary: with the same two pricing modes as the product editor: each option sets its own price, or adjusts the base price. Set the price beside each option.
Option Photos: attach a photo to each option.
Show options as: show the options on your product pages as a dropdown, buttons, color swatches or image swatches. See Buttons and Swatches.
Options: add, reorder by dragging, switch off, or delete. The toggle beside each option controls whether it is offered, without removing it.

Bulk price tools: reprice 68 options at once

Nobody wants to retype 68 prices. The $ button in the Variation Options bar opens the bulk pricing tools, with four ways to set every option's price in one pass:

Set All to Same Price: every option gets the same amount.
Progressive Pricing: each option costs more than the previous one. Give a starting price and a per-step amount, and the ladder fills itself. Perfect for size runs where each size up adds the same amount.
Modify by Amount: raise or lower every current price by a fixed dollar amount. A supplier cost increase becomes one entry.
Modify by Percentage: raise or lower every current price by a percentage. A 10% price rise across the whole size list is two clicks.

Bulk pricing changes the template, which means it affects every product using it. The dialog tells you how many products that is before you apply. Afterward, use Update Products (and Update Etsy) to send the new prices out.

How prices combine across variations

A product can have more than one price-varying variation: a template plus its own, or several templates. Each combination's price is worked out with two simple rules:

An "own price" wins outright. If any selected option comes from a variation set to each option sets its own price, that price is the final price, and the base price and every other adjustment are ignored. (Options built directly on a product always price this way.)
Otherwise, adjustments add up. All selected options from adjusts the base price variations are added to the product's base price.

Two examples:

Size template in own-price mode: 8×10 is $34.95. The customer also picks a Color from a +$2 adjust-mode variation. The price is $34.95: the own price wins and the +$2 is ignored.
Base price $20. Size in adjust mode (+$4 for Large) and Pockets in adjust mode (+$3). The price is $27: adjustments stack.

Rule of thumb: do not mix an own-price variation with other price-varying variations on the same product unless you intend the own price to be the whole answer. Own-price mode is for "the size decides the price, full stop." Adjust mode is for stackable extras. When two variations decide the price together, use a template group (above).

Applying a template to a product

On the product's edit form, in the Variations section, click Add from template and pick one. The product gets the template's options, prices and photos right away, and shows up on the template's card in the dashboard from then on.

Tips

Before editing a template, glance at its associated products. Your change lands on all of them when you click Update Products.
Big templates multiply: a 68-option size template crossed with an 8-color variation is 544 combinations per product. That is the point, and it is also why Update Products does the heavy lifting for you rather than making you touch each product.
If you sell on Etsy, let the badges drive: when a card shows all green, IndieMade and Etsy agree.

Questions? Email support@indiemade.com.