Price
What It Is
A price is a configured choice within a product’s pricing grid. It describes what an audience pays in a currency for a pricing period, optionally limited by opening and closing instants. Staff can enter an amount directly, express a share of the standard price, select conversion from a base-currency price or prohibit purchase in a foreign currency. These choices let finance describe how the same product is offered in several contexts.
The grid belongs to the product. It retains ordered rows rather than just one standard amount and one member amount. Standard and member are built-in audiences, and Commerce can provide additional active audiences. Named periods distinguish offers such as early and regular pricing; the always period supplies a choice outside a named period.
Configured prices use whole minor units for amounts. Staff see familiar currency amounts in the editor, while the stored value keeps the currency’s precision. A donation has a different model: the giver supplies the amount and its product carries no price rows.
What It Is Not
A configured price is not the amount already charged on a transaction. The grid is also separate from the audience definition that decides whether a purchaser qualifies. Commerce owns that qualification and the selection of applicable pricing at purchase.
Quantity discounts are product settings that reduce a chosen price according to quantity. Revenue splits allocate financial value after sale. Neither replaces the grid’s audience and currency coordinates, and a stored conversion choice does not perform conversion inside the Products module.
How It Is Used
Finance begins a fixed-priced product with its standard base-currency amount. It can then add member or other audience prices, period choices and supported foreign currencies. A percentage needs a suitable standard amount; a conversion needs its own audience’s base-currency backing. Invalid or overlapping choices reject the save before the grid replaces stored rows.
Readers inspect prices alongside the product. Staff should distinguish an omitted cell from a prohibition: omitted foreign-currency pricing can defer to the unit default. A console correction also needs care around dated rows, because the editor’s current-date handling differs from backend instant boundaries.
Its Facets
Audience. Standard supplies the common offer, member supplies a member offer, and active Commerce audiences extend the vocabulary. Existing migrated audiences have an admission edge when Commerce’s table appears.
Period. A row can name a period or use always. Validation accepts backing from the matching period or always, but never another named period. Accounting checks the period’s form without checking its existence in a Commerce schedule.
Currency and mode. The unit determines eligible currencies and whether multicurrency is enabled. Each mode has its own value requirements. Base currency cannot use conversion or prohibition.
Effective window. Opening instants are included and closing instants excluded in backend overlap checks. Rows sharing an audience, currency and period must not compete at the same instant.
Migration handover. Former special prices retain a product-local audience row and information Commerce needs to realize it. Criteria, amount, formula and rank remain available for that transfer, without establishing that a purchaser qualifies yet.
How It Relates
The product supplies the owning identity and business unit. Books supplies currencies and conversion defaults. Commerce supplies audiences, periods and purchase-time evaluation. Component allocations and fixed revenue shares use particular set base-currency rows as their limit; that validation lookup is distinct from purchase-time selection.
What It Could Become
The product should make the console and service agree on time boundaries and required standard-price backing. Product also needs a transition contract for unrealized migrated audiences so routine corrections do not become stranded. Period validation and retirement of the old audience alias are further choices to settle before integrations assume a single enduring grid contract.