Per character
Per character typed multiplies the number of characters the customer enters by an amount you set. It is available on text options: text field, text area and custom field.
This is the standard model for engraving, embroidery and vinyl lettering, where your cost genuinely scales with length.
How it counts
Section titled “How it counts”Every character the customer enters counts, including spaces and punctuation. Happy Birthday is 14 characters, not 13.
This is worth saying in the field’s help text. A customer who assumes spaces are free will read the preview as a bug.
Always set a maximum length
Section titled “Always set a maximum length”Per-character pricing without a maximum length is the one configuration that reliably produces a surprise. A customer can paste a paragraph into an engraving field, and the charge follows.
Set the maximum to what you can physically produce. The field enforces it as the customer types.
Worked example
Section titled “Worked example”An Engraving text field, maximum 20 characters, at £0.25 per character:
| Customer types | Characters | Added |
|---|---|---|
| (nothing) | 0 | £0.00 |
Anna |
4 | £1.00 |
Happy Birthday |
14 | £3.50 |
For my wonderful mum |
20 | £5.00 |
Combining with a setup fee
Section titled “Combining with a setup fee”Per-character alone charges nothing for an empty field, which is usually right for an optional extra.
If engraving carries a fixed setup cost on top of the per-character rate, that is better modelled as a separate checkbox — Add engraving, +£3.00 — with the text field revealed by conditional logic. The customer then sees the setup fee and the per-character cost as two understandable lines rather than one number they cannot reconcile.