Adding A Variant Limit

The Variant Limit Setting is used when you want to apply limitations to specific variants of a product, rather than the entire product. This feature allows you to set both minimum and maximum limits for individual variants, giving you greater control over your inventory and helping to drive your brand’s growth.

In this document, we will walk you through how to create variant limitations, explain what each field means, and show you how to use them to your advantage.

The first thing were going to do is create a new limit and the Limit Type will be Variant.

Start by adding a Limit Name. This should be a unique name that helps you easily identify the purpose of the limit. It’s for your reference only and will not be visible to the public.

Activation Dates allow you to choose when the limitations will take effect. You can select a date range to make the limit active only during that period. If you select just one date, the limit will remain active indefinitely starting from that date.

Enforce on the storefront decides what the limit does to your customers: when on, it blocks carts that don't respect its limits; when off, it blocks nothing but can still be used as an activation rule by your other limits. The Status dropdown above the limit name decides whether the limit reaches your customers at all: Live limits apply to your customers, Draft limits never do, so you can test them on your own cart with Preview on my store before switching them to Live (see the Preview Mode article).

The Limit Audience feature lets you segment who will be affected by the limit you’ve created. You can choose between Customer, Non-Customer, or Everyone. A Customer refers to a user with a registered account. This allows you to apply different limitations based on user type.

The Tags Exclusion feature allows for more precise targeting within your chosen Limit Target. For example, you can set a limit for everyone, but only users with a specific tag on their account will trigger the limitation.

Here’s how it works:

• If the target is Everyone, the tag will exclude customers with these tags.
• If the target is Customer, only customers with these tags will be impacted by the limit.

To use this feature, enter a comma-separated list of customer tags. Leave the field blank if you want the limit to apply to everyone.

In the Settings section, you'll find the Target options. Here, you can define the variants included in this limit. Click the "Select Variants" button to open a pop-up, where you can choose specific Variants for your limit or apply Target Rules. Target Rules allow you to set text-based conditions—if any condition is met, the item will be included in the limit.

Target rules can be set based on the following criteria:

• Product Title
• Collection Title
• Vendor
• Product Type
• Tag

You can use conditions such as is equal to, is not equal to, contains, does not contain, starts with, and ends with. This functionality allows you to target multiple products efficiently without having to add them individually.

Next, you will define how the limitation works by selecting one of the following options:

• By Total Price: Set limits based on the total price of items in the cart.
• By Quantity: Set limits based on the quantity of items in the cart.
• By Weight: Set limits based on the total weight of items in the cart.

Multiple of for Product Price, Product Quantity, and Product Weight ensures that the calculated value must be a multiple of the value you enter. For example, if you enter 5, the calculated value will need to be 5, 10, 15, 20, etc., in order for the limit to be applied.

Choose the option that best fits your needs for applying the limitation.

Force Limit is a powerful feature with the following options:

• Disabled: The limit will only apply if the targeted items are present in the cart.
• Enabled: The limit will be enforced even if the targeted items are not currently in the cart.

Warning: When enabled, the variable {{item}} for texts will not be available for items that are not in the cart. Make sure to customize your limit texts to account for this.

Activation Rules are like superpowers when it comes to targeting individuals based on specific characteristics.

Standard activation rules work in your cart and at checkout: Limit, Date, Customer Tag, Country and Currency. Checkout activation rules read what the customer enters at checkout, so they only apply to strict limits, on every Shopify plan:

• Shipping Country Code
• Shipping City
• Shipping Province Code
• Shipping Zip
• Shipping Address / Address 2
• Shipping Company
• Shipping Type
• Shipping Method Title
• Shipping Cost / Shipping Cost After Discount

These advanced rules give you greater flexibility to target your audience more precisely. The Market, Payment Type, Discount Code and Gift Card Amount rules are deprecated by Shopify: existing ones keep working for now, but they can't be added any more, and Shopify hasn't said when they'll stop working, so don't rely on them. Replace Market rules with the Country rule. See Activation Rules.

Updated on: 19/10/2026