Pricing tier fields & guards reference
This page is a lookup for every field on a pricing tier, the rules that constrain relative tiers (chain depth, circular references, currency inheritance), and the guards that block a tier from being deleted while it's in use.
For the task of creating and editing tiers, see Manage pricing tiers. For the mental model behind relative tiers and how their prices are derived, see Relative pricing tiers. To apply a tier's price to a specific product, see Set a product's price.
Before you begin
Pricing tiers are an account-level catalog setting under Products → Pricing Tiers. Managing them requires the pricing-tier settings permission; see Product permissions reference.
Field reference
Adjustment and rounding amounts are held to 4 decimal places.
| Field | Applies to | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ID | All | Read-only. Include it in an import to update an existing tier. |
| Name | All | Required, up to 255 characters, and unique across pricing tiers. It's also the key an integration import mapping targets, so renaming a tier affects those mappings. |
| Pricing Type | All | Absolute or Relative. New tiers are Absolute unless you choose otherwise. An absolute tier holds a price you type in per product; a relative tier derives its price from a source. |
| Basis | Relative | The kind of source the tier derives from: Pricing Tier, Supplier Tier, or Attribute. Required on a relative tier; empty on an absolute one. |
| Base Tier | Relative, Pricing Tier basis | The tier this one derives from. Required for this basis. |
| Base Supplier Tier | Relative, Supplier Tier basis | The supplier pricing tier this one reads cost from (cost-plus). |
| Base Attribute | Relative, Attribute basis | The product attribute this tier derives from. Required for this basis, and it must be a Numeric or Integer attribute. |
| Rate | Relative, Attribute basis | The multiplier in the attribute formula, from -999999.9999 to 999999.9999. Required for this basis. |
| Offset | Relative, Attribute basis | The amount added in the attribute formula, same range. Optional. |
| Adjustment percentage | Relative, Pricing Tier and Supplier Tier bases | Percentage applied to the source price, from -99.9999 to 999.9999. Required for these two bases. |
| Fixed amount | Relative | A flat amount added after rounding, from -999999.9999 to 999999.9999. |
| Rounding value | Relative | Optional, and must be greater than zero. When set, the price snaps to the nearest multiple of it; when empty, the price is rounded to 2 decimals. |
| Currency | All | Required, and must be a currency in your list. You set it once on create — it isn't editable afterwards for any tier. Pricing Tier and Supplier Tier basis relative tiers inherit it from their source on each save (see below); an Attribute basis tier keeps the currency you set. |
| Default | All | Marks the account's default pricing tier. Setting one clears the flag on every other tier. The default can't be relative, archived, or deleted. |
| Chain depth | All | 0 for absolute tiers; 1–3 for relative tiers, counting the hops back to the root absolute tier. |
| Dependent tiers | All | How many tiers use this one as their base. |
| Created / Updated | All | Read-only timestamps. |
| Archived | All | Set when the tier is archived. Archived tiers are hidden from lists by default. |
How relative prices are calculated
Both relative formulas share the same tail — round, then add the fixed amount — and no result can go below zero:
- Pricing Tier / Supplier Tier basis: take the source price, apply the adjustment percentage, round, then add the fixed amount.
- Attribute basis: take the attribute value, multiply by the rate and add the offset, round, then add the fixed amount.
- Rounding step: when a rounding value is set, snap to the nearest multiple of it; otherwise round to 2 decimals.
Relative chain depth & circular references
Relative tiers can point at other relative tiers, forming a chain that ends at a root absolute tier. Two rules keep those chains valid, checked whenever you create or edit a tier. Both apply only to the Pricing Tier basis — the supplier and attribute bases read from a fixed source and can't form a tier-to-tier loop.
| Rule | Behavior | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Self-reference | A tier can't set itself as its own base. | A pricing tier cannot reference itself as a base tier. |
| Circular reference | Setting a base whose own chain leads back to this tier is rejected. The check walks up from the proposed base, tracking every tier it visits. | Cannot set this base tier: it would create a circular reference. |
| Maximum chain depth | The chain from a tier back to its root absolute tier may be at most 3 hops deep; a deeper chain is rejected. | Maximum chain depth of 3 exceeded. |
| Default can't be relative | The default tier can't be switched to Relative. | The default pricing tier cannot be set to relative. |
The save is refused and the message appears on the field it applies to — Base Tier for the self-reference, circular, and depth rules, Pricing Type for the default-relative rule.
Price calculation carries its own safety net on top of those rules: walking a chain stops after 10 hops, and finding a chain's root stops if it comes back to where it started. Those limits protect the calculation against a malformed chain, so a tier's chain depth can never run away.
Currency inheritance
Currency is required when you create a tier, but a relative tier doesn't keep a currency independent of its source — it's resolved automatically each time you save:
| Tier | Resulting currency |
|---|---|
| Absolute tier | The Currency you set on create. |
| Relative, Pricing Tier basis | Inherited from the root absolute tier of its chain. |
| Relative, Supplier Tier basis | Inherited from the base supplier pricing tier (falls back to the tier's own currency if the supplier tier has none). |
| Relative, Attribute basis | Not inherited — keeps the Currency you set on create. |
| Any tier still without a currency after the above | Falls back to your account's default currency. |
Currency can't be edited on any tier — you set it once on create. On each save, Pricing Tier and Supplier Tier basis relative tiers re-resolve their currency from the source; absolute and Attribute basis tiers keep the value you set.
Delete guards
Deleting a pricing tier first checks whether it's in use. If any guard matches, the delete is blocked, the tier is left intact, and you get one reason per matching guard. If nothing matches, the tier's prices are detached from the products carrying them and the tier is deleted.
| Guard | Blocked when | Reason you see |
|---|---|---|
| Default tier | The tier is the account default | You can't delete the default product pricing tier '<name>' |
| In use by products | Any product has a price stored in this tier | How many products currently use the tier. |
| Integration import mappings | Any data-import mapping points a field at this tier's price | How many integration listing mappings use the tier. |
| Base for active tiers | Any non-archived tier lists this one as its base | This tier is used as a base for: <names> |
To delete a blocked tier, first clear what depends on it — remove the tier's price from the products using it (see Set a product's price), remove or repoint any dependent relative tiers, and remove any integration import mappings that target it. A default tier can never be deleted; make another tier the default first.
Archive guards (related)
Archiving is a softer alternative but carries its own two guards: a tier that's the default can't be archived, and a tier that's a base for active dependent tiers can't be archived. Unlike delete, archiving doesn't check product usage or import mappings — an archived tier is hidden from lists by default while its historical prices remain. See Archive, unarchive & delete a product for the same pattern applied to products.
Next steps
- Manage pricing tiers — create, edit, archive and delete tiers.
- Relative pricing tiers — the concept behind bases, chains and derived prices.
- Set a product's price — apply a tier's price to a product.
- Product permissions reference — who can manage pricing tiers.