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Member pricing lets one product carry several prices. A buyer’s member type picks a price type, and the price type picks the price. This guide explains the model. It doesn’t restate request and response schemas; the linked API Reference pages own those. For the storefront side, see Member pricing in themes.

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Price types

A price type is a named rank of prices that a company sets for its catalog. The API calls a price type a pricing tier, and its identifier field is pricing_tier_id. Every company has three system price types: System price types have a tier_level below 100. You can rename them but never archive them. Retail is the company default. A company can also define custom price types. A custom price type gets a tier_level of 100 or higher and a name that no other active price type uses. Creating one returns 422 with the message “Custom price types are not enabled for this company” until the custom_price_types capability is on for the company. Send copy_from_pricing_tier_id to start the new price type from another price type’s explicit prices. Archiving a price type is the only way to remove it. If member types still point at it, name another active price type in reassign_to_pricing_tier_id to move them first. Each price type reports how many member types use it in member_type_count, and archived_at stays null while it is active. List company pricing tiers returns the active price types in ascending tier_level order. Add include_archived to include archived ones. To change them, use Create a custom price type, Rename a price type and Archive a price type. This example calls List company pricing tiers for a company that has only the system price types. Request
Response

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Member types

A member type classifies the people who buy from a company. Each member type points at one price type, and that link is what connects a buyer to a price. Every company has three system member types: A member type with no price type reads back as pricing_tier: null and prices at Retail, except on a company moved to strict pricing, where it has no price; see Strict price types. A custom member type you create starts that way, unless you send a pricing_tier_id. You can assign a custom price type once catalog_writes is on for the company; until then only system price types. An archived price type is refused. When catalog_writes is on for the company, a cart charges the price type of the buyer’s member type. An enrollment cart charges the price type of the member type the buyer enrolls into. A rep who holds a Preferred member type pays Preferred, because being a rep doesn’t override the member type. List company member types returns every member type, archived ones included, with its price type nested under pricing_tier. Use Create a custom member type and Update a member type to change them. This example calls List company member types for a company that has only the system member types. Request
Response

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How a price resolves

Fluid prices a variant for one buyer in one country. The buyer’s member type gives the price type. The country gives the market. These steps run in order, and the first one that yields a price wins:
  1. Market. Fluid maps the country to its region and uses the market for that region. If the country or its region has no market, Fluid uses the company’s first market by position, except on a company moved to strict pricing, where the variant has no price. A company with no markets has no price.
  2. Catalog. Fluid uses the market’s catalog for the price type. If the price type has no catalog in that market, Fluid uses the market’s base catalog, which holds the Retail prices. A strict price type skips this fallback; see Strict price types.
  3. Price. Fluid uses the explicit price stored for the variant in that catalog’s price list. If there is none and the price list has a blanket adjustment, Fluid applies the adjustment to the base catalog’s price. If there is neither, the variant has no price.
For a company moved to strict pricing, steps 2 and 3 have no fallback for any price type. For a member, a price is the member type, then that member type’s price type, then that price type’s own explicit price. A guest starts at the company’s Retail price type. There is no base catalog, no blanket adjustment, no per-variant price column and no other price type to fall back on. If any link is missing, the variant has no price and can’t be sold. List a product’s explicit catalog prices and List explicit catalog prices for several products return the stored rows. Write a batch of price-grid cells changes them. Prices are stored per variant, market and currency, not per country. Two countries in the same region share a market, so they share prices. Rows are sparse: a variant with no explicit price for a price type usually has no row, which isn’t the same as a price of zero. The exception is a company moved to strict pricing: where the subscription price list exists, a variant with neither price can come back as a row with one_time null and subscription set to {"unset": true}. A row’s presence doesn’t mean a price is configured.

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Strict price types

Once catalog_writes is on for a company, Preferred and every custom price type are strict. A strict price type has no fallback. It needs its own catalog and an explicit price for the variant, and a blanket adjustment doesn’t count. Retail and Wholesale keep the fallbacks above until Fluid moves a company to strict pricing. Then they are strict too: each prices from its own explicit catalog prices or not at all, with no base catalog fallback and no per-variant retail or wholesale price column. Guests are priced from the company’s own Retail price type. Members, reps included, are priced from their member type’s own price type, so a rep with a Preferred member type pays Preferred. A member type with no price type, or a member with no member type, has no price there, and a member type must be given its own active price type. A cart whose destination country is in none of the company’s markets is refused at checkout. The member_pricing capability object doesn’t report this. The catalog price endpoints do: their CatalogPricesResponse carries a top-level no_fallback boolean that tells you whether the company is on the no-fallback gate.

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Products, variants and bundles

A price belongs to a variant. A product with several variants has a price for each one. A bundle has no variant to price. Where its prices live depends on the bundle_pricing capability, which is described below.
  • bundle_pricing off. The bundle price grid isn’t available. This doesn’t tell you where the bundle’s price is read from: a company with bundle catalog reads on but catalog writes off reports false and can still price a bundle from stored catalog prices. Otherwise the bundle’s prices are per-country settings on the bundle. With bundle-level pricing on, the bundle has one fixed price per country. With it off, the bundle’s price is built from the prices of its groups.
  • bundle_pricing on. The bundle’s prices are stored per price type, market and currency, like other catalog prices. This covers the bundle’s own price, its groups and the items in them. Bundle-level pricing is still a choice you make per bundle.
Show a bundle’s per-price-type price grid reports which applies in pricing_enabled, and Write a batch of bundle price cells changes the cells.

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What unavailable means

A price is unavailable when no price exists for the buyer’s price type in that country. On the catalog path, once the fallbacks above are used up, Fluid doesn’t invent a substitute and never reads a missing price as zero. A strict price type gets no fallbacks at all, and on a company moved to strict pricing that includes Retail and Wholesale. Without catalog reads, an unset wholesale price reads as 0.00; see When a capability is off.
  • With bundle_pricing off, a bundle is unavailable in a country when its fixed price has no enabled entry with a price for that country, or when any group with country pricing has no enabled entry for it.
  • A cart line for a bundle that can’t be priced for the buyer’s price type sets price_unavailable to true, returns null price fields, and checkout refuses it.
  • A cart line that a strict price type can’t price is refused before payment is held. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Bread, Affirm, Braintree pay and PayPal answer 422 with meta.code set to strict_tier_line_refused. Checkout complete refuses the cart with 422 and describes the reason in meta.error_details. Don’t depend on a specific detail code there.
  • On a company moved to strict pricing, a cart whose destination country is in none of the company’s markets is refused at checkout. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Bread, Affirm, Braintree pay and PayPal answer 422 with meta.code set to destination_market_unavailable. Checkout complete refuses the cart with 422 and checkout_unavailable in meta.error_details.
  • On a company moved to strict pricing, a member type with no price type of its own, and a member with no member type, are refused. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Bread, Affirm, Braintree pay and PayPal answer 422 with meta.code set to strict_tier_line_refused. Checkout complete refuses the cart with 422 and describes the reason in meta.error_details. Don’t depend on a specific detail code there.
  • On a company moved to strict pricing, saving a batch of price-grid cells with a blank or 0 subscription price is rejected with 422. The response lists the cell, with price in its fields and a message. Other price writes may remove the subscription row instead.
  • A cart change that re-prices the cart, when the cart still holds a line on a deactivated plan, is refused, usually with 422. A metadata-only update isn’t. The response can carry subscription_plan_inactive in meta.code, but don’t depend on the code or the status for any particular write, and another pricing refusal can come first. A new subscription created on a deactivated plan answers 422 with subscription_plan_inactive in meta.code. Deleting the line, or unsubscribing it with the Unsubscribe a cart item operation (DELETE /api/checkout/v2026-04/carts/{cart_token}/items/{item_id}/subscription), is the way out. A general item update that switches one line to one-time is refused while another inactive-plan line remains. See Recurring prices.
  • On a company moved to strict pricing with bundle_pricing on, a bundle with no stored Retail or Wholesale price, or whose price type has no record, is refused. It is never priced at zero.

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Recurring prices

A recurring price can differ from the one-time price. It is stored apart from the one-time price, per price type, so a price row has a subscription field next to one_time.
  • If the price type has a subscription price list but it holds no row for the variant, the recurring price follows the one-time price, as long as the variant has a one-time price. The price row reports this as follows_one_time. This applies only to a company that isn’t moved to strict pricing.
  • On a company moved to strict pricing, a missing subscription row is never followed to the one-time price. The price row reports {"unset": true}, and a plan that reads stored subscription amounts can’t sell the variant on subscription for that price type until a subscription price is written. An active percentage plan is unaffected, because its price comes from the one-time price. Saving a batch of price-grid cells with a blank or 0 subscription price is rejected with 422.
  • If the price type has no subscription price list, there is no recurring price. It doesn’t follow the one-time price.
  • If the subscription plan’s price_adjustment_type is percentage, the recurring price is the one-time price less that percentage. It doesn’t read a stored amount.
  • For a renewal of an existing subscription on an inactive plan, when the company isn’t moved to strict pricing, the plan grants no discount, so the recurring price is the one-time price.
  • For a renewal on a company moved to strict pricing, an inactive plan is not priced from the one-time price. It reads the amount stored in its own plan price list for that price type, and a plan with no such list has no recurring price.
  • A cart that holds a line whose plan was deactivated after it was added, or a new subscription on an inactive plan, is refused rather than priced as another plan. This applies to every company. Renewals of existing subscriptions are not carts, so the inactive-plan pricing above still applies to them. The shopper deletes the line or unsubscribes it with the Unsubscribe a cart item operation.
  • A blanket adjustment never prices a recurring price.
A bundle keeps its recurring price per price type and currency, and can override it per subscription plan in plan_overrides.

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The capabilities that gate it

Fluid turns member pricing on one company at a time. It isn’t a setting you change in the company yourself. Fluid works out the answer from its rollout configuration each time it is asked, and reports it in a member_pricing object on the company record that Fluid Admin loads. Charging a member type’s price type isn’t a separate field. It is on exactly when catalog_writes is on. This example shows a company that reads from catalogs and writes to them, so it can create custom price types and edit Preferred, but where the bundle price grid is off.

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When a capability is off

  • catalog_reads off. Prices come from each variant’s per-country retail and wholesale price columns. These can’t express a Preferred or custom price type. Both columns default to 0.00, so a wholesale price that was never set reads as 0.00, not as missing.
  • catalog_writes off. The catalog price reads answer 422, the catalog price writes are refused, and creating a custom price type answers 422.
  • preferred_editable off. The Preferred price type holds the same prices as Retail, and Preferred members can’t be charged a separate price.
  • bundle_pricing off. The bundle price grid answers 422, and a bundle is priced from its fixed price or its groups.
  • Charges off. A member type’s price type doesn’t affect what a cart charges. A cart linked to a wholesale rep, and any enrollment cart, charges Wholesale. Every other cart charges Retail. Member-facing product pages show Wholesale to members whose member type is rep_eligible and Retail to everyone else, so the page matches the cart.