Options vs. Attributes: the key distinction

Updated Oct 14, 2026 Products & Catalog

Two TitanCart features sound similar but do opposite jobs, and mixing them up is the most common catalogue mistake. In short: Attributes describe a product and never change its price. Options are add-ons the shopper chooses at purchase, and they usually do change the price. This article makes the distinction clear, walks through everything an attribute can do, and shows when to reach for each.

1. The short answer

	Attributes	Options
What they are	Properties that describe a product	Add-on choices the customer selects
Who sets the value	You, the store owner	The shopper, at purchase time
Affect the price?	No (a shared variation can carry a site-wide price change per choice, see §2.5)	Yes — each choice can add a fixed or percentage amount
Typical examples	Color, Size, Brand, Material	Gift wrapping, engraving, extended warranty
Main jobs	Storefront filters, product variations, brand pages, specifications	Paid extras and customisations
Managed at	Products → Attributes	Products → Options
Edition	TitanCart Lite and Pro	Pro only

2. Attributes — describing your products

Attributes are reusable properties you define once and reuse across products. You manage them at Products → Attributes, and you assign each product’s values on the Attributes tab of the product editor.

2.1 Purpose — what the attribute is for

Every attribute has a Purpose, chosen when you create it. The purpose decides where the attribute shows up and which display types it offers:

Storefront filters — the attribute appears in the filter sidebar on category and search pages, so shoppers can narrow the catalogue by it. Turning it into a sidebar control is a second step, done under Products → Product Filters (see Categories, tags & product filters).
Variations (separate products) — each combination (Red / Large, Red / Small…) is its own product with its own product code, price and stock, grouped together so the storefront shows one page with selectors. See Product variations & combinations.
Variations (shared product) — one product with selectable choices (pick a Color, pick a Size) that share one product code and one stock figure.
Brand / Manufacturer — holds the product’s brand. The brand prints above the product name on cards and the product page, and every choice of a Brand attribute gets its own brand page (§2.6).
Additional specs — informational only. Shown in the specifications table on the product page (Material: Organic Cotton) without filtering or variations.

2.2 Display type and the product-cards switch

Display Type is how the attribute appears on the product page, and the list depends on the purpose: a filter attribute can be a Dropdown, Color Swatches, Multiple checkbox, Checkbox or Text or number; a variation attribute can be Color Swatches, Product Images, Text labels or a Dropdown; a Brand attribute is always Brand; Additional specs are Text or number.

Show on product cards is a single switch: on, and the attribute’s value prints on product cards in category and search listings (colour dots for a Color Swatches attribute, a short text chip for everything else); off, and it stays on the product page only. How it looks on the card is the theme’s job — with the Prism theme, Theme Options → Product Display controls text attributes on grid cards and the label shape. The switch is not offered for a Brand attribute (cards show the brand their own way, above the name) nor for a variation attribute that draws as text, because cards do not print variation text.

2.3 Choices

Dropdown-style and swatch attributes have choices (Color → Red, Blue, Green) that you define once on the attribute’s Choices tab and reuse everywhere. On that tab you can:

Add choices by name, with an optional hex colour for swatches (with or without the #).
Order them by hand with the arrows (Sort Choices: Manual order) or keep them alphabetical (Alphabetical A–Z); “Sort A–Z now” rewrites the manual order once to match.
See a duplicate-name warning. Deleting one of two same-name choices merges its product assignments into the copy you keep, so nothing is lost.
For a Variations (shared product) attribute with Site-wide price changes ticked: give any choice a price change that applies on every product using it (a product can override it on its Attributes tab).

The Choices tab has its own Save Changes button under the list; the attribute’s main Save saves edited choices too.

2.4 Attribute Code, Group, Status and Categories

Attribute Code — an optional structured-data key (brand, isbn, gtin, mpn) that helps search engines understand the value.
Group — puts the attribute under a heading on the product page’s specifications. Groups are created under Attribute Groups (the button at the top of the Attributes page): Group Name, Position, Description, Status, “Show on the Attributes tab”, and the group’s own Categories. The product page shows ungrouped attributes first, then one block per group; the compare table gets a heading row per group. Deleting a group keeps its attributes and simply ungroups them. An attribute inside a group uses the group’s categories.
Status — Active or Disabled. A disabled attribute disappears from filters, cards and product pages, and its brand pages go offline.
Categories tab — leave it empty to offer the attribute on every product, or pick categories so it only appears where it makes sense (Shoe size in Footwear).

2.5 Searching by attribute value

Values typed into a Text or number attribute (a part number, a model name, a UPC) are searchable: the storefront search box, its suggestions and the admin product search all match them. Choice-based values are found through filters rather than the search box. Keep a UPC as a text attribute, not a number: a 12-digit number does not fit the numeric column.

2.6 Brand pages

Give a Brand attribute a few choices (Acme, Northwind…) and each choice becomes a brand with its own storefront page at /brands/acme/, plus an all-brands page at /brands/ listing every brand that has products, with logos and product counts. The brand name on product cards and the product page links to the brand’s page.

On the Brand attribute’s Choices tab, each choice has a Page button that opens the brand page fields:

Logo — picked from the media library; shown on the brand page and the all-brands page (a brand without a logo shows its initial).
SEO name — the address segment, filled from the name when left blank and kept unique across all your brands.
Website — the brand’s own site, linked from the brand page.
Description — printed at the top of the brand page; basic HTML is kept.
Page title and Meta description — the browser tab title and the search-engine snippet. Blank falls back to the brand name and the start of the description, the same rule categories use.
Hidden — the brand page returns a 404 and the brand leaves the all-brands page; products keep the value and show it as plain text.

Brand pages use the shop layout: the brand’s products with the normal sorting, filters and paging. They are in the store sitemap, and “Brands” is offered in Appearance → Menus under TitanCart Pages. The address pattern (/brands/, /brand/, /manufacturer/ or /b/) is set under Settings → SEO → Brand URLs, and Settings → General → Page Header has a Brands row for the banner. A store can have more than one Brand attribute; all of their choices share the one set of brand addresses.

Tip: Attributes are the foundation of filtering, variations and brand pages. If you want shoppers to filter by something, one product to come in several versions, or a brand to have its own page, that is an attribute — not an option.

3. Options — add-ons the customer chooses

Options are reusable add-on services and customisations that a shopper selects when buying. You manage them at Products → Options (“Reusable add-on services and customizations — gift wrapping, engraving, warranty…”), and you attach them to a product on the Options tab of the product editor.

Edition note: Options are a TitanCart Pro feature. TitanCart Lite has the full attribute system, including variations and brand pages, but no Options page or Options tab.

Each option has:

A set of choices the shopper picks from.
A price modifier per choice — either a fixed amount (for example +$5.00) or a percentage of the product price. This is added to the line total at checkout.
An optional weight modifier, so an add-on can affect shipping weight.
A required setting, for when the shopper must make a choice before adding to cart.

Because options are reusable, you can build a “Gift wrapping” option once and attach it to every product that offers it.

Note: Options change the price of the same product based on a buyer’s selection. They do not create separate variations with their own stock — that is what variation attributes are for.

4. Which one do I use?

You want shoppers to filter the catalogue by Color, Size or Material → Attribute (Storefront filters), then a Product Filter pointing at it.
A product comes in several versions, each with its own price, stock or product code (a T-shirt in S/M/L) → Attribute (Variations, separate products) grouped on the Product Group tab.
One product, pick a colour and a size, one stock figure → Attribute (Variations, shared product).
You want to show a specification on the product page (Material: Leather), grouped under a heading → Attribute (Additional specs) in an Attribute Group.
You want a product’s brand shown, linked to a brand page with a logo → Attribute (Brand / Manufacturer).
You want to offer a paid extra like gift wrapping (+$5) or engraving → Option (Pro).
You want a required choice that affects the price → Option (set it required).

A quick gut check: if the answer doesn’t change what the customer pays and is something you decide about the product, it’s an attribute. If the customer chooses it and it can add to the price, it’s an option.

Troubleshooting

My attribute isn’t showing as a filter on the storefront. Its purpose must be Storefront filters (or a variation purpose) and it must be Active; then add it under Products → Product Filters, which controls what appears in the sidebar.
The value doesn’t print on product cards. Turn on Show on product cards on the attribute. Brand attributes print above the name without the switch; variation text values never print on cards.
A brand page says “Page not found”. The choice is marked Hidden, the Brand attribute is Disabled, or the address was typed wrong — the SEO name under the choice’s Page button is the exact segment.
I edited a brand’s page fields and they vanished. Press Save Changes under the choices list, or the attribute’s Save — both keep the edits. Closing the window without saving discards them.
I set an option but the price never changes. The price modifier lives on each choice within the option, not the option itself. Open the option and set the modifier (fixed or percentage) on each choice.
I want different stock levels per size, but options won’t let me. Sizes with their own stock are variations, not options. Use a Variations (separate products) attribute and group the products on the Product Group tab.
The Attributes or Options tab isn’t in the product editor. Both appear only after the product has been saved once. Save the new product, then reopen it. On TitanCart Lite there is no Options tab at all.