Price 0 means unsellable
A product whose variants all carry 0.00 cannot be quoted or bought by an AI agent, and product feeds reject it.
Variants with no price, no SKU or no name are invisible to agents and feeds.
Sphen.ai checks every variant it syncs for a valid price, a SKU and distinguishable options, and flags stale variants on inactive products. These findings are manual: you fix them in Shopify, and the next audit closes them.
Does Sphen.ai check product variants?
Yes. Sphen.ai checks every variant and flags products where no variant has a price above zero, variants without a SKU, several variants that only carry generic names like Default Title, and unavailable variants on draft or archived products. These findings are manual: you fix them in Shopify and the next audit closes them.
Updated:
A product is only as sellable as its variants.
Default Title twice
Several variants named Title or Default Title give shoppers and assistants no way to tell them apart.
Variants nobody maintains
Variants without a SKU and variants left behind on draft or archived products dilute feeds and structured data.
How does variant checks work?
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Every synced variant is checked
The audit looks at price, SKU, option names and whether the variant still belongs to an active product.
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Findings appear in Recommendations
Set a valid variant price, Add variant SKU, Clarify product variants and Review stale variant show up with the product, the evidence and the fix.
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You fix it in Shopify
These fields have no AI draft. Edit in Shopify takes you to the product; the next audit verifies and closes the finding.
What do you see in the app?
Four findings
Set a valid variant price fires when a product has variants but none with a price above 0. Add variant SKU flags a variant without a SKU. Clarify product variants flags a product whose sellable variants all carry generic option names. Review stale variant flags an unavailable variant on a product that is not active.
Where they appear
Variant findings sit in the All recommendations table under All and in the Manual review segment. There is no separate Variants tab: a finding is listed with its product, so you see the context.
Evidence and fix
Each finding shows the evidence — for example the number of variants and that none is priced — the threshold, and the fix: set a real selling price per sellable variant, take the SKU from your PIM or inventory system, name options by size, colour or material, or remove or reactivate the variant.
What stays under your control?
- Variant findings are review-only. Nothing is written to your variants.
- Deleting a variant is irreversible, so Review stale variant always stays a manual step.
- Each finding names the threshold it was checked against, such as at least one variant with a price above 0.
Which plans include it?
Included in every plan, with no separate quota.
Questions about variant checks
Help center · Read the guideWhy does a missing price matter for AI?
AI agents and product feeds need a price to quote or list a product. A product whose variants all carry 0.00 cannot be named or bought by an agent, and feeds drop it. That is why this finding carries a high priority.
Can Sphen.ai set the price or SKU for me?
No. Prices and SKUs come from your own systems, so these findings are review-only. Edit in Shopify opens the product; the change is yours.
What counts as a generic variant name?
Options named Title or Default Title. The finding fires only when a product has at least two sellable variants and all of them are generic, so a single-variant product is never flagged.
What is a stale variant?
A variant that is not available for sale and belongs to a product in draft or archived state. It dilutes feeds and structured data. Because deleting is irreversible, Sphen.ai asks you to check it and remove or reactivate it yourself.
Do variant checks count against a quota?
No. They are part of the product audit and have no separate allowance.
See it on your own catalog.
Install Sphen.ai, let it read your store, and decide exactly what goes live.