ProofBolt StudiosProofBolt Studios: getting started
ProofBolt Studios adds custom-patch designers to your Shopify store. Customers upload a logo, pick a material, shape, size and quantity, see a live preview and price, and add it to your cart. You get print and cut files with every order.
Open the app from Shopify admin → Apps → ProofBolt Studios. The Overview page has the same checklist as this guide, with a button for each step. Steps tick themselves off as you finish them.
1. Start your free trial
Go to Plan & billing and press Start 14-day free trial. There is one plan: $99 every 30 days after the 14-day free trial, billed through Shopify. It includes every builder (Patch Studio, the patch gang sheet and the leatherette sheet designer). There are no order fees or usage charges.
You can cancel any time from the same page.
2. Turn on your builders
Go to Builders and switch on each builder you want. Turning one on creates its product in your store for you:
- Patch Studio gets one product with a hidden price variant for each unit price (for example $2.50, $2.55, $2.60…). The designer picks the right one, so Shopify charges exactly the price the customer saw.
- Gang sheet and leatherette sheet each get a simple one-price product.
If you already have a product with a similar name, the app asks before touching it: Use mine (keeps your title, photos, description and URL) or Create a separate product.
3. Put the designer on the product page
Without this step, the builder product shows your theme's normal variant picker, which lists every price ("$2.50 each, $2.55 each…"). To fix it:
- On Overview (or Builders), click Set up product page.
- Your theme editor opens on App embeds with Builder product pages switched on. Click Save.
- Back in the app, click I've saved it.
On your builder products the designer now appears, and the theme's variant picker, price, quantity and buy buttons are hidden. Your other products don't change, and no theme code is edited.
Doing it by hand (if the price list still shows, or you want the designer in an exact spot):
- Go to Online Store → Themes and click Customize on your live theme.
- Optional but tidy: in the top dropdown choose Products → Create template, name it "builder", based on Default product. Then open your builder product in Products and set Theme template to "builder".
- In the theme editor, open the template your builder product uses.
- In the Product information section, click Add block → Apps → Patch Studio (or Patch gang sheet / Leatherette sheet). Drag it under the product title.
- Hide the theme's own blocks on that template: click the eye icon next to Variant picker, Price, Quantity selector and Buy buttons.
- Click Save, then open the product page in a new tab and check that only the designer shows.
Shortcut: Builders → Place the block yourself opens the product in the theme editor with the block ready to add.
4. Keep price products out of search and collections
Patch Studio's price variants shouldn't appear in store search or collections. The app hides its price products from store search, the sitemap and search engines automatically (Shopify's "hidden from search" setting). If Overview shows Hide them now, click it.
Collections:
- New products are never added to your manual collections.
- Automated collections can still include them. In Products → Collections, open each automated collection and add the condition Product tag · is not equal to · proofboltstudios, then Save.
- The theme's built-in /collections/all page lists every product. Don't link to it, or use a collection with the condition above.
Link customers to the builder from your menu instead (see step 8).
5. Choose your colors and Merrow threads
Go to Materials:
- Leatherette colors: click Hide on colors you don't stock (you can show them again any time). Add color lets you add your own: name, a photo of the material (we turn it into a seamless texture), the color the laser engraving shows, and whether it can be UV printed. Colors you add can be deleted and restored from the Trash.
- Merrow thread colors: the same, for the sewn border. Make default thread sets the starting color.
Click Save. Customers only see colors that are shown; old orders keep their colors.
6. Set your prices
Go to Pricing. Your store starts with round sample prices, and customers see them until you change them. Enter your own per-patch price for each size and quantity break, then Save. If your prices go higher than before, click Update price grid on Builders so the store has matching price variants.
7. Test an order
- On Overview, click Open product page (a development store asks for the store password, found in Online Store → Preferences).
- Upload any logo, pick a material and size, and click Add to cart.
- Your cart should show the patches at the quoted price, with the design details (size, material, art link) on the line.
- Back in the app, click It worked. Remove the test line from the cart, or place a test order with Shopify's Bogus Gateway on a development store.
If something's wrong:
- The product page shows the long price list instead of the designer: redo step 3.
- The designer shows but Add to cart fails: make sure step 3 was saved in your live theme (not a draft), then reload the page.
- Opening the designer on its own (not on your store) shows Order on your store: that's expected. Ordering only works on your product page, where the real cart is.
8. Go live
- Turn off the store password: Online Store → Preferences → Password protection.
- Make sure the builder product is Active and available on the Online Store sales channel.
- Add the builder product to your menu: Online Store → Navigation, so customers can find it.
- Back in the app, click We're live.
Orders and production files
Every order with a design shows up under Orders in the app, with links to the print and cut files and a note when a Merrow border was ordered. Customers can reorder past designs from their order.
Getting help
Email admin@proofbolt.com with your store address (yourstore.myshopify.com) and what you clicked. Screenshots help.