Selling Variable weight meats

Hi @integrisorb,

Thanks for reaching out. This is a common question for stores selling variable-weight products like meat.

WooCommerce does not have a built-in way to take an order with an estimated total, then change the order total later and only send the final amount to the payment processor automatically. WooCommerce expects the order total to be final at checkout.

That said, there are a few ways stores usually handle this:

1. Estimated price, then adjust before capture
   You can charge based on an estimated weight (for example, price per lb/kg) and place the order “On hold.” Once the meat is weighed during fulfillment, you can manually update the order total in the admin and then capture or complete the payment. This depends on the payment gateway, as not all gateways support delayed capture or changing totals after checkout.
2. Variable products with weight-based pricing
   If the weights are known ahead of time, you can use variable products where each option represents a specific weight, with the price calculated based on that weight. Many stores use measurement-based pricing plugins to avoid having to create a very large number of variations manually.
3. Use a dedicated plugin
   Because this workflow isn’t supported by WooCommerce core, many stores selling meat or other variable-weight products use third-party plugins designed for estimated or weight-based pricing.

In short, WooCommerce core doesn’t support weighing and charging automatically, but this can be achieved using manual order adjustments or specialized extensions, depending on your payment gateway and preferred checkout flow.