Adding items to a room

There are three ways to get an item into a room: paste a product URL and let Mortar read the page, type it in by hand, or use the browser clipper for sites Mortar can't reach directly. There's also bulk CSV import if you're loading a lot of items at once.

Add by pasting a product URL

1. In a room, click Add Item.
2. Paste the product page URL into Product URL and click Fetch details (or just tab out of the field — it fetches automatically on blur).
3. Mortar reads the page and fills in what it can find: name, vendor, price, currency, and a photo. Everything it fills in stays editable — check it over before saving.
4. Fill in or correct anything it missed, set the quantity, and click Add Item.

This works best on major retailer and boutique e-commerce sites (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and similar all tend to publish clean product data Mortar can read directly). Heavily protected sites, login-gated trade portals, or pages with no structured product data may return a partial result or nothing at all — if that happens, Mortar tells you and you just fill the fields in by hand. Every scrape (successful or not) counts against your plan's monthly scrape allowance.

Add manually

Skip the URL field entirely and just fill in the item's name, vendor, quantity, cost, and currency yourself. Leave currency blank to use the project's currency.

New items start as drafts

Every item you add lands as a draft — visible only to you, not counted in the budget, and never shown to the client. Nothing goes client-facing until you deliberately move it forward. The full lifecycle:

Draft → Proposed → Approved / Declined

• Draft — designer-only. Not counted, not visible.
• Proposed — visible to the client (if the item's Include toggle is on and the room's been shared) and now counts toward the budget.
• Approved / Declined — set by you or by the client from the portal.

You move an item between these from its "…" menu in Room Details — Propose to client, Mark approved, Mark declined, or Move back to proposed.

A "needs price" tag can appear on any item regardless of status — it's a flag, not a status, and just means the item has no price yet.

Alternatives (option groups)

If you're presenting a client with a choice between a few versions of the same piece — different fabric, different finish — group them as alternatives. Each option is its own full item record with its own photo, price, and URL. Grouped items sit together in the UI; you flag one as in-budget and that's the only one counted toward the room's total. Clients can react and comment on every option in the group, which is exactly the feedback you want when deciding between them.

FAQ

I pasted a URL and nothing came back — now what? Fill the item in by hand. This happens on sites that block automated fetching or don't publish structured product data — the browser clipper is built specifically for those cases.

Does fetching details use up my scrape allowance even if it fails? Yes — every attempt counts, successful or not.

Can I change which alternative is "in budget" later? Yes, any time — swap the flag on the item's action menu and the budget re-rolls instantly.