Would you mind screen-grabbing your setup please?
I can share some screenshots as well. This is an example using switcher sets for controlling these accent colors:
The selected one is the component, all the others are instances with variables applied. (Color-themes for this is controlling the text color. theme-light = dark text)
Looking at the variable collections, Color-accents-sets is the switcher that allows you to bridge between the primary and secondary accent color collections.
If I wanted to, for example, change from ābrightā to ācoolā then Iād change Color-accents-sets from Secondary to Primary, then Iād have to get the Color-accents-primary collection from the Layer variables icon dropdown and choose ācoolā.
Itās a pain to set up and use but it does work.
Hereās an overview (highlighted collections used above) of all the variable aliasing Iād set up in this design system to allow switching for themes, accents, backgrounds, button states, image sizes, breakpoints, and finally fonts at breakpoints. Iām not certain itās totally accurate since we have no node editor for variables but it should give you an idea how the aliases flow. As it says within, each collection named ______-sets is a switcher to use a variable for more than 4 modes.
5 Likes
These workarounds are nothing short of ingenious, and I really thank you all for sharing your hacks.
Having said that, this route feels like an algorithmic hell which will require extensive documentation for anyone joining a team, and the long term maintenance of this has me sweating.
This is precisely why we pay for professional tools. They develop and update core features which handle this logic seamlessly, allowing us to focus on our work. Thatās the contract.
I donāt know of any other software platform (not even Adobe) which imposes random limits on core features on their upper tier plans. Come on now, $45/month/user is far from freemium.
10 Likes
Thanks for taking the time to share, I havenāt put it to real world test yet, just tested it as a concept. Glad to see it actually works in real scenarios!
2 Likes
If anyone is wondering, we use import/export variables to swap in and out saved themes.
It isnāt a particularly great solution and adds a lot of friction to the design team as nobody wants to touch it out of fear of breaking it. It has stopped us from using variables to explore lots of iterations, which I thought would be the main benefit of the feature.
I spent a lot of personal time moving to Figma variables and I feel like Iāve been tricked into a situation in which the Figma position is essentially just pointing at the enterprise price. Iām also disappointed Iāve had to use plugins to export variables rather than use the Figma variables API, which seems to be needlessly behind a enterprise pay wall.
There was a bit of an expectation that the 4 mode limit was a Beta thing, and was to restrict Figma users running into memory issues or āscaleā issues; this also turned out to not be the case, with no communication from Figma.
As a side note: I think the enterprise tier is a ridiculous price for 40 modes, i would expect unlimited.
I agree that this is a great paid feature, Iām happy we are paying. However, I canāt convince the org to hand over an extra $10k a year just for some extra variable modes.
Iām asking Figma now, (if any mod or design advocate is in here?) what is the long term pricing plan for Figma Variables. I feel some of us are owed an answer for this for being Variable early users from day 0.
Also a shout out to https://tokens.studio/, which we used before switching to Figma Variables. Despite some of the performance issues Tokens Studio has, they were clear about pricing and communicated weekly on the performance/features/issues they were tackling.
7 Likes
The 4 mode limit is also made a little worse without the ability to move variables between collections. Some of the workarounds mentioned in here are restricted by this.
2 Likes
Not letting this close! We have so many collections to make up for 4 modes pleasssseeeee
3 Likes
While the workarounds and plugins are appreciated and truly praiseworthy efforts, they are hacks. Plugins eventually lose maintenance, and workarounds only work when everyone knows the workaround. It is an inter-vertical, onboarding, and political hell.
When software as big as this tries to generate income from bits and pieces, it just smells bad. Figma is probably trying to earn back the promised $20b.
5 Likes
I canāt believe Iām spending several hours attempting a workaround just to make our designs more accessible. Small organizations shouldnāt have to pay a minimum of $5k a year in order to easily support standard, medium, and high contrast styling in both light and dark mode.
This feels greedy of Figma, and itās greedy in a way that extorts people trying to design with accessibility in mind.
@dvaliao , what is the latest update from the Variables team?
9 Likes
iOS Dynamic Type has 7 sizes. I was all excited about using variables for font sizes, but itās useless with only four. 
update: I just realized this thread is about Professional plan. Iām on the Organization plan which costs 3x as much as Professional and we only have 4 modes!!!
3 Likes
Another example: iOS Dynamic Type has 7 sizes. We need to specify these for every thing that uses text in our apps. It would be great to use variables for this.
5 Likes
I mentioned this in https://forum.figma.com/t/professional-plan-should-offer-more-than-4-variable-modes/ as well. Dynamic type has 7 sizes so we need at least that many.
@dvaliao I would like to congratulate Figma for their amazing new features introduced today. Although I completely understand that changing number of modes for different pricing tiers is incomparably more difficult and far less important than new AI features, revolutionary new UI, and new Slides product (thank God we finally have a tool for creating presentations!), I strongly believe that the voices of the very few of us will be heard. No hurries though, whenever you got time, itās not like we are pointing out a serious problem for a year or so. Also fixing some API bugs would be fine too, but who really cares, we have AI now! 
15 Likes
Yeah, totally, itās SOOOOOO important to make all these features that no one is asking for and (especially in the case of the AI features) even repulsively horrified by instead of fixing one of the most terrible core product decisions ever.
Itās good to have your priorities so straight over so many years. Laser focused on being responsive to customer feedback over all other things. Itās saintly.
Doesnāt make us look for competing products to jump ship to at all. Like, Iām NOT looking at the Penpot website right now to see if I could realistically switch to that soon.
8 Likes
I am jumping in with my two cents here as well because I do not want this thread to close and Figma needs to hear this. 4 modes is absolutely absurd. I see everyone using their modes differently but have come to the same conclusion. 4 modes is unbearable and outrageous. I am not much for voicing my complaints a lot but this is something just absurd and awful. For example, I have a collection where they all are variables that design UI components for a UI library that I am working on. I wanted to use the modes to represent the states of the button (default, hover, active, focus, disabled) but apparently that is too much to ask for. For others as well! Using t-shirt sizes. What we can only do sm, md, lg, xl? No 2xl? No full for radius? What about colors? What about different themes? Donāt even get me started on the fact that the REST API for variables is enterprise too. I am an independent hobbyist who wants to create a UI library. I want to design it out before I implement it but I have to pay $5000 if I want to become efficient??? No.
8 Likes
If Figma wants to cap the number of modes per tier, thatās fine by me. However, I cannot understand the gap between the 4 mode limit on the Organization plan and 40 on Enterprise. It just doesnāt make sense. Iām not asking for 40 modes; give me at least 10, and Iāll be happy.
5 Likes
This is ridiculous
4 Likes
Then you wonāt want to buy an organization plan 
1 Like
We are on an org plan already 
With only 4 modes!
1 Like
Yes, looks like I read it wrong. Yes, there are 40 mods in Enterprise only. Very strange sharp jump in quantity
2 Likes