The behaviour of particles in pulsating and oscillating flows is of practical interest in devices such as pulsation reactors and ultrasonic elevators. In addition to the resulting flow patterns, the influence of the flow on heat and mass transfer is often important. The state of the art in this area is already quite well developed with many different models, theories, and experiments published. However, only small parameter ranges of the behaviour of particles in pulsating and oscillating flows are considered, while an overarching theoretical framework does not yet exist. Therefore, this work presents a three-stage model for the behaviour of solid single particles in oscillating (pulsating) flows. The relative velocity between particle and fluid as well as the flow patterns around the particle, together with the heat and mass transfer at the particle are considered. The model levels build on top of each other, with the introduced ϵ-Re plain as a common connection between the levels. The number of input parameters could be limited to the five most important ones (fluid velocity amplitude, fluid oscillation frequency, fluid temperature, particle diameter, particle density), but these are considered in very large ranges. The relative velocity is largely calculated analytically using various flow resistance approaches. Direct numerical simulations were carried out to qualitatively estimate the flow patterns around the particle. The quantitative determination of a meta correlation for the entire ϵ-Re plane was carried out using 33 data sets from the literature. Conditions in pulsation reactors are particularly emphasized and their influence investigated.