Shopify's B2B features are now available on more plans than just Shopify Plus. This makes the platform relevant for more wholesalers and manufacturing companies, but choosing a plan still requires an understanding of your price structure, customer model, and integration architecture.
The B2B decision no longer starts with Shopify Plus
Shopify B2B was long closely associated with Shopify Plus. Since the spring of 2026, core B2B features have also been available on Basic, Grow, and Advanced.
Company profiles, company locations, payment terms, volume pricing, quantity rules, purchase order numbers, and self-service are therefore no longer sufficient reasons to automatically choose Plus.
This does not mean that the plans have become equivalent. The difference lies primarily in how far you need to segment assortments, prices, and purchasing experiences for individual customers.
What is included in Basic, Grow, and Advanced
On these plans, you can work with Companies and Company Locations to represent corporate customers and their various purchasing sites.
You can, among other things:
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grant contacts access to different company locations
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offer payment terms
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use volume pricing and quantity rules
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let customers reorder from previous orders
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collect purchase order numbers
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control whether orders should be sent as drafts for review
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use up to three active B2B catalogs via Shopify Markets
For a company with a relatively uniform wholesale offering, this can go a long way. For example, one catalog can be used for Swedish retailers, one for the rest of Europe, and one for a specific customer group.
The limitation becomes clearer when each customer has their own agreements, price lists, or assortments. Three catalogs is a shared limit for all active B2B markets, not three catalogs per customer or market.
When Advanced becomes relevant
Advanced is particularly relevant when B2B customers require a more situation-adapted store and checkout.
The plan provides the possibility for a contextual storefront and checkout through Shopify Markets. This means that different customer groups can encounter customized content and different purchasing experiences within the same store.
This can be valuable in a blended store where both consumers and corporate customers shop. The B2C customer can see campaign-driven communication, while a logged-in retailer gets a more efficient ordering experience.
However, Advanced does not solve the need for unlimited or directly customer-assigned catalogs.
When Shopify Plus is still the right choice
Shopify Plus becomes relevant when the complexity lies in the business model, not just in the number of orders.
Plus provides, among other things:
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unlimited number of B2B catalogs
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direct assignment of catalogs to companies and company locations
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customer-specific assortments and prices at a more detailed level
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deposits and partial payments
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payment requests per delivery
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contextual storefront and checkout
- greater freedom to build complex B2B flows
A manufacturing company may, for example, have retailers with different agreements, product permissions, and net prices. If these variations are to be managed per customer or delivery address, direct catalog assignment quickly becomes important.
It is therefore misleading to judge Plus solely on the basis of turnover or traffic. The decisive question is how many business rules must be expressible without manual exceptions.
Five questions that should guide the plan choice
1. How are customers segmented?
Are a few shared customer groups enough, or do individual companies and company locations need their own terms?
Broad segmentation can often be managed via Markets and a few catalogs. Customer-unique agreements more often point towards Plus.
2. Who owns the price?
Determine whether prices should be administered in Shopify, the ERP system, or another system.
If Business Central or another ERP is the master, the catalog structure in Shopify must reflect the price groups that can actually be maintained and synchronized. A larger number of catalogs is not automatically better if price ownership is unclear.
3. Should B2B and D2C share a store?
A blended store can reduce double administration of products, content, and integrations. At the same time, it requires clear rules for which products, prices, payment methods, and messages each customer type should encounter.
For other businesses, a separate B2B store is easier to manage. The decision should be based on organization, assortment, and customer journey – not on a general platform rule.
4. How should the order be processed?
Not all B2B orders necessarily need to go directly to delivery.
Some orders require credit checks, quote reviews, manual approval, or supplementation before they become final. Document which orders can go straight through and which should be created as drafts.
5. What does the integration look like?
A B2B implementation only becomes stable when Shopify and the ERP system share the same view of companies, company locations, contacts, prices, and orders.
Determine, among other things:
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which system creates the company
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how Company and Company Location correspond in the ERP system
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where external customer numbers are stored
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how invoice and delivery customers are separated
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how a contact with access to multiple addresses is handled
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what happens when a synchronization fails
Start with the business model, not the feature list
The fact that B2B is available on more Shopify plans lowers the threshold for getting started. It does not replace the need for a well-thought-out structure.
Therefore, map out customers, addresses, price lists, permissions, order rules, and system ownership before you choose a plan. Only then can you determine if three market-based catalogs are sufficient or if you need customer-specific control on Shopify Plus.
Stride helps established companies evaluate Shopify B2B, model data, and connect the platform to business-critical systems. The goal is not to choose the largest plan, but the architecture that holds up as the business grows.
