Shopify B2B has changed significantly. For a long time, native B2B functionality on Shopify effectively meant talking about Shopify Plus. That is no longer the full picture: on April 2, 2026, Shopify extended foundational B2B features to Basic, Grow and Advanced.

That changes the platform decision for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and brands that sell both direct-to-consumer and to businesses.

At a glance

  • Shopify now supports companies, company locations, catalogs, volume pricing, quantity rules, payment terms and self-service ordering beyond Plus.
  • Basic, Grow and Advanced have limits — most importantly on the number of active B2B market catalogs.
  • Complex, account-specific pricing or approvals may still justify Plus or a custom layer.
  • Most B2B projects fail on rules and data ownership, not on the storefront.

The important question is no longer simply whether Shopify can handle B2B. A better question is:

Which parts of your B2B model fit Shopify natively, which depend on the plan, and which still require integration or custom development?

Shopify now provides native B2B features on Basic, Grow and Advanced as well as Plus. The expansion was announced on April 2, 2026, and current availability is detailed in Shopify’s B2B plan feature comparison. Lower-plan catalog features require the new Shopify Markets. Plan details in this guide were checked against Shopify’s documentation on 28 September 2026; verify the live plan matrix before committing to a build.

The Shopify B2B data model

A B2B store is not a normal ecommerce site with a login screen. The buying experience depends on the company behind the user.

Shopify models professional customers through companies, company locations and individual customers. A company is the parent business. A company location represents the entity involved in a transaction and can carry its own tax information, billing and shipping addresses, payment terms, pricing and contacts. The customer is linked to the company and buys on its behalf. These platform objects need to map deliberately to the portal’s company, user and role model; they should not be assumed to replace every custom approval workflow.

A real B2B relationship therefore looks less like a cart and more like a hierarchy:

COMPANY
↓
COMPANY LOCATION
↓
BUYER
↓
CATALOG
↓
PRICING
↓
ORDER RULES
↓
PAYMENT TERMS
↓
CHECKOUT

This matters because real B2B commerce rarely has one price list and one checkout. A distributor may have different conditions from a retailer. One branch may receive Net 30 terms while another pays immediately. One customer may access a range another cannot buy. The system has to understand those relationships.

Catalogs and customer-specific pricing

Catalogs are one of the core concepts in Shopify B2B. They define which products a buyer can access and which prices apply. On Basic, Grow and Advanced, B2B catalogs are market-scoped; direct assignment of a catalog to a company or location is a Plus feature. Catalogs can also use fixed product or variant prices, percentage adjustments, volume pricing and quantity rules. The commercial rules behind catalog ownership and precedence are covered in B2B pricing architecture; portal permissions and account structure are a separate customer-portal decision.

Pricing becomes part of the buyer context instead of something handled manually after an order arrives. For a business currently running on spreadsheets and emailed price lists, that changes the daily flow:

Customer signs in
→ correct catalog is resolved
→ correct products and prices appear
→ quantities are entered
→ order is submitted

The difference is not cosmetic. Commercial rules become part of the software.

Which Shopify B2B features are native to which plan

The 2026 change does not make every implementation identical. This comparison reflects Shopify’s published plan matrix at the date above; it is the practical decision point, not a substitute for checking the current vendor documentation:

Capability Basic / Grow / Advanced Shopify Plus
Companies and company locations Yes Yes
Market-scoped B2B catalogs and pricing Up to 3 active across all B2B markets combined Unlimited
Catalog assigned directly to a company or location No Yes
Volume pricing and quantity rules Yes Yes
Net payment terms Yes Yes
Deposits and partial payments No Yes
Contextual storefront and checkout Advanced only (not Basic or Grow) Yes

The rule of thumb: a relatively simple wholesale model may no longer require Plus merely because it is B2B. A complex model with company-specific catalogs, deposits or contextual checkout may still justify Plus, or a different architecture entirely. Verify current limits against Shopify’s official plan documentation before committing.

Blended commerce versus a dedicated B2B store

Shopify supports two broad architectures. In blended commerce, one store serves both consumers and professional customers. In dedicated B2B commerce, the B2B experience exists as its own storefront.

Neither is inherently better. Blended commerce makes sense when product operations overlap heavily between D2C and wholesale. A dedicated store becomes more attractive when ranges differ substantially, navigation is different, buyers need dense ordering interfaces, B2B needs its own release cycle, or the public brand experience would be compromised by B2B requirements.

Platform selection should follow the operating model, not the other way around.

Customer accounts are part of the commerce architecture

B2B customers must authenticate before Shopify can expose account-specific products or prices. Authentication is therefore not an isolated login feature; it is where the storefront learns who the user is, which company and location they represent, and which catalog, price and payment terms apply.

Shopify’s customer account system sits directly in the buying flow. More advanced systems may connect it to external identity providers or business approval workflows.

Ordering and payment terms are different in B2B

Professional purchasing is rarely a single click. A B2B order can involve purchase order numbers, negotiated prices, approval, draft orders, minimum quantities, volume breaks, delayed payment and repeat ordering.

Shopify can represent several of these natively. A company location can be configured with payment terms such as Net 7, Net 15, Net 30, Net 45, Net 60 or Net 90, and orders can be submitted as drafts when review is required. The correct digital equivalent of a traditional sales process is often not add-to-cart and instant payment. It is:

Build order → submit → review → confirm → invoice

Good B2B software models the business process instead of forcing the business to behave like a consumer store.

Integrating ERP, CRM and product data

The storefront is rarely the only source of truth. A company may already have an ERP holding stock, customers, invoices and commercial conditions; a CRM holding relationships and account ownership; a PIM holding product information and media. Shopify authors the digital buying experience, orders and checkout.

Shopify supports integration with ERP, CRM, accounting and PIM systems through direct integrations, integration platforms and B2B APIs. The difficult part is rarely making two APIs exchange JSON. It is deciding which system owns each piece of data:

Customer → which system owns it?
Product  → which system owns it?
Price    → which system owns it?
Stock    → which system owns it?
Order    → where is it created?
Invoice  → where is it generated?

Define those ownership rules before integration development starts. This is the same problem described in ERP, CRM and ecommerce integration.

When native Shopify B2B is enough

Shopify is particularly attractive when requirements are close to its native model: companies and accounts, catalogs, private pricing, quantity rules, volume pricing, payment terms, online ordering and standard integrations. In those cases, using the platform primitives is usually preferable to rebuilding them.

When custom development still makes sense

Custom development becomes relevant with complex approval chains, quoting before ordering, configurators, contract-specific logic, granular permissions, tender processes, complex ERP rules, salesperson-assisted ordering or account-specific dashboards.

Even then, custom does not mean abandoning Shopify. A common architecture keeps Shopify as the commerce engine, a custom application for business-specific workflows, and the ERP, CRM or PIM as operational systems. The correct boundary depends on the process.

The questions to answer before choosing Shopify

Before selecting a plan, theme or implementation approach, document who buys, what company relationships exist, what determines product access, price and quantity rules, how orders are approved, when payment is collected, and which system owns customer, product and stock data.

If those answers are unclear, choosing technology is premature. B2B commerce is primarily a rules and workflow problem. Shopify can provide a strong commerce foundation in 2026; the quality of the final system depends on how accurately those rules are translated into the buying experience.

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FRN.Q designs and builds private commerce under B2B Systems. If your rules are still on paper, that is the right moment to start a conversation on the contact page.