"Can Shopify do B2B?" used to have an awkward answer. For years the honest reply was "sort of, if you bolt enough on." That's changed. Shopify B2B is now native, and it's genuinely good: company accounts, per-customer catalogues, price lists, and payment terms, all built into the platform instead of faked with apps and discount codes. But "native" and "done" are not the same thing, and the gap between them is exactly where wholesale projects go over budget.
Here's what native Shopify B2B actually gives you, what it pointedly doesn't, and how we decide between native, custom, and a bit of both.
Updated for April 2026. On 2 April 2026, Shopify extended native B2B beyond Plus to the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans at no extra cost. Every plan now gets company profiles, up to three custom catalogues with their own pricing, volume discounts and quantity rules, vaulted cards and payment terms. Plus keeps unlimited catalogues, assigning catalogues directly to companies and locations, and deposits and partial payments. This post reflects that change.
What native Shopify B2B does now
On every Shopify plan, the B2B plumbing is real and it's the part you'd least want to build yourself:
- Company accounts. Multiple buyers under one company, with locations and per-buyer permissions. A purchasing manager and three buyers, one account, correct.
- Customer-specific catalogues. Different companies see different products at different prices. No duplicate stores, no tag hacks.
- Price lists and volume pricing. Price lists and quantity breaks set per catalogue rather than a pile of automatic discounts.
- Payment terms. Net 30, net 60, and purchase-order style checkout, native rather than a spreadsheet and an invoice sent afterwards.
If you're currently running wholesale through a second store, a wall of discount codes, or a customer-tag workaround, this is the change that makes the whole thing stop being fragile, and you no longer need Plus to get it. Below Plus, the limit to watch is three catalogues. That's plenty for a retail price, a trade price and a distributor price. It gets tight when every big account has its own negotiated catalogue, when you need catalogues assigned to specific companies and locations, or when buyers pay deposits or in instalments. Those are now the B2B reasons to be on Plus, which we've written about in when it makes sense to move to Shopify Plus.
What native B2B does not do
Here's the part that surprises people. Native B2B is the engine, not the car. It handles who-sees-what and who-pays-how, in the admin and at checkout. It does very little about the actual buying experience your customers touch. Out of the box, native B2B does not give you:
- Quick-order and bulk reorder. A trade buyer ordering 80 SKUs does not want to click into 80 product pages. They want a grid, a paste-a-list import, and a one-click reorder from their last invoice. None of that is native.
- Quote requests (RFQ). Cart-to-quote with line-item negotiation, routed to your sales team, is not a native flow. Most merchants reach for an app or a custom build.
- Account-gated content. Spec sheets, datasheets, and price lists shown only to logged-in trade customers. Native handles the pricing gate, not the content gate.
- Order minimums and MOQs. Native quantity rules cover minimums and pack sizes per product within a catalogue. Per-collection or per-customer minimums, enforced everywhere a buyer can add to cart, are not native.
- A storefront that looks like it was designed for buyers, not retail shoppers who happen to be logged in.
So the honest shape of a B2B project is: the plumbing is native and solved, and the storefront experience on top of it is the work. That's the line item people forget to budget for, because "Shopify has B2B now" gets heard as "Shopify does B2B for me."
The three ways merchants actually build it
Almost every wholesale build we see is one of these three:
| Approach | What you get | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Apps and workarounds, no native B2B | B2B-ish, cheaply | Fragile, and the apps pile up and fight each other |
| Native B2B + custom theme work | The real thing, fitted to you | Fixed-price build cost, done once |
| Native B2B + a purpose-built B2B theme | The real thing, most of it out of the box | Newer option, less bespoke than a full custom build |
The first is where most people start and where most people eventually get stuck: the workarounds hold until a buyer hits an edge the codes don't cover, and then every order is a support ticket. With native B2B now on every plan, there's less reason to stay there. The second is the gold standard and what we build for merchants with specific, unusual wholesale rules. The third is the newer middle path, and it's the one we'd point most merchants at first, on Advanced or Plus, because the buyer-facing layer is largely the same job from one wholesaler to the next.
Native for the plumbing, invest in the storefront
The recommendation we keep landing on: use native B2B for everything it covers, and spend your budget on the storefront layer it doesn't. Fighting the platform to reinvent company accounts or price lists is wasted money now that they're native and solid. The differentiated, worth-paying-for work is the buyer experience: quick-order, RFQ, gated content, MOQs, reorder. That's what makes a trade buyer's job faster, and a faster buyer orders more often.
That's exactly the gap we built Forge to close. It's a Shopify theme built end-to-end on native B2B, with the buyer-facing pieces, customer-specific catalogues, quick-order, quote requests, volume pricing, company accounts, net-terms checkout, already fitted, so you're not paying to build each one from scratch. We plan to submit it to the Shopify Theme Store, and there's a waitlist if you want the launch email and an early-access code.
So which should you choose?
- Apps and workarounds: fine only if wholesale is a small experiment and you accept the fragility. Now that native B2B comes with every plan, it's hard to justify for a real channel.
- Native B2B plus a purpose-built theme: the right default for most merchants, on Advanced or Plus. You get native plumbing and a proper buyer experience without funding a ground-up build.
- Native B2B plus a full custom build: the answer when your wholesale rules are genuinely unusual, complex approval chains, ERP-driven pricing, contract-specific catalogues, and off-the-shelf won't fit.
If you're weighing Plus itself for unlimited catalogues or deposits, the money side is in the UK cost breakdown, and the wider upgrade decision is in when to move to Plus.
Quick answers
Does Shopify have native B2B? Yes, on every plan since April 2026. Basic, Grow and Advanced include company accounts, up to three custom catalogues with their own pricing, volume discounts and quantity rules, and payment terms. Plus adds unlimited catalogues, catalogues assigned directly to companies and locations, and deposits and partial payments. The buyer-facing storefront features, quick-order, quote requests, gated content, and wider order minimums, are not native and are built on top.
Do I need Shopify Plus for B2B? Not any more. Since April 2026, native company accounts, up to three catalogues with their own pricing, and payment terms come with Basic, Grow and Advanced. Plus is worth it for B2B when you need more than three catalogues, catalogues assigned to specific companies and locations, deposits and partial payments, or heavier wholesale volume.
Native Shopify B2B or a custom wholesale build? Use native B2B for the plumbing it now handles well, company accounts, catalogues, price lists, terms, and spend your budget on the storefront experience it doesn't cover. A purpose-built B2B theme suits most merchants; a full custom build is for genuinely unusual wholesale rules.
Can I do wholesale without Shopify Plus? Yes. Since April 2026, native B2B comes with Basic, Grow and Advanced: company accounts, up to three custom catalogues, volume pricing and payment terms. That replaces most of the apps and workarounds wholesale used to need below Plus. Move to Plus when three catalogues isn't enough, or when you need deposits and catalogues assigned to each company.
The honest version
Shopify B2B stopped being a workaround and became a real, native part of the platform. That's the good news, and it genuinely changes the build. The catch is that native solves the plumbing, not the buyer experience, and the buyer experience is where wholesale is won or lost. Use native for what it does well, don't pay to rebuild it, and put the budget into the storefront layer on top.
If you're planning a wholesale build and want a straight read on native versus custom for your specific rules, tell us what you're selling and to whom and we'll tell you which of the three routes fits. And if a purpose-built B2B theme is what you're after, Forge is the one we're building for exactly this.