How to Set Up B2B on Shopify Without Plus

Every guide about B2B on Shopify eventually tells you to upgrade to Plus. That advice is now out of date. Since April 2026, Shopify's native B2B features are available on every paid plan: Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus. Company profiles, catalogs, payment terms — no longer locked behind $2,300/month.

That doesn't mean non-Plus B2B is unlimited. You get up to 3 B2B catalogs, assigned through Markets rather than directly to companies, and a few features stay Plus-only. But the constraint has shifted from "no B2B at all" to "B2B with limits." With the native features and one or two focused apps, you can set up a wholesale channel that works. You might even find you never need Plus.

TL;DR: Since April 2026, native B2B runs on every paid Shopify plan. Non-Plus gets company profiles, up to 3 B2B catalogs (assigned via Markets), net payment terms (net 7 to net 90), quantity rules, volume pricing, and vaulted cards. Add a registration app to handle applications and vetting, and you have a working wholesale channel for a fraction of the Plus price. Upgrade when you need a 4th catalog, per-company catalog assignment, or deposits and partial payments.

What You're Working With

On Basic, Grow, and Advanced, you now get the core of Shopify's native B2B. Company profiles with the full company, location, and contact structure. Up to 3 B2B catalogs, assigned to buyers through Markets. Net payment terms from net 7 to net 90. Quantity rules and volume pricing. Vaulted credit cards for faster reordering. For how the company/location/contact model actually fits together, see our companion explainer, "Shopify B2B Company Accounts Explained."

Four things stay Plus-only: unlimited catalogs, direct catalog assignment to a specific company or location, partial payments, and deposits. And note the $5 Starter plan is excluded entirely — "every paid plan" means Basic and up.

This is the constraint you're designing around now. Not "no B2B," but 3 catalogs and Markets-based assignment. For most merchants starting a wholesale channel, that's plenty. Shopify's core commerce features — product management, inventory, shipping, checkout — were always solid on every plan. Now the B2B layer on top is mostly there too.

Step 1: Separate Your B2B Customers

The foundation of B2B is getting approved buyers into the system correctly. When you approve a wholesale customer, they need a company profile with the right catalog and terms — or, if you're still running a tag-based setup, the right tags. Every automation you set up downstream keys off this.

You can create companies manually in the Shopify admin. For a handful of wholesale accounts, this works fine. But if you're processing more than a few applications per week, you want this automated.

A registration app handles this. The customer fills out an application form with their business details. You review it and approve or reject. On approval, the app creates the company, location, and contact automatically. No manual data entry, no forgotten steps, no inconsistencies.

This is the one step you shouldn't skip or hack together. Getting customers into your system correctly, with the right structure and data, makes everything else easier. Getting it wrong creates problems that compound over time.

Step 2: Set Up Wholesale Pricing

Start with native catalogs. You get up to 3 B2B catalogs on non-Plus plans, each with its own price list — percentage adjustments or fixed prices per product — plus quantity rules and volume pricing. Assign them through Markets and your approved buyers see wholesale prices automatically. For most merchants, three tiers (say: standard wholesale, preferred, distributor) cover the whole program at no extra cost.

If you need more than 3 pricing tiers, you have options.

Customer-tag-based pricing apps. Apps like Wholesale Pricing Discount and MGroup Dynamic Price let you create pricing rules tied to customer tags, with no cap on the number of tiers. These apps typically start at $15-30/month. This was the default approach before the 2026 expansion; now it's the overflow option.

Discount codes. The simplest approach. Create a discount code that gives wholesale customers a flat percentage off. It works, but it's clunky. Customers can share the code, forget to apply it, or apply it to products you didn't intend. Fine for testing, not great long-term.

Draft orders. Your sales team creates orders manually with custom pricing. This works well for high-touch, low-volume B2B where every order involves a conversation anyway. It doesn't scale if customers need to reorder independently.

For most merchants, native catalogs are the right starting point. Reach for a pricing app only when you outgrow three tiers.

Step 3: Handle the Registration Process

This is where many B2B setups fall apart, on any plan. Shopify gives you the company structure but not the front door: there's no native way for wholesale customers to apply, and no way to vet them.

Putting a "Contact us for wholesale pricing" message on your site and handling everything over email is common. It's also a bottleneck. Emails get buried, follow-ups get missed, and there's no structured way to collect the business information you need.

A registration form solves this. The customer fills out a structured application (company name, tax ID, business type, documents if needed). You review it in a dashboard. Approve or reject with one click. On approval, the customer gets their company profile, an activation email, and can start ordering at wholesale prices. For a comparison of the available registration apps, see Best Shopify Apps for B2B Customer Registration in 2026.

The key things to look for in a registration app: native company creation on approval, custom fields for the information you need, email notifications to both you and the applicant, and ideally file uploads for business documents like trade licenses.

Step 4: Minimum Order Requirements

B2B orders typically have minimums. $200 minimum order, 12-unit minimum per SKU, whatever your margins require.

Native quantity rules cover part of this: minimum and maximum quantities and case increments per product in a B2B catalog. For order-value minimums across the whole cart, you still need an app. These usually cost $10-20/month.

Step 5: Payment and Terms

Net payment terms are now native on every paid plan: net 7 through net 90, set per company location, with vaulted cards for when buyers pay. Set the terms when you create the company and Shopify handles due dates and payment collection at checkout.

If native terms don't fit your situation — you invoice outside Shopify, or your buyers pay ways Shopify doesn't support — the old workarounds still exist as fallbacks.

Draft orders with "payment pending." Create the order, send the invoice, track payment manually. Works for a small number of accounts where you know the buyers personally.

Invoice apps. Apps like Sufio or Order Printer generate professional invoices with payment terms printed on them, creating a paper trail alongside however the customer actually pays.

Bank transfer as payment method. Add a manual payment method for bank transfers and mark orders paid when the money arrives. Still common in EU B2B where bank transfers are standard.

Third-party net terms providers. Services like Resolve pay you upfront and collect from the buyer later. This removes credit risk but adds cost (typically 2-3% per transaction).

What non-Plus terms don't include: deposits and partial payments. If your buyers pay 50% upfront and 50% on delivery, that's still Plus territory.

Step 6: The B2B Customer Experience

With native B2B, your wholesale customers get a real company account on any paid plan: they log in, see their catalog prices, order against their terms, and reorder without your involvement.

You can improve this. Create a dedicated "Wholesale" page with information about your B2B program, order minimums, and how-to guides. Use navigation to highlight wholesale-relevant products. Set up automated email flows for B2B customers with ordering reminders and new product announcements.

For merchants whose B2B channel is 10-30% of revenue, not the primary business, this is a complete setup.

When to Actually Upgrade to Plus

The non-Plus approach works well up to a point. Here are the signals that it's time to consider upgrading. For a detailed comparison of what native B2B offers versus third-party apps, see Shopify Native B2B vs Third-Party Apps.

You need a 4th catalog. Three pricing tiers cover most wholesale programs, but if your customer segments genuinely need more catalogs than that, Plus removes the cap.

You need per-company catalog assignment. On non-Plus, catalogs are assigned through Markets. If you need to assign a specific catalog directly to a specific company or location — bespoke pricing per key account — that's Plus.

Your buyers need deposits or partial payments. 50% upfront, balance on delivery, or a deposit to confirm a custom order. Non-Plus net terms are all-or-nothing; split payment structures are Plus-only.

You're running multiple stores for DTC and wholesale. If you maintain a separate wholesale store from the pre-2026 era, consolidating to one store with native B2B eliminates double-work on products, inventory, and fulfillment — and may not even require Plus anymore.

If none of these apply, you're probably fine where you are. Don't upgrade because a blog post told you to. Upgrade when the cost of not upgrading exceeds $2,300/month in either lost time or lost revenue.

The Practical Stack

For a merchant on Shopify Basic, Grow, or Advanced who wants to add a B2B channel, here's the minimum viable stack.

Native B2B for companies, catalogs, and payment terms — included in your plan. A registration app for applications, vetting, and company creation on approval. A minimum order app if you need cart-level minimums. An invoicing app if your buyers need formal invoices.

Total cost: roughly $15-60/month in apps on top of your existing plan. Compared to $2,300/month for Plus, that's a significant difference, especially when you're testing whether B2B is viable for your business at all.

Start lean. Prove the channel works. Upgrade when the numbers say you should.

B2B Onboard works on all Shopify plans. Custom registration forms, VAT validation, file uploads for business documents, and on approval it creates the native B2B company, location, and contact automatically — falling back to customer tagging where native B2B isn't available. Your wholesale registration process, without the manual admin work. Try it free.