Shopify B2B Company Accounts Explained: Companies, Locations, and Buyers on Any Plan
For years, "Shopify B2B" meant one of two things: Shopify Plus with native company accounts, or everyone else improvising with customer tags. That split defined a whole generation of wholesale advice — most of which starts with "first, decide if you can justify Plus."
That framing is out of date. Shopify's 2026 expansion brought core B2B capabilities — company accounts among them — to every paid plan, with net payment terms following for standard plans as well. The interesting question is no longer whether you get company accounts; it's whether you understand the three-layer model well enough to set them up right.
TL;DR: Shopify B2B structures wholesale relationships as companies (the business you sell to) containing company locations (where pricing, payment terms, and tax settings actually live) with company contacts (the humans who log in and order, with per-location permissions). Most B2B configuration attaches to the location, not the company or the customer — get that wrong and terms, catalogs, and exemptions land in the wrong place. Since the 2026 expansion this model is available on every paid plan; what stays thin everywhere is the front door (registration and vetting) and the credit layer (limits, aging, enforcement).
The Three Layers, and What Attaches Where
The company is the business entity — "Nordic Trade ApS" — the top-level record that groups everything below it.
Company locations are the workhorses. A company has one or more locations (head office, a second warehouse, a regional billing entity), and the location is where Shopify hangs almost everything operational: catalog and price-list assignment, payment terms, the VAT/tax ID, and tax exemption settings. One company, two locations, two different arrangements — a genuinely common pattern for buyers with separate procurement per region.
Company contacts are people: customer records granted membership in a company, with permissions per location. A purchasing manager might order for two locations; an accounts-payable contact might only view orders. Contacts are how "multiple buyers per account" works without shared logins.
| You want to set… | It lives on… |
|---|---|
| Wholesale price list / catalog | Company location |
| Net 30 / payment terms | Company location |
| VAT number, tax exemptions | Company location |
| Who can log in and order | Company contact (per-location permissions) |
| The B2B relationship itself | Company |
The single most common misconfiguration in the wild is putting B2B state on the customer record — tags, exemptions, notes — when the native model wants it on the location. Tags still have uses, but every tag-based workaround you keep is a parallel system you now maintain alongside the real one.
What Changed With the All-Plans Expansion
The practical headline: the company/location/contact structure, B2B catalogs, and net payment terms are no longer Plus-gated — standard plans get the standard flow, while a few refinements (deposits on terms orders, for instance) remain Plus-only. If you built your wholesale operation on tags because Plus wasn't justifiable, the calculus that forced that choice is gone, and the migration path is mostly data work: turning your tagged customers into companies with locations and contacts. Our older breakdown of the tag-based era — B2B on Shopify Without Plus — is now the "before" picture; the comparison of native B2B vs third-party apps covers when native alone is enough.
What the Model Still Doesn't Do
Three gaps, consistently, on every plan:
The front door. Shopify's company-request form (via Shopify Forms) creates a company from a submission, but the vetting is you, unaided: no registry verification of the tax ID, no cross-check that the business exists, no document review. Approval is a button, and everything that should inform the button press is manual — the gap registration and verification tooling exists to fill.
The credit layer. Terms can be assigned; exposure isn't managed. No credit limits enforced at checkout, no AR aging, no automatic hold on overdue accounts — the reasons who gets Net 30 deserves an actual process.
Buyer self-service depth. Contacts get ordering and history; changing their own company details, managing locations, or updating documents still routes through you.
None of these are reasons to avoid the native model — it's the right substrate, and it's where Shopify keeps investing. They're the map of where the substrate ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need Shopify Plus for B2B company accounts? No — the 2026 expansion brought company accounts, B2B catalogs, and net payment terms to every paid plan. A handful of refinements remain Plus-only, but the core model is universal.
Where do payment terms and tax settings go — company or customer? Company location. Pricing, terms, tax IDs, and exemptions all attach at the location level; the company groups locations, and contacts are the people with login access.
Can one buyer belong to multiple companies or locations? A contact can hold permissions across multiple locations of a company, with different roles per location — which is how shared purchasing across regional offices works without shared credentials.
Does Shopify verify companies created through account requests? No. The request form creates the records; confirming the business is real — registry checks, tax-ID validation, document review — is left entirely to the merchant.
B2B Onboard is the front door for this model: wholesale registration with live tax-ID verification, review and approval, and creation of the Shopify company, location, and contact — on any plan — with the right settings in the right layer from day one. See how it works.
Peer Jakobsen is the founder of Mentilead. He builds Shopify B2B apps from Denmark with a focus on clean architecture and EU compliance.