How to Set Up Shopify B2B: A Step-by-Step Guide for 2026

Last reviewed May 2026. Setting up Shopify B2B follows a fixed order: confirm your plan and enable B2B, build catalogs, attach price lists, create company profiles and their buyer contacts, set payment terms, configure quantity rules, set up the B2B login and checkout, test with a real company account, then go live. The order matters — each step depends on the one before it, and skipping ahead is the most common reason wholesale stores launch with broken pricing.

This guide walks through all nine steps in sequence. Native B2B works on every paid Shopify plan as of April 2026, so you can follow this whether you are on Basic, Shopify, Advanced, or Plus. Where a step behaves differently on Plus, it is flagged.

Before You Start: What You Need

Spend 30 minutes on preparation before you touch the admin. A B2B setup built on a clear plan takes a fraction of the time of one improvised step by step.

• Your wholesale pricing model written down: every tier, what discount or fixed price each gets, and which products it applies to
• A list of your wholesale customers — company names, buyer contact names and emails, and which pricing tier each belongs to
• Your payment terms decided: net 15, 30, 60, or 90, and whether all companies get the same terms or different ones
• Your order rules: minimum order quantities, case-pack increments, and any volume break pricing
• A test email address you can use to create a dummy company account and place test orders

Step 1: Confirm Your Plan and Enable B2B

Native B2B is available on all paid plans. First confirm your store is on a paid plan (not a trial or paused plan), then locate the B2B features in your admin. Company profiles live under the Customers area, and catalogs under the Products area of your Shopify admin.

1. 1.In Shopify admin, open Settings and confirm your plan is active and paid.
2. 2.Go to the Customers section — you should see the ability to create Companies alongside individual customers.
3. 3.Go to the Products section and locate Catalogs. This is where wholesale catalogs and price lists are managed.
4. 4.If you are on Plus and plan to use a customized B2B checkout, confirm checkout extensibility is available in your Settings before you design the experience.

If you do not see Companies or Catalogs, your store may still be on a trial or a legacy plan. Resolve that first — nothing else in this guide works without it.

Step 2: Build Your Catalogs

A catalog defines two things: which products a company can see, and — paired with a price list — what they pay. Always build the catalog before the price list, because the price list attaches to it.

Decide your catalog structure

Most merchants need one of two structures. A single shared wholesale catalog works if all your B2B customers can buy the same products. Multiple catalogs are needed if different customer groups see different product ranges — for example, distributors see the full range while regional retailers see a curated selection.

Create the catalog

1. 1.In Products, open Catalogs and create a new catalog.
2. 2.Name it clearly — "Wholesale — Standard" beats "Catalog 1" when you have several.
3. 3.Add the products or collections this catalog should expose to B2B buyers.
4. 4.Leave pricing for the next step — the catalog only defines product visibility at this stage.

Step 3: Set Up Price Lists

A price list applies wholesale pricing to a catalog. This is the step where pricing leaks to consumers if done carelessly, so work methodically.

Choose your pricing method

Create the price list

1. 1.Within the catalog, add a price list.
2. 2.Apply your chosen method — a percentage adjustment for uniform pricing, or fixed prices for specific SKUs.
3. 3.For volume pricing, set the quantity thresholds and the unit price at each break.
4. 4.Review a sample of products and confirm the wholesale price shown is correct before moving on.

If you run several pricing tiers — standard wholesale, key-account, distributor — create a separate catalog-and-price-list pair for each. Resist the temptation to manage tiers with manual discounts; that does not scale and is error-prone.

Step 4: Create Company Profiles and Contacts

A company is the B2B equivalent of a customer. Each company has one or more contacts — the individual buyers who log in and order — and is assigned a catalog, which determines the pricing they see.

Create a company

1. 1.In the Customers section, create a new Company and enter its legal name and address.
2. 2.Add one or more contacts: the buyers' names and email addresses. Each contact can be given ordering permissions.
3. 3.Assign the company a location if it ships or bills to multiple addresses.
4. 4.Assign the catalog this company should use — this links them to the correct wholesale pricing.

Bulk vs. manual creation

Adding a handful of companies by hand is fine. If you are onboarding dozens or migrating an existing wholesale base, you will want to import them — and a bulk import of companies, contacts, and catalog assignments is one of the steps where a small mapping error multiplies fast. This is a natural point to involve an agency if your list is long.

Step 5: Configure Payment Terms

B2B buyers expect to pay on invoice, not card-upfront. Shopify B2B lets you assign payment terms to each company.

1. 1.Decide your default terms — net 30 is the most common starting point.
2. 2.Assign payment terms to each company. New or unproven accounts can be set to payment-due-on-receipt until they establish history.
3. 3.Decide which payment methods B2B buyers may use — card, or invoice/terms, or both.
4. 4.Confirm how invoices will be delivered and tracked so your finance process is ready before the first real order.

Step 6: Set Quantity Rules and Order Minimums

Wholesale orders are not retail orders. Quantity rules enforce how B2B buyers must purchase, and they apply to the catalog.

• Minimum order quantity — the smallest number of units a buyer can order for a product
• Increment / case-pack rules — force ordering in multiples (e.g. only in packs of 6 or 12)
• Maximum order quantity — cap an order where stock or fairness requires it

Set these on the catalog so they apply consistently to every company using it. Test them in Step 8 — quantity rules that look right in settings sometimes behave unexpectedly at checkout.

Step 7: Set Up B2B Login and Checkout

B2B buyers do not browse and buy like consumers. They log in to a company account, see their catalog and pricing, and check out with their terms applied.

The login experience

B2B customers access wholesale pricing by logging in with the contact email attached to their company. Make sure new-customer account access is configured so your buyers can actually create a password and sign in. Many wholesale launches stall here because buyers cannot get into their accounts.

The checkout

On standard plans, B2B buyers use Shopify's standard checkout with their B2B pricing and terms applied automatically — it is functional and adequate for most wholesalers. On Plus, checkout extensibility lets you customize the B2B checkout with wholesale-specific fields such as PO-number capture, freight-account selection, or approval steps. If your buyers need those, that customization is a Plus-only project and typically agency work.

Step 8: Test With a Real Company Account

Never launch B2B without end-to-end testing. Create a dummy company using a test email and walk the full buyer journey.

1. 1.Create a test company with a test contact email you control.
2. 2.Assign it the catalog and price list you want to verify.
3. 3.Log in as that contact and confirm you see the correct products — and only those products.
4. 4.Confirm wholesale pricing is correct on several products, not just one.
5. 5.Add items to cart and check that quantity rules (minimums, increments) are enforced.
6. 6.Complete a checkout and confirm payment terms appear correctly.
7. 7.Critically: log out, browse as a normal consumer, and confirm wholesale pricing is NOT visible to the public.

Step 9: Onboard Companies and Go Live

With testing passed, bring real companies online.

1. 1.Create your real company profiles and contacts (or run your bulk import).
2. 2.Assign each company its correct catalog and payment terms.
3. 3.Send buyers their account-activation instructions so they can set a password and log in.
4. 4.Onboard in waves if your list is large — a first batch confirms everything works before you open the gates fully.
5. 5.Monitor the first orders closely: check pricing, terms, and quantity rules on real transactions for the first week.

5 Mistakes That Quietly Break B2B Stores

These are the issues agencies are called in to fix after a self-served B2B launch. Avoiding them is cheaper than repairing them.

When to Hand This to an Agency

The nine steps above are self-serviceable for a straightforward wholesale operation. Bring in an agency when the project crosses into one of these zones:

• Migration — importing an existing wholesale base of companies, contacts, historical pricing, and open invoices without disruption
• Integration — keeping pricing, inventory, and orders in sync with an ERP or accounting system (NetSuite, Brightpearl, Xero, QuickBooks)
• Complex pricing — many tiers, account-specific deals, regional pricing, or contract pricing that changes frequently
• Custom B2B checkout — PO numbers, freight accounts, approval workflows (Plus and checkout extensibility)
• Operational separation — running B2B and DTC on one store with genuinely different shipping, tax, and fulfilment logic

As a planning figure, a basic B2B configuration runs roughly $1,500–$5,000 with an agency; add an ERP integration and it climbs to $6,000–$20,000; a full wholesale migration is $8,000–$30,000 or more. Integration complexity, not store size, is the cost driver.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

Shopify B2B is genuinely self-serviceable for a straightforward wholesale operation — follow the nine steps in order, plan your pricing before you touch the admin, and test logged-out before you launch. The structure is logical once you understand that catalogs control visibility and price lists control pricing, and that everything attaches in sequence.

Where it stops being self-serve is integration and migration. The moment an ERP has to stay in sync, or an existing wholesale base has to be moved without disruption, or a custom checkout is required, the project becomes development work — and getting the architecture right the first time is far cheaper than unwinding a flawed build later. Plan honestly, build in order, and bring in a specialist for the parts that genuinely warrant one.