Shopify B2B for All Plans: What Changed in April 2026 and What It Means for Your Agency Hire

Last reviewed May 2026. On April 2, 2026, Shopify made native B2B available on every paid plan — Basic, Shopify, and Advanced — not just Shopify Plus. This is the most consequential change to Shopify's plan structure in years. Wholesale, company accounts, customer-specific catalogs, and net payment terms are now things you can run on a $29/month plan, where 24 hours earlier they cost a minimum of roughly $2,300/month.

The short version: most small and mid-sized wholesalers no longer need Plus to sell B2B. But "B2B is available" and "B2B is unrestricted" are not the same statement. The non-Plus version has real limits, and whether they matter to you depends entirely on how complex your wholesale operation is. This guide walks through exactly what changed, what is gated behind Plus, and when an agency earns its fee on a B2B build.

What Actually Changed on April 2, 2026

Before the change, Shopify's native B2B suite — the one built directly into the admin, with company profiles and B2B-specific checkout — was a Plus-exclusive feature. Merchants on Basic, Shopify, or Advanced who wanted to sell wholesale had three options: upgrade to Plus, bolt on a third-party wholesale app, or run a separate password-protected storefront. None were ideal.

As of April 2026, the native B2B feature set is switched on for every paid plan. The capability is the same engine Plus merchants have used for years; what differs now is the ceiling on how much of it you can use. Here is the at-a-glance picture.

The honest summary: the core of B2B — selling to companies, at company-specific prices, with invoice terms — now works on any paid plan. What stays behind the Plus paywall is scale and customization: unlimited price lists, a fully bespoke B2B checkout, and a separate wholesale storefront.

What Native Shopify B2B Includes

If you have only ever sold direct-to-consumer, here is what the B2B feature set actually gives you, so the rest of this guide makes sense.

Company profiles

Instead of an individual customer, you create a company — with multiple buyers (contacts) attached, each able to log in and order on the company's account. A buyer at a 12-person retailer places orders that all roll up to one company record with one set of terms.

Customer-specific catalogs and price lists

You assign each company a catalog: the products they can see and the prices they pay. Retailer A sees wholesale pricing at 50% of RRP; Retailer B, a key account, sees 45%. DTC shoppers never see either. This is the feature most merchants leave Plus-only thinking they still need.

Net payment terms

B2B buyers expect to pay on invoice, not upfront. Shopify B2B lets you offer net 15, 30, 60, or 90 terms, issue invoices, and track what is outstanding — without a bolt-on app.

Quantity rules and volume pricing

Minimum order quantities, case-pack increments (sell only in multiples of 6), and volume break pricing are all native. These are table stakes for wholesale and previously required an app on non-Plus plans.

Do You Still Need Shopify Plus for Wholesale?

This is the question merchants are searching for, so here is a direct framework rather than a hedge. You can run B2B comfortably on a standard plan if most of the following are true:

• You have fewer than a few dozen distinct wholesale price tiers — not hundreds of account-specific deals
• Your B2B buyers are fine with Shopify's standard checkout (it works; it is just not deeply customizable)
• You do not need a separate branded wholesale storefront on its own domain
• Your catalog sync with an ERP or accounting system is modest in volume and not real-time-critical
• You are comfortable that B2B and DTC share the same store theme and structure

You still genuinely need Plus if several of these apply:

• You manage a large, constantly-changing matrix of account-specific pricing (distributors, regional reps, tiered partner programs)
• Your wholesale buyers need a checkout with custom fields — PO numbers, freight account selection, approval workflows, delivery scheduling
• You want a distinct wholesale storefront, separate from your consumer site, with its own branding and navigation
• You are integrating with an ERP that pushes thousands of SKU/price updates and needs the elevated API limits
• You also need the other Plus-only capabilities — expansion stores, Shopify Functions at scale, dedicated launch support

The Real Limitations of Non-Plus B2B

Shopify's announcement framed this as B2B for everyone, and that is broadly true. But agencies setting up B2B on standard plans since April have hit a consistent set of edges. Know them before you build.

1. The B2B checkout is functional, not bespoke

On standard plans your B2B buyers go through essentially the same checkout as consumers, with B2B pricing and terms applied. It works. What you cannot do is add wholesale-specific checkout fields, custom logic, or approval steps — that is checkout extensibility, and it remains Plus-only. For many wholesalers the standard checkout is perfectly adequate; for those whose buyers expect PO-number capture or freight-account selection, it is a hard blocker.

2. Price list and catalog counts are capped

Standard plans allow a limited number of catalogs and price lists rather than the effectively unlimited count on Plus. If you run a handful of pricing tiers you will never notice. If you run dozens of account-specific deals, you will hit the ceiling — and Shopify's documented limits per plan are the number to check before you architect your pricing.

3. No separate wholesale storefront

Plus merchants can spin up an expansion store — a distinct wholesale site on its own domain. On standard plans, B2B lives inside your existing store. Buyers log in and see wholesale pricing on the same theme your consumers use. Most merchants accept this; brands that want a deliberately different wholesale experience cannot get it without Plus.

4. Standard API rate limits

If you sync products, pricing, and inventory with an ERP (NetSuite, Brightpearl, Acumatica) or accounting system, the volume of B2B price-list updates can be large. Standard plans use standard API limits. A heavy, real-time integration can bump against them in ways a Plus integration would not.

5. Shared theme and operational structure

B2B and DTC share one theme, one set of apps, and one operational backend. Clean separation — different shipping logic, different tax handling, different fulfilment flows — takes careful configuration. It is doable, but it is exactly the kind of work where a wrong early decision is expensive to undo later.

Do You Need an Agency to Set Up B2B?

B2B being available on your plan does not make it self-serve. The feature is switched on; the configuration is not trivial. Whether you need an agency comes down to the complexity of your wholesale model, not the plan you are on.

You can likely self-serve if...

• You have one or two wholesale price tiers and a manageable product catalog
• Your terms are simple (one standard net-30 offer, say)
• You do not need an ERP or accounting integration — or you will handle orders manually at first
• You have someone in-house comfortable working through Shopify's B2B setup documentation

You should hire an agency if...

• You are migrating an existing wholesale operation — importing companies, contacts, historical pricing, and outstanding terms without breaking anything
• You need an ERP or accounting integration so pricing and inventory stay in sync automatically
• Your pricing is genuinely complex — many tiers, account-specific deals, regional variation
• You are running B2B and DTC on one store and need them cleanly separated operationally
• You are weighing Plus versus standard and want the decision made by someone who has built both

The pattern agencies report is that the platform change lowered the cost of entry but did not lower the cost of doing it well. A botched B2B setup — wrong catalog architecture, pricing leaking to consumers, terms misconfigured — is more expensive to unwind than it would have been to build correctly the first time.

What a B2B Setup Costs

Rough market ranges for B2B work on Shopify, based on agency pricing in the directory. Treat these as planning figures, not quotes — scope drives everything.

Your B2B Decision: A 7-Step Action Plan

1. 1.Map your wholesale model on paper: how many price tiers, how many accounts, what terms, what minimum-order rules.
2. 2.Count your distinct price lists. A handful means a standard plan is fine; dozens means check Shopify's per-plan catalog limits carefully.
3. 3.Decide whether your buyers need a customized checkout (PO numbers, freight accounts, approvals). If yes, that points to Plus.
4. 4.List every system that must stay in sync — ERP, accounting, 3PL. The more there are, the more this is a development project.
5. 5.Pick your plan: standard if B2B is a growing side of a DTC business; Plus if B2B is the core business or needs custom checkout.
6. 6.Decide build vs. buy: simple configuration can be self-served; migration, integration, or complex pricing should go to an agency.
7. 7.If hiring, brief at least three B2B-experienced agencies and compare scope — not just price — before committing.

Hiring the Right Agency for B2B

B2B is a specialism. An agency that builds beautiful DTC stores is not automatically equipped for wholesale logic, ERP sync, and net-terms workflows. When you evaluate agencies, look specifically for:

• Demonstrable B2B work — ask to see live wholesale stores they have built, not just DTC portfolios
• Integration experience with your specific ERP or accounting system — NetSuite work is not the same as Xero work
• A clear point of view on standard plan versus Plus — a good agency will push back if you are over- or under-buying
• Migration track record if you are moving an existing wholesale operation — data migration is where projects quietly fail
• Experience with checkout extensibility if you are on Plus and need a custom B2B checkout

Because native B2B is new to standard plans, the agencies with the deepest B2B experience are often those who built it during the Plus-only era. That experience transfers directly — the engine is the same — and it is worth seeking out.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

The April 2026 change is genuinely significant: wholesale on Shopify is no longer a Plus-tier privilege. A merchant on a $29 or $79 plan can now sell to companies, at company-specific prices, on invoice terms, using the same engine that powered Plus wholesale for years. For a large share of small and mid-sized wholesalers, that removes the single biggest reason they were eyeing a $2,300/month upgrade.

But the change lowered the cost of entry, not the cost of doing it properly. Plus still wins for high-complexity operations — custom checkout, separate storefronts, heavy integration, large pricing matrices. And on any plan, a B2B build with real pricing logic and system sync is a project worth handing to a specialist. Map your wholesale model first, pick the plan that fits it, then decide build versus buy. Get those three decisions right and the platform will do the rest.