Shopify B2B in 2026: You No Longer Need Shopify Plus
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For years, one of the most common questions I heard from merchants was some version of: "We want to start selling wholesale — do we need to upgrade to Plus?"
Until recently, the honest answer was yes, if you wanted to do it properly. Native B2B on Shopify — company profiles, custom pricing catalogs, payment terms, the whole infrastructure — lived exclusively behind the Shopify Plus paywall. That meant committing to at least $2,300/month before you'd even taken your first wholesale order.
That changed on April 2, 2026.
Shopify quietly made one of the most significant platform decisions it has in years: native B2B features are now available on Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, at no additional cost. No apps required. No Plus upgrade required.
If you've been holding off on launching a wholesale channel because of the Plus price tag, the equation looks very different now.
What's Actually Included on Non-Plus Plans
Here's what merchants on Basic, Grow, and Advanced now get out of the box:
Company Profiles — You can manage wholesale buyers as companies rather than individual customers. One company can have multiple locations, each with its own contacts, addresses, payment terms, and pricing rules. This is the structural backbone of B2B, and it's now available to everyone.
Custom Catalogs (up to 3) — You can create product catalogs with wholesale-specific pricing and assign them to your B2B buyers via Shopify Markets. Up to 3 active catalogs are included across all non-Plus plans. For most merchants starting out with B2B, 3 catalogs is plenty.
Volume Pricing and Quantity Rules — Set tiered pricing so that buyers automatically get better rates when they order more. You can also set minimum order quantities and multiples (e.g. only sell in packs of 6).
Payment Terms — Offer net payment terms natively — Net 15, Net 30, Net 60 — without any third-party app. For many wholesale buyers, this alone is the deciding factor on whether they'll work with you.
Vaulted Credit Cards — B2B customers can save a card on file for faster reordering.
Self-Serve Ordering — Wholesale buyers get a dedicated login and can reorder through your store without going through your team every time. Fewer emails, fewer manual order entries.
All of this is built into the Shopify admin. One platform, one inventory, one order management system for both your DTC and wholesale operations.
What's Still Exclusive to Shopify Plus
The full feature set isn't available on every plan — there are still meaningful reasons to be on Plus if your wholesale operation is large or complex.
Unlimited Catalogs — Non-Plus plans are capped at 3 active catalogs assigned via Markets. If you have many customer segments with genuinely different pricing — say, different rates for distributors, retailers, and strategic accounts — 3 catalogs can get constraining quickly. Plus removes that ceiling entirely and lets you assign catalogs directly to specific companies and locations rather than through Markets.
Partial Payments and Deposits — If you want to collect a deposit upfront and the balance on delivery or completion, that's a Plus-only feature for now.
ACH Payments — Direct bank transfers are currently US-only, and only available on Plus.
The honest take: if you're running a simple or growing wholesale operation — one price list for all trade accounts, or two or three different tiers — the non-Plus feature set covers you completely. The Plus capabilities become relevant when you're managing dozens of wholesale accounts with individually negotiated pricing.
The B2B App Question: Do You Still Need One?
This is the question I get most when clients are evaluating their options, and the answer hasn't changed as much as you might think.
Shopify's native B2B is excellent for merchants who want a clean, integrated setup with reasonable complexity. If you have a handful of wholesale accounts, a few pricing tiers, and standard payment terms, native B2B is probably all you need.
But apps like SparkLayer and Wholesale Gorilla still have genuine use cases:
SparkLayer is built for merchants who need a full B2B portal experience — separate login, sales agent functionality, quoting workflows, and team-based ordering. It's more of a B2B commerce platform than a pricing overlay. If you have a sales team placing orders on behalf of customers, or buyers who need to manage complex orders across departments, SparkLayer earns its cost ($49–$299/month depending on plan). It runs on non-Plus stores — always has — and has a strong track record.
Wholesale Gorilla targets smaller merchants who want something lightweight and straightforward. It's simpler than SparkLayer and costs less, but it's also showing its age — it was built on Shopify Scripts, which are being deprecated in mid-2026, so longevity is a legitimate concern.
The realistic framework for choosing:
- Native Shopify B2B: Simple to moderate wholesale setup. Up to 3 customer segments. Standard payment terms. You want everything in one place without adding an app.
- SparkLayer: You need a full B2B portal, a sales agent workflow, quoting, or more than 3 pricing tiers without going to Plus.
- Wholesale Gorilla: Hard to recommend on new projects right now given the Shopify Scripts deprecation timeline.
One thing worth noting: even if you use an app like SparkLayer, the underlying Shopify B2B infrastructure (company profiles, customer accounts) works alongside it rather than against it. They're not mutually exclusive.
A Note on What This Means If You're Already on Plus
If you're currently on Shopify Plus and your primary reason for being there was B2B, it's worth doing an honest audit.
Plus still offers legitimate advantages beyond B2B: more staff accounts, Shopify Functions for custom checkout logic, deeper automation capabilities, and the ability to build checkout extensions. For high-volume merchants, the Plus transaction fee savings often justify the cost on their own.
But if you're a smaller brand that upgraded to Plus primarily to access wholesale features, and your B2B setup is relatively simple — you might now be paying $2,300/month for something that costs $105/month on Advanced. That's a conversation worth having.
I've seen this pattern with clients who came to us for B2B consulting work. The instinct to reach for Plus was understandable when it was the only option. Now that native B2B is available lower down the stack, it's worth re-evaluating what plan actually fits the business.
How ShopiCraft Can Help
At ShopiCraft, we've spent time doing deep research on Shopify's B2B ecosystem — native capabilities versus third-party apps, what complexity justifies which approach, and how to structure B2B correctly from the start so it doesn't become a mess to unpick later.
If you're trying to figure out whether native Shopify B2B covers your use case, whether an app makes sense, or whether Plus is actually justified for your business, that's exactly the kind of research and consulting work we do.
We offer a free introductory call where we can talk through your specific situation — no hard sell, just a straight conversation about what the right setup looks like for you.
The Bottom Line
Shopify's April 2026 decision to open native B2B to all plans is genuinely significant. The entry cost for a proper wholesale setup has dropped from $2,300/month to as little as $39/month on Basic. For merchants who've been waiting to launch a wholesale channel, there's no longer a structural reason to hold back.
The practical questions now are about fit, not access:
- Is your wholesale setup simple enough for native B2B, or do you need an app?
- If you're on Plus, is B2B still your primary reason — and is it still the right plan?
- Are you set up to actually manage wholesale properly once buyers start ordering?
The door is open. Whether you walk through it with native tools, an app, or a hybrid approach depends on what your business actually needs.
Daniel Perera is the co-founder of ShopiCraft, a Shopify Select Partner based in Dublin, Ireland. He spent nearly six years at Shopify as a Product Launch Specialist and previously worked at Google. ShopiCraft specialises in Shopify consulting, store builds, theme migrations, custom development, and platform research for merchants across Ireland, Europe, and beyond.
