How to Build a Wholesale eCommerce Store in 2026

Every guide written before April 2026 tells you that Shopify’s B2B features require Plus at $2,300 a month.

That is no longer true. As of April 2, 2026, Shopify made company profiles, custom pricing catalogs, net payment terms, and a dedicated B2B storefront available on every paid plan, Basic, Grow, and Advanced included, at no extra cost.

That single change reshapes the real decision here.

This guide maps what each major platform actually gives you natively for wholesale, what still requires an app or a plan upgrade, and what it really costs once you account for the gap between the advertised price and what a working B2B setup actually needs.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify’s B2B features are no longer locked behind Plus. Basic, Grow, and Advanced all include company profiles, tiered pricing, and net payment terms as of April 2026, with a ceiling of 3 pricing catalogs that most growing wholesale operations hit fast.
• WooCommerce has no native wholesale pricing, a dedicated plugin like Wholesale Suite fills the gap for a real, low one-time or annual cost, far below what platform-native B2B tools charge on other platforms.
• BigCommerce keeps its B2B tools inside custom Enterprise pricing, commonly higher than Shopify’s standard plans for comparable wholesale functionality, worth knowing before you assume BigCommerce is the budget option.
• Adobe Commerce has the deepest native B2B feature set of the major platforms, purchase order workflows, shared catalogs, and negotiated pricing all built in, at real enterprise-tier cost and complexity.
• Native features rarely cover everything a real wholesale operation needs. Advanced workflows like cart-specific discounts, registration forms, and per-tier shipping still require Plus-tier plans or third-party apps even where basic B2B exists natively.

What Wholesale Actually Requires That Retail Does Not

• Company accounts, not individual customer accounts, a single business buyer often has multiple authorized purchasers who need shared access to the same pricing and order history
• Custom pricing per buyer or buyer tier, a distributor, a reseller, and a key account commonly pay different prices for the same product
• Bulk ordering and quantity rules, minimum order quantities and order increments that a retail checkout has no reason to support
• Net payment terms, Net 30, Net 60, and similar deferred payment options rather than payment due at checkout
• Tax exemption handling, most wholesale buyers do not pay sales tax on purchases intended for resale, and this needs to apply automatically once verified

Shopify’s B2B Features, What Changed and What Did Not

What Moved to Every Plan in April 2026

Company profiles, custom pricing catalogs, volume pricing and quantity rules, and net payment terms, Net 7 through Net 90, due-on-fulfillment, and fixed-date options, are all now included on Basic, Grow, and Advanced, not just Plus.

Vaulted credit cards and a dedicated B2B Trade theme are included too. Major ERP integrations, NetSuite, Acumatica, Microsoft Business Central, and Fulfil, are available across all plans as well.

What Still Requires Shopify Plus

• Unlimited pricing catalogs, non-Plus plans cap out at 3 catalogs total, applied across all markets combined, not per market, this is the first real ceiling most growing wholesale operations hit
• Direct catalog assignment to specific companies, and partial payments or deposits
• Expansion stores and contextual checkout customization
• Advanced workflows: cart-specific discounts, custom registration forms, per-tier shipping rules, content locking, and point-of-sale pricing are not part of the native stack on any plan below Plus

A Real Gotcha Worth Knowing

Some merchants report that certain native features, including discount codes and abandoned checkout emails, are off by default on non-Plus plans and require contacting Shopify Support to activate.

Depending on your store configuration, confirm this directly with Shopify before assuming it applies to your setup.

In a blended store selling to both retail and wholesale customers from the same storefront, turning these on affects everyone, not just your wholesale buyers, plan for this before flipping the switch.

The Real Cost Beyond the Plan Price

Non-Shopify-Payments gateways carry a 0.5 to 2 percent platform fee on top of your processor’s standard rate, a combined cost that can exceed 5 percent on a single order using a third-party gateway.

Meaningful customization beyond native basics, unique workflows, custom checkout logic, commonly requires developer work or a premium theme in the $180 to $350 range. Budget for this rather than assuming the advertised plan price is your full cost.

WooCommerce for Wholesale

WooCommerce has no native wholesale pricing built into its core, this is app-dependent territory, but the cost gap compared to Shopify’s tiered structure is worth understanding directly.

A dedicated plugin, Wholesale Suite is the most established option, adds company-tiered pricing, bulk order forms, and wholesale-specific registration for an annual cost that runs a small fraction of what platform-native B2B tools charge elsewhere.

Your actual total cost still includes hosting and any additional plugins for tax exemption or net terms specifically, WooCommerce’s flexibility comes with more assembly required, not a single bundled solution.

This also means more ongoing maintenance on your side, plugin updates, compatibility checks when WordPress core or WooCommerce itself updates, and role management across wholesale user types are all real, recurring work that a single platform-native B2B system on Shopify or Adobe Commerce handles for you.

BigCommerce for Wholesale

BigCommerce’s B2B tools live inside its Enterprise tier, custom-priced rather than published at a fixed rate.

Enterprise pricing is commonly higher than Shopify’s standard plans for comparable wholesale functionality, a meaningful cost gap worth confirming directly with BigCommerce sales before assuming it fits a smaller wholesale operation’s budget.

Adobe Commerce for Wholesale

Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento, has the most comprehensive native B2B feature set among the major platforms, company accounts, tiered pricing, purchase order workflows, and shared catalogs are all built in rather than bolted on through an app.

Think manufacturers with thousands of SKUs, negotiated contracts, and dedicated purchasing teams, not a distributor with a few dozen wholesale accounts.

This depth comes with genuine enterprise-level cost and technical complexity, the right fit for large, complex wholesale operations with the budget and technical resources to match, not a typical starting point for a smaller B2B operation.

Complexity at a Glance

Platform	Best For	Complexity
Shopify	Small to mid-size wholesale operations	Low
WooCommerce	Budget-conscious teams with WordPress comfort	Medium
BigCommerce	Larger B2B organizations already on the platform	Medium to High
Adobe Commerce	Enterprise manufacturers and distributors	High

Choosing Based on Your Actual Wholesale Scenario

• A small number of wholesale accounts with simple, consistent pricing: Shopify’s now-included native B2B features on Basic or Grow cover this well without an upgrade to Plus
• Multiple buyer tiers, regions, or a growing catalog needing more than 3 pricing catalogs: this is where Shopify’s non-Plus ceiling becomes the deciding factor, evaluate Plus or a WooCommerce plus Wholesale Suite setup against your actual growth trajectory
• Budget-conscious wholesale with technical comfort managing WordPress: WooCommerce with Wholesale Suite delivers actual wholesale functionality at a fraction of platform-native B2B pricing elsewhere
• Large, complex catalogs with purchase order workflows and shared catalog needs: Adobe Commerce’s native depth fits this scenario specifically, budget for its genuine enterprise-tier cost and implementation complexity
• Already committed to BigCommerce for other reasons: confirm current Enterprise B2B pricing directly before assuming it is the budget-friendly option, it commonly is not

Step-by-Step: Setting Up Wholesale on Shopify

1. Confirm your current Shopify plan, B2B features are included on Basic, Grow, and Advanced as of April 2026, no upgrade needed for basic wholesale functionality
2. Go to your Shopify admin and set up company profiles for your wholesale buyers, including multiple authorized purchasers per company where needed
3. Build your pricing catalog, assigning B2B-specific prices to the products your wholesale buyers should see, remembering the 3-catalog limit on non-Plus plans
4. Configure quantity rules and volume pricing, minimum order quantities and order increments that match your actual wholesale terms
5. Set up net payment terms for the buyers who need deferred payment rather than payment at checkout
6. Enable tax exemption per company where applicable, confirming it applies automatically across all authorized buyers for that company
7. Decide between a blended store, one storefront for both retail and wholesale, or a dedicated B2B store, Shopify itself notes this choice is hard to reverse once made, weigh it carefully before launching

Step-by-Step: Setting Up Wholesale on WooCommerce

1. Install a dedicated wholesale plugin, Wholesale Suite is the most established option for this specifically
2. Set up wholesale user roles and registration, so buyers can apply for wholesale access separately from retail customers
3. Configure your tiered or company-specific pricing structure through the plugin
4. Add any additional plugins needed for tax exemption or net payment terms specifically, these are not universally bundled into a single wholesale plugin
5. Test the full buyer experience, registration through checkout, before inviting real wholesale customers

FAQ for Building a Wholesale eCommerce Store