Shopify has expanded native B2B features to all plans, including Basic at $39/month. Company accounts, pricing catalogs, net terms, PO numbers, easy reorders. Some of what was previously locked behind a Shopify Plus subscription is now accessible.
We've spent five years building SparkLayer on the premise that B2B ecommerce was underserved. That merchants doing serious wholesale were cobbling together spreadsheets, email inboxes, and manual processes because the platforms weren't meeting them. Shopify's announcement is the clearest signal yet that the industry agrees.
So here's a breakdown of what this means.
In this article
What Shopify Is Now Offering on All Plans
What Shopify Native B2B Doesn't Cover
What Shopify Is Now Offering on All Plans
The features rolling out across all Shopify plans:
- Company accounts and locations with role-based permissions
- B2B pricing catalogs (up to 3 via markets, no company-specific price lists)
- Quantity rules — minimum/maximum quantities and price breaks
- Net terms, payment reminders, and ACH payments (US)
- Draft order to invoice workflows
- Easy reorders, PO numbers, and quick order lists
- The Trade theme — a storefront built for B2B purchasing
- Shopify Flow with B2B objects for automation
For a merchant currently processing B2B orders by email and managing customer pricing in a spreadsheet, this removes a real barrier. It's worth taking seriously.
For merchants already running SparkLayer, here's what to know.
What Shopify Native B2B Doesn't Cover
The features that define a sophisticated wholesale operation aren't in this announcement.
Shopify's admin lets reps create draft orders with limited permissions. SparkLayer's Sales Rep Portal is a full storefront interface — reps log in like customers, toggle between accounts, access customer-specific pricing, upload files, and complete carts on behalf of buyers. One is a workaround. The other is how reps actually work.
A buyer emails a purchase order. Or uploads a spreadsheet. SparkLayer reads the file and builds the cart automatically. It sounds like a small thing until you're processing 50 reorders a week and your ops team isn't doing it manually anymore. Shopify has nothing like this.
No native quoting in Shopify. Merchants managing quote requests, pricing negotiation, approval tracking, and quote-to-order conversion need a third-party app or custom development. SparkLayer has a built-in quoting engine that handles the full workflow in one place.
Order-level discounts, customer-specific promotions, scheduled pricing, free product rules. Shopify's native B2B discounting is limited to draft orders. Anything more complex needs SparkLayer or custom dev.
Custom trade account registration with configurable approval steps, custom fields, and automated notifications. Not replicated by Shopify's company account setup.
SparkLayer automatically generates professional invoices that buyers can view and download directly from their account. Customisable content zones, payment terms, and full theming support — no third-party invoicing app required.
Buyers ordering at volume don't want to click through a product catalogue. They upload a file with SKUs and quantities. SparkLayer handles this natively.
Saved, reusable order lists for repeat buyers. Fewer support requests, faster reorders, higher order frequency. Not in Shopify native.
Feature Comparison
This comparison reflects the B2B features available on Shopify's Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans. Some additional features are available on Shopify Plus (starting at $2,300/month).
Shared features
Where the free tier hits its limits
SparkLayer only
Understanding "B2B on all plans"
Beyond the summary above, it's worth looking at what "B2B on all plans" means in practice.
Standard plans get three active pricing catalogs, assigned at the market level. For merchants with a small number of wholesale accounts on similar terms, that covers the basics. Merchants with more complex pricing — different rates by customer, by region, by relationship — will find that ceiling quickly. Unlimited catalogs and direct assignment to company locations remain on Shopify Plus.
Catalog assignment on standard plans goes through Shopify Markets rather than being set per customer. Partial payments and deposits aren't available — it's either pay now or net terms. ACH is US-only.
Plus starts at $2,300/month. For merchants weighing up their options, the gap between what's free and what's behind that paywall matters.
Transaction Fees
Depending on how Shopify structures fees on B2B orders at standard plan tiers, the transaction cost on meaningful GMV could be real. This is worth calculating against your order volume before making any decisions.
SparkLayer merchants collect payments via ERP, accounting systems, or offline methods without SparkLayer adding a transaction fee.
What We're Shipping Soon
There are three major SparkLayer updates we're releasing, for those merchants looking to seriously grow their B2B:
Configurable B2B forms built into the ordering experience. Custom fields, conditional logic, integrated into the buyer journey rather than added afterwards.
Deeper integration between B2B orders and accounting workflows. The manual reconciliation between order systems and finance tools gets substantially reduced.
A significant upgrade to customer-specific catalog management. More control and flexibility for merchants handling complex customer segmentation.
More detail on all three coming very soon.
What we think
This is good for the market.
Shopify expanding B2B accessibility means more merchants will try wholesale ecommerce. Some will get everything they need from the native tools and that's fine. Others will grow into something more sophisticated: sales reps, purchase orders, pricing exceptions, approval chains. That's where the basics stop being enough.
That's where SparkLayer starts.
Merchants start somewhere. The ones who take B2B seriously tend to outgrow their starting point.
We've been building for where they end up.