Do You Need Shopify Plus to Sell B2B?

Short answer: not anymore. Shopify's native B2B features have moved beyond Plus, so most merchants can sell wholesale without an enterprise upgrade. But there's one piece native B2B still doesn't give you — and it's the one that costs you the most time.

What you get with native B2B (without Plus)

Native B2B on Shopify lets you sell wholesale using the same store as your retail business, with B2B-specific features:

• Company accounts — buyers belong to a business, with one or more contacts who log in.
• Catalogs — product and price lists specific to B2B customers.
• Wholesale pricing — per-company or per-catalog prices applied at checkout.
• Payment terms and B2B-appropriate checkout behavior.

For a long time these were Plus-only, which pushed smaller merchants toward third-party wholesale apps or clunky workarounds. That's no longer the case — the core B2B toolkit is available to far more stores.

The one thing native B2B still doesn't do

Native B2B is great at running wholesale once customers exist. It does nothing to help you get them in the door. There is:

• No storefront-facing application form for prospective buyers.
• No review queue to manage who applied.
• No one-click approval — you create each company, location, contact, and catalog assignment by hand.

So the question for most merchants isn't "do I need Plus?" — it's "how do I onboard wholesale buyers without it becoming a manual job?"

Closing the onboarding gap

This is exactly the gap Tradelane fills. It adds the front door to native B2B: buyers apply through a form on your storefront, you review applications in one queue, and a single click creates the company, location, contact, and catalog assignment automatically.

You keep Shopify's native B2B for everything it's good at, and add the self-serve onboarding it's missing — without an enterprise plan. (See also: how to add a wholesale application form and how to approve B2B customers in one click.)

Frequently asked questions

Is native Shopify B2B free?

B2B features are included with standard plans now, rather than being locked to Plus. Your normal Shopify subscription applies; you don't need a separate enterprise contract to use company accounts and catalogs.

When is Shopify Plus still worth it for B2B?

Plus still makes sense at higher volume or for advanced needs — more customization, higher API limits, dedicated support, and certain B2B controls. For most small-to-mid wholesale operations, standard plans plus an onboarding app cover the essentials.

Do I still need a wholesale app if B2B is built in?

For onboarding, yes — native B2B doesn't include an application form or one-click approval. For pricing mechanics, native catalogs cover a lot. See native B2B vs. wholesale apps.