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"You need Shopify Plus to sell wholesale." That was true for years. It stopped being true on April 2, 2026.
Shopify's changelog post that day announced that merchants on Basic, Grow, and Advanced can sell wholesale using native B2B features — company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing, PO numbers — at no additional cost. If you're paying for an app purely to show a different price to trade customers, the premise you bought it on has changed.
But "everything opened up" isn't what happened. The changelog names four Plus-only items. Read the Help Center feature table and there are eight plan-gated rows — and two of them draw the line at Advanced, not Plus. That second line doesn't appear in the announcement at all.
Below: the actual boundary from Shopify's own documentation, the catalog cap that behaves differently than it reads, and three wholesale apps that meter on three different units. Research date: September 1, 2026.
The short version
If you just need trade pricing, turn the app off first. Per-company price lists, quantity price breaks, minimum order quantities, and Net 30 terms are native on Basic at no extra cost.
If you have four or more accounts that each need their own pricing, that's where it stops. Basic, Grow, and Advanced cap you at 3 B2B catalogs, and you can't assign a catalog directly to a company. Genuine customer-level pricing means Plus or an app.
If you want B2B buyers to see a different storefront, you need Advanced or higher. Contextual checkout and contextual storefront via Shopify Markets are unavailable on Basic and Grow. This condition is not in the changelog.
If cost is the constraint, BSS B2B Wholesale Solution is the only one of the three with a permanent free plan that includes unlimited B2B catalogs.
Whether you clear five B2B orders a month is the deciding number for SparkLayer B2B & Wholesale. It's the only one of the three metered on monthly B2B order count, and the free tier stops at five.
What Shopify now gives you for free
The April 2, 2026 changelog post, "Key B2B features now available on non-Plus plans," states that Basic, Grow, and Advanced merchants can start selling wholesale from the admin, and names the included set: up to 3 active B2B catalogs (assigned via Markets), company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing, ACH payments (U.S. only), and vaulted credit cards.
The Help Center's "Shopify B2B features by plan" table is broader than that. Available on Basic:
- Companies, company locations, and location-level permissions (location admin and ordering only)
- Quantity rules (minimum, maximum, increment) and quantity price breaks
- Net terms, payment reminders, vaulted credit cards
- Draft order to invoice, checkout to draft, easy reorders, PO numbers
- Sales staff permissions
- The Trade theme and the quick order list
- Shopify Flow using B2B objects
The core wholesale motion — register the account as a company, show trade prices, take the order on terms, record the PO number — runs entirely on Basic.
The precondition that's easy to miss
Directly above that table, the Help Center adds a requirement:
To use B2B catalog features on the Basic, Grow, or Advanced plans, your store must be using new Shopify Markets.
If your store is still on the older Markets configuration, that's the first thing to check before testing any of this.
Eight gaps, and a second line at Advanced
The changelog lists four Plus-only items: unlimited catalogs for customer-specific pricing, direct catalog assignment to companies and locations, partial payments, and deposits. The Help Center table has eight plan-gated rows.
| Feature | Basic | Grow | Advanced | Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of B2B catalogs | 3 | 3 | 3 | Unlimited |
| Direct company catalogs | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Deposit requirements (companies) | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Deposit requirements (draft orders) | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Partial payments | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Payment requests per fulfillment | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Contextual checkout (via Markets) | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Contextual storefront (via Markets) | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
Three things follow from this table.
Basic and Grow are identical for B2B. Every row that's available on Basic is available on Grow, and every row that isn't, isn't. Upgrading from Basic to Grow to unlock wholesale capability buys you nothing — the table shows no difference.
The first meaningful B2B upgrade is Advanced, not Plus. Contextual checkout and contextual storefront are what let a logged-in trade buyer see a different experience from a retail shopper on the same store. Both require Advanced. If you run D2C and wholesale on one storefront and want them to look different, Basic and Grow can't do it — and the changelog doesn't say so.
Four of the remaining six gaps are about money moving. Deposits, partial payments, and per-fulfillment payment requests. If you take a deposit up front and invoice per shipment — common in made-to-order and large-account wholesale — that's the workflow that forces the Plus-or-app decision.
The catalog cap is consumed by assignment, not creation
The Help Center qualifies the cap:
On the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, you can assign up to 3 active catalogs across all your B2B markets. Assigning 3 catalogs to one B2B market uses the full limit.
It's a cap on active assignments across all your B2B markets, not on catalogs you can create. Put three on one market and you're done; to add one elsewhere you have to remove or draft an existing assignment.
If you're splitting domestic and export wholesale into separate B2B markets, the number of distinct pricing patterns you can actually run is smaller than "three" suggests.
When you still need an app
With native coverage this wide, the reasons to add an app narrow to a short list.
Per-account pricing beyond three patterns. Direct catalog assignment to companies and locations is Plus-only.
Deposits or split invoicing. Plus-only.
Different merchandising for trade buyers on Basic or Grow. Contextual storefront starts at Advanced, so on lower plans you replicate it with an app.
Application and approval workflow. A buyer applies, you review, approval tags the customer and unlocks trade pricing — that end-to-end flow isn't a native admin feature.
Wholesale-only shipping rates and tax handling. B2B-specific shipping rules, tax-inclusive/exclusive toggles, and tax exemption are app-side features.
Searching the Shopify App Store for "B2B wholesale" returns 1,084 apps as of September 1, 2026. Below are three that meter on different units.
Three wholesale apps, compared
All figures as listed on the Shopify App Store on September 1, 2026.
| SparkLayer B2B & Wholesale | BSS B2B Wholesale Solution | B2B Wholesale Hub | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | SparkLayer | BSS B2B Suite | Orbit |
| Rating (reviews) | 4.9 (361) | 4.9 (1,109) | 4.7 (663) |
| Built for Shopify | No | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing unit | Monthly B2B orders | Feature tier | Feature tier |
| Free plan | Yes (5 orders/mo) | Yes | No |
| Paid entry | $49/mo | $29/mo | $39/mo |
| Top tier | $299/mo | $99/mo | $99/mo |
| Languages | English only | 20 languages | English only |
| Listed on App Store since | April 28, 2021 | September 18, 2020 | January 6, 2015 |
Three things the table shows.
Monthly price isn't comparable across these three. SparkLayer alone meters on B2B order volume: free to 5, $49 to 50, $149 to 100, $299 to 150. The other two charge by feature tier regardless of volume. At 20 B2B orders a month, SparkLayer's $49 tier covers you. At 120, you're on the $299 tier — more than three times BSS's $99 ceiling.
The crossover is decided by features, not volume. SparkLayer's $149-and-up tiers include PDF invoice downloads, a sales rep portal, a quoting engine, Xero and QuickBooks Online integration, and API access — none of which appear in the feature lists of the other two, even at their top tiers. If reps take orders by phone, issue quotes, and push to accounting, SparkLayer's upper tiers are the candidate even at low order counts.
One of the three ships localized UI. BSS B2B Wholesale Solution lists 20 languages including German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. SparkLayer and B2B Wholesale Hub are English only. All three list no direct support in languages other than English.
SparkLayer B2B & Wholesale
Best fit: wholesale with a human sales rep in the loop — quoting, price negotiation, rep-placed orders. Things a self-serve form doesn't cover.
Key features: sales rep portal, native quote management and conversion to order, registration forms with approval workflow, per-customer price lists and quantity rules. Even the free tier includes 3 price lists, net payment terms, and a free onboarding call.
Watch out for: the volume meter makes cost scale sharply. Listed caps are 5 monthly orders on free, 50 on the $49 Starter, 100 on the $149 Growth, 150 on the $299 Pro. Quoting and API access are both Pro-tier. No localized UI.
Pricing: as of September 1, 2026 — free / $49 / $149 / $299, with a 14-day trial on paid tiers.
Right for: stores under roughly 100 B2B orders a month that need a rep portal or quoting, and are comfortable operating in English.
BSS B2B Wholesale Solution
Best fit: getting pricing and application workflow done at the lowest fixed cost, with localized admin UI.
Key features: customer-group pricing, quantity discounts and tier rules, B2B catalogs, registration forms with approval flow and automatic tagging, MOQ and order caps, tax-inclusive/exclusive display and tax exemption, wholesale-specific shipping rates.
Strength: the free plan lists unlimited B2B catalogs. For a store that has hit Shopify's native 3-catalog cap, that's the direct substitute. Carries the Built for Shopify badge.
Watch out for: the free plan allows only 1 registration form and 1 quantity discount / tier rule. Per-customer individual pricing is on the $49 Advanced tier; per-customer price lists and ERP/API sync are on the $99 Platinum tier. The developer is based in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Pricing: as of September 1, 2026 — free / $29 / $49 / $99, 10% off annual, 14-day trial on paid tiers.
Right for: stores with many pricing patterns that want to stay under $100/month.
B2B Wholesale Hub
Best fit: running retail and wholesale side by side off customer tags.
Key features: wholesale or custom pricing for tagged customer groups, minimum order requirements by cart value, collection, product, or variant, hiding or locking wholesale products from retail shoppers, tiered volume discounts with a quick order form, registration forms that auto-tag on approval.
Strength: listed since January 2015 — the longest-running of the three. Reviews include stores that have used it for close to a decade.
Watch out for: the only one of the three with no permanent free plan. Entry is $39/mo, and Net 30 / Net 15 terms, per-variant custom pricing, volume discounts, and minimum order requirements all start at the $69 Professional tier. Product visibility/locking and the registration form editor are on the $99 Premium tier. Rated 4.7, with 33 one-star reviews out of 663 — the highest one-star share of the three. Reviews also note that tag management takes real manual effort.
Pricing: as of September 1, 2026 — $39 / $69 / $99, 10% off annual, 14-day trial.
Right for: one store serving both retail and trade, where tag-based segmentation is enough.
Picking by situation
Stores that should cancel the app
Three or fewer accounts, three or fewer pricing patterns, terms and PO numbers cover the workflow. Native B2B on Basic handles it at no additional cost. Just confirm you're on new Shopify Markets.
Lowest cost, localized admin
BSS B2B Wholesale Solution. Unlimited B2B catalogs on the free plan answers the native 3-catalog cap directly, and it's the only one of the three with non-English UI.
Rep-assisted wholesale
SparkLayer B2B & Wholesale. The sales rep portal and quoting engine don't appear in the other two feature lists. Forecast your monthly order count first — that's what you're paying for.
Retail and wholesale on one store
B2B Wholesale Hub. Tag-driven by design, with the ability to hide wholesale products from retail shoppers. But there's no free plan, so you start at $39/month.
Deposits or split invoicing required
None of the three lists a feature equivalent to Shopify's deposits or partial payments. If that requirement is non-negotiable, the conversation is about Plus.
Pre-install checklist
- Are you on new Shopify Markets? (Without it, B2B catalogs don't work on Basic, Grow, or Advanced.)
- Do your pricing patterns fit in three? (If yes, native is enough.)
- Will you run more than one B2B market? (The 3-catalog cap is shared across all of them.)
- Do trade buyers need a different storefront? (If yes, Advanced minimum.)
- Are deposits or split invoicing a hard requirement? (If yes, that's Plus.)
- What's your monthly B2B order count? (It directly sets SparkLayer's cost.)
- Do you need admin UI in a language other than English?
- Can you live with English-only support?
- Can you push one real account from order to invoice during the trial?
Bottom line
Four steps, in order.
- Check whether native covers you. Company accounts, quantity pricing, net terms, and PO numbers are free on Basic.
- Identify the one reason it doesn't. "More than three catalogs," "different storefront on Basic," and "deposits required" have three different answers.
- Catalogs → app. Storefront → Advanced. Deposits → Plus. These aren't substitutes for one another.
- When you do compare apps, compare the metering unit, not the monthly price. Picking a volume-metered app without a volume forecast is how the bill jumps later.
Pricing and features change. Check each app's Shopify App Store listing and the Help Center before you commit.
Sources
Shopify's admin address validation is on by default, free, on every plan, and supports the US. Checkout-time validation is one toggle away. Shopify's own documentation then warns that running a third-party address validation app at the same time can create conflicting suggestions and reduce checkout conversion — you are meant to pick one. That reframes the whole category: apps are not there to duplicate deliverability checking, they are there to enforce policy Shopify's validator does not enforce, like blocking PO boxes or requiring an apartment number. We priced four real apps from the US App Store on September 2, 2026, spanning $4.99/month flat, $0.04 per order, and one that requires a separate subscription billed outside Shopify.