Should You Build or Buy Company-Specific B2B Pricing on Plus?
Native wins for company-specific B2B pricing on Plus: a direct company catalog assigns one price list to a single company or company location, and the feature is Plus only (verified Sep 2026). Each company location holds up to 25 catalogs. Customize only when an ERP owns the contract price and thousands of SKUs change on a schedule. Below Plus, buy an app's per-customer price lists from $29/month (verified Sep 2026).
Your profile — see how the verdict shifts
- Confidence
- High — Read Shopify's B2B plan-features table on 2026-09-05: direct company catalogs, meaning catalogs assigned directly to a company or company location, are Plus only, while Basic, Grow and Advanced get 3 catalogs assignable to B2B markets. Shopify's company documentation sets the limits that shape the design: a company location can have a maximum of 25 catalogs, a company up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers. Checked three live pricing listings the same day (verified Sep 2026): SparkLayer (4.9★, 382 reviews), BSS B2B Wholesale Pricing (4.9★, 1,113 reviews) and Massy B2B Wholesale Pricing (5.0★, 223 reviews). None replicates Shopify's company-and-location object model; each layers customer tags, price lists or company accounts on top of standard Shopify, which is the segment workaround rather than the native feature.
- Reference scenario
- $20M–$100M GMV · Shopify Plus · 1–5 strategic accounts with negotiated per-SKU pricing · 500–5,000 SKUs · contract prices kept in an ERP or a pricing sheet · agency dev bench
- As of
- September 2026
Decision at a Glance
| Your profile | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Below Plus, a handful of key accounts | BUY | Direct company catalogs don't exist on Basic, Grow or Advanced. BSS Platinum sells custom price lists per customer at $99/month and Massy Essential unlimited custom pricing at $29/month (verified Sep 2026), which beats a Plus upgrade for one or two accounts. |
| On Plus, 1–10 negotiated accounts, prices change quarterly or less | WAIT | Create one direct company catalog per account, set fixed prices per variant, and edit them in the admin when the contract renews. Nothing to buy, nothing to build, and the price shows at checkout as company pricing. |
| On Plus, 10+ contract accounts with ERP-owned prices | CUSTOMIZE | Hand-editing 3,000 prices per account per quarter is where the native feature stops being free. Keep the direct catalog as the container and feed it from the ERP on a schedule with a diff log. |
| Pricing negotiated per order, not per account | WAIT | A catalog is the wrong tool for project or made-to-order deals. Draft orders let you set a custom price on the line item and lock prices on the order, which is the native quoting mechanism (verified Sep 2026). |
What Direct Company Catalog Assignment Actually Drives
| Outcome | Impact | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue — direct | High | A strategic account that sees its contracted price on every SKU orders self-serve instead of by email, which is the difference between keeping the account's reorders and losing them to a distributor's portal. |
| Operational efficiency | High | Every negotiated price that lives in a catalog is a draft order a rep no longer keys by hand, and a price that updates once at renewal rather than on each order. |
| Customer experience | Medium | Buyers at the account log in and see their price, their terms and their locations without asking, which is the wholesale experience they compare you on. |
| Data & insight | Medium | Contract prices held per company in native catalogs make margin by account a query rather than a reconciliation between a spreadsheet and the order export. |
Spend ceiling: Spend almost nothing here on Plus. The feature is included, and the only engineering worth funding is the price feed once accounts and SKUs outnumber the people editing them. Below Plus, cap the spend at an app tier of $29–$99/month (verified Sep 2026) until a second Plus-only need justifies the plan.
What buying enables (top apps)
- + Per-customer price lists and unlimited custom pricing on Basic, Grow and Advanced, where native catalogs can't be assigned to a company at all
- + Company accounts, registration forms and net terms bundled on mid tiers, covering B2B portal features non-Plus plans lack
- + A vendor maintaining theme and checkout compatibility as Shopify changes them
- + Ratings of 4.9★ to 5.0★ across 223 to 1,113 reviews on the three listings (verified Sep 2026)
What building additionally unlocks
- + A true 1:1 price list per company or company location rendered as native company pricing, with no app script in the checkout path
- + Contract prices that update from the ERP on a schedule with a timestamped diff log
- + Margin by account as a query on Shopify data rather than an export from a vendor
- + Draft orders with locked custom prices for the deals that don't fit any catalog
Find Your Verdict in 3 Questions
Are you on Shopify Plus?
Yes: Go to question 2.
No: Your verdict: BUY — per-customer price lists in an app run $29–$99/month (verified Sep 2026); direct company catalogs don't exist below Plus, and one or two key accounts don't justify the upgrade alone.
Do the negotiated prices live in an ERP, or change more often than quarterly?
Yes: Your verdict: CUSTOMIZE — keep the direct company catalog as the container and feed it from the ERP on a schedule ($8,000–$25,000, Deploi estimate, illustrative).
No: Go to question 3.
Is the pricing negotiated per order rather than per account?
Yes: Your verdict: WAIT — use draft orders with a custom line-item price and a price lock; a catalog is the wrong tool for deal-by-deal pricing.
No: Your verdict: WAIT — create one direct company catalog per account with fixed prices per variant and edit it at renewal; nothing to buy or build.
The TCC Scorecard — 12 Dimensions
TCC — Total Cost of Capability: what it actually costs to have this capability over three years, whichever way you get it. Each dimension is scored 0–5 for both paths. How we score →
| Dimension | Buy | Build | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | |||
| Acquisition & implementation | A direct company catalog is admin configuration on Plus; an app needs tag or customer mapping in a week; the ERP price feed runs 3–6 weeks (Deploi estimate, illustrative). | ||
| Recurring fees | Per-customer pricing sits on app tiers from $29 to $299/month (verified Sep 2026) that never stop billing; the native catalog is included with Plus and the feed carries upkeep only. | ||
| Maintenance & upgrades | The vendor absorbs theme and API churn on the app path; a custom feed needs an API version bump inside Shopify's 12-month support window and a re-test when the ERP changes a field. | ||
| Switching & exit | An app's per-customer lists live in the vendor's database and must be re-keyed on exit; native catalogs are Shopify data that outlives any feed or app. | ||
| Risk | |||
| Vendor risk | Three listings at 4.9★ to 5.0★ with 223 to 1,113 reviews (verified Sep 2026) is a stable category; the native feature is Shopify's own and the feed has no vendor at all. | ||
| Security & compliance surface | Negotiated contract prices are commercially sensitive; an app reads them alongside customer and company records, while native catalogs keep them inside Shopify and your ERP. | ||
| Platform-deprecation exposure | Companies, company locations and catalogs are first-class B2B objects Shopify keeps investing in; the app depends on how it injects prices into a theme Shopify keeps changing. | ||
| Value | |||
| Fit to requirement | A true 1:1 price list on every SKU is exactly what a direct company catalog is; apps approximate it through tags and price lists layered on standard Shopify. | ||
| Time to market | Native configuration is same-day for one account; an app is a week; the ERP feed lands in about a month, after the first account is already live natively. | ||
| Performance & scale | Company pricing rendered natively carries no injected script; the limits that matter are 25 catalogs per company location and 10,000 locations per company (verified Sep 2026). | ||
| Data ownership & AI-readiness | Contract prices in native catalogs are queryable per company through the Admin API, so margin by account is a report; in an app they're an export request. | ||
| Focus & opportunity cost | There's almost nothing to build here on Plus, which is the point; the only engineering worth funding is the price feed once accounts outnumber the people editing them. | ||
The App Landscape
| App | Status | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify direct company catalogs | Native — First-party Shopify, Plus only. A catalog assigned directly to a company or company location rather than to a B2B market, so one strategic account gets its own price list. Each company location holds a maximum of 25 catalogs; a company can have up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers (verified Sep 2026). | Included with Shopify Plus, which starts at $2,300 USD/month (verified Sep 2026) | A true 1:1 price list for a named account on Plus, with no app in the checkout path |
| SparkLayer B2B & Wholesale | Live — 4.9★, 363 reviews; Built for Shopify; 14-day trial. The strongest-reviewed platform touching this space, though its listing foregrounds quoting, sales agents, invoicing and order minimums rather than per-buyer spend limits or manager approval. Best read as the wholesale platform this logic sits inside. | Basic free; Starter $49/month; Growth $149/month; Pro $299/month (verified Sep 2026) | A wholesale portal with company teams below Plus, when the account model matters as much as the price list |
| BSS B2B Wholesale Pricing | Live — 4.9★, 1,113 reviews, Built for Shopify. The Platinum tier advertises custom price lists per customer for complex global B2B operations, which is the nearest app answer to a very high tier count. | Free plan; Essential $29/month; Advanced $49/month; Platinum $99/month, each also sold yearly at about 10% off (verified Sep 2026) | Per-customer price lists on Basic, Grow or Advanced for a few key accounts |
| Massy B2B Wholesale Pricing | Live — 5.0★, 223 reviews, Built for Shopify. Essential lists unlimited custom pricing, volume discounts and registration forms; Growth adds a B2B portal and company account management; Plus adds net payment terms and POS pricing. A younger listing than the other two, with a perfect rating on a smaller base. | Free $0/month; Essential $29/month or $288.84/year; Growth $59/month or $566.40/year; Plus $129/month or $1,161/year (verified Sep 2026) | The lowest-cost per-customer pricing entry point below Plus |
The Build Path
- Let the native catalog be the container: On Plus, create one direct company catalog per strategic account and assign it to the company or the specific location that negotiated it. Set fixed prices per variant rather than percentage adjustments, because a contract quotes numbers. Keep the segment catalogs assigned to B2B markets for everyone else, so the 25-per-location limit is never in play.
- Feed it from the system that owns the contract: Shopify's B2B integrations page names three routes: direct App Store integrations for select ERP, accounting and PIM systems such as NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Fulfil and QuickBooks Online; iPaaS providers such as Pipe17, Patchworks and OmnifiCX; and custom API-based integrations. The page never says which system should own pricing, so decide that first. Then write the ERP's contract prices into the catalog on a schedule through the Admin API, log every diff with a timestamp, and alert on a stalled run.
- Route one-off deals to draft orders: When an account negotiates a price on a single order, set a custom price on the line item in a draft order and lock the prices so a catalog update can't change them mid-approval (verified Sep 2026). The catalog stays the standing contract; the draft order carries the exception.
- Effort band
- $8,000–$25,000 for an ERP-to-catalog price feed with diff logging and a stalled-run alert — Deploi estimate (illustrative); lands in the $10–25K contact-form band, rising toward $25–75K when several ERPs or currencies feed the same accounts
- Typical timeline
- 3–6 weeks for the feed, after the first account is already live natively in an afternoon (Deploi estimate, illustrative)
- Maintenance, honestly
- ~15–20% of build cost per year (Deploi estimate): roughly $1,500–$5,000/yr (Deploi estimate, illustrative) covering ERP field changes, new accounts and locations, and moving the integration forward before an API version sunsets on Shopify's 12-month support window.
- What you own — and what you take on
- You own: the contract prices as Shopify catalog data, the company and location structure, and a timestamped record of every price change. You take on: the Plus subscription the feature requires, and the feed's freshness once the ERP is the source.
3-Year Total Cost of Capability
| Buy (app path) | Build (custom path) | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 0 (setup) | $500–$2,000 (customer mapping and price-list import) | $8,000–$25,000 (native catalogs are configuration; the feed is the cost) |
| Years 1–3 (recurring) | $1,044–$5,364 | $4,500–$15,000 (upkeep) |
| 3-year total | ≈$1,500–$7,400 | ≈$12,500–$40,000 |
- † All figures illustrative samples for the reference scenario — not quotes, not verified pricing.
- † Buy column: one per-customer pricing app on a mid-to-top tier, $29–$149/month held flat for three years (listed prices verified Sep 2026; the arithmetic is illustrative). The Plus plan the app avoids is not in this table.
- † Build column is the CUSTOMIZE lane on Plus: native direct company catalogs (admin configuration only) plus an ERP-to-catalog price feed; three-year horizon. The pure WAIT lane costs admin time and nothing else.
What the Sticker Price Hides
On the buy path
- — Per-customer price lists sit on top tiers: BSS puts them on Platinum at $99/month, while lower tiers price by customer tag (verified Sep 2026)
- — Two pricing truths: the app's list and native company pricing both exist on Plus, and a buyer sees whichever the theme renders last unless one is switched off
- — Contract prices in an app's database don't migrate into native catalogs when you move to Plus; budget a re-keying pass
- — Reviewers on pricing apps report the negotiated price appearing on the product page but not in a cart drawer or search result until a theme fix ships (app-store 1–2★ review theme)
On the build path
- — Direct company catalogs require Plus, so a non-Plus merchant's first cost is the plan, which starts at $2,300 USD/month (verified Sep 2026)
- — One catalog per key account meets the 25-catalogs-per-company-location maximum sooner than expected when locations share a company (verified Sep 2026)
- — A price feed fails quietly; a stalled job leaves last quarter's contract live until an account manager notices on an invoice
- — ~$1,500–$5,000/yr upkeep as ERP fields, accounts and API versions change (Deploi estimate, illustrative)
What Merchants Say
Wholesale teams describe the strategic account's price list living in a spreadsheet a rep maintains by hand, with every order keyed as a draft because the tag-based workaround leaked one account's price to another.
The low-star pattern on pricing apps is the price that shows in one place and not another: right on the product page, wrong in the cart drawer or in search results, fixed only after a theme patch.
If You Change Your Mind Later
If you bought and outgrow it
Leaving a pricing app means re-keying each account's list into native catalogs, because per-customer prices live in the vendor's database rather than in Shopify. Export every list before cancelling and plan a cutover where both are briefly live. Companies, orders and customers are untouched; only the price logic moves, which keeps the exit to days rather than weeks.
If you built and want out
Nothing strands. Contract prices written into a direct company catalog stay in Shopify when the feed is switched off, and the catalog keeps pricing checkout without it. If you later adopt an app, it reads the same companies and locations. The exit cost is the feed itself, which rounds to a few days of work.
When This Answer Changes
We're watching for:
- ▸ Shopify extending direct company catalogs to Advanced, which would end the buy lane for most key-account pricing
- ▸ Shopify raising the 25-catalog maximum per company location, which changes how many accounts one location structure can carry
- ▸ Shopify's own ERP connectors, such as the NetSuite integration, adding price-list sync into catalogs, which would replace the custom feed
Verdict change log:
No changes since first publication (September 2026).
Common Questions
What is a direct company catalog in Shopify B2B?
A direct company catalog is a B2B catalog assigned straight to a company or company location instead of to a B2B market, and the feature is Plus only (verified Sep 2026). Basic, Grow and Advanced can assign up to 3 catalogs to B2B markets and nothing to a single company. On Plus, each company location can hold a maximum of 25 catalogs, which is plenty for one negotiated list per strategic account.
Can I give one B2B customer custom pricing without Shopify Plus?
Yes, through an app's per-customer price lists rather than native catalogs. BSS B2B Wholesale Pricing sells 'custom price lists per customer' on its Platinum tier at $99/month, and Massy B2B Wholesale Pricing lists unlimited custom pricing from $29/month (verified Sep 2026). The negotiated list then lives in the app's database, not in a Shopify catalog, so treat the app as your pricing system of record until you move to Plus.
How do I keep a 3,000-SKU contract price list current in Shopify?
Feed the direct company catalog from the system that owns the contract. Shopify's B2B integrations page lists three routes: direct App Store integrations for NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Fulfil and QuickBooks Online; iPaaS providers such as Pipe17, Patchworks and OmnifiCX; and custom API-based integrations. The page never says which system should own pricing, so decide that first. A scheduled Admin API feed with diff logging runs $8,000–$25,000 (Deploi estimate, illustrative).
Your Next Steps
If you're going with WAIT(matches your selected profile)
- List every account with negotiated pricing and confirm each one exists as a company with the right locations
- Create one direct company catalog per account with fixed prices per variant, not percentage adjustments
- Assign the catalog to the company or to the specific location that signed the contract
- Move any surviving spreadsheet or tag-based workaround into the catalog and delete the tags afterward
- Set a renewal reminder per account so the catalog is edited the week the contract changes
If you're going with CUSTOMIZE
- Name the ERP or pricing sheet as the single owner of contract prices and agree the sync cadence with finance
- Build the Admin API feed into the direct company catalog with a diff log and a stalled-run alert
- Run one account in parallel for a cycle and reconcile invoice prices against the catalog before scaling
- Add accounts one at a time, checking the 25-catalog-per-location limit as you go
- Schedule the API version bump inside Shopify's 12-month support window as a standing ticket
Official Docs & Sources
- B2B features by plan — Shopify Help Center
- Catalogs and pricing in B2B — Shopify Help Center
- Creating companies (limits) — Shopify Help Center
Official documentation linked for verification — our verdicts and estimates are our own.
Related Decisions
Should You Plan Around Shopify's B2B Company-Size Ceilings?
A B2B company holds up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers, but only 50 customers per location. The 50 is the number that actually constrains you.
Should You Build or Buy B2B Deposit Payments on Shopify Plus?
Plus's native B2B deposits collect the percent up front, but the balance is never auto-captured. Both purpose-built B2B deposit apps had 0 reviews when checked.
ERP vs. Shopify: Who Should Own B2B Pricing?
Shopify's B2B integration page names three sanctioned ERP paths and never says which system should own pricing. Channel count decides the answer, not the platform.
Can Shopify's Catalog Model Hold 30+ Price Tiers?
A company location holds a maximum of 25 B2B catalogs (verified Sep 2026). Model 30+ tiers as volume breaks, or split the account across company locations.
Should You Build or Buy Your NetSuite Integration on Shopify?
NetSuite integration is the honest DEPENDS: buy a connector for standard flows, build middleware when the flows are the business.
Ready to give your key accounts their real price list?
On Plus the catalog is already yours; we wire it to the ERP so 3,000 contract prices update on schedule with a diff log, and route the one-off deals to locked draft orders instead of another spreadsheet.
Contact us todayVerdict scored for the reference scenario above. Estimates are not quotes; app pricing carries its verification date and gets re-verified quarterly. Full scoring anchors: see the TCC methodology.
Read how we score these decisions (the TCC Framework). No affiliate links, no paid placement — no app vendor pays to appear here.