How do multiple simultaneous B2B catalogs (one per customer segment) migrate to Shopify's 3-catalog limit on non-Plus plans, if we exceed that number?

What do Shopify's catalog limits allow below Shopify Plus?

Below Shopify Plus, Shopify allows 3 active catalogs across all business-to-business (B2B) markets, and each catalog reaches buyers through a B2B market. Basic, Grow and Advanced share that cap, and those plans need new Shopify Markets to use B2B catalogs at all (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Plus is unlimited and can also assign catalogs directly to companies and company locations.

A B2B market can include only the company locations you specify (Shopify Help Center, October 2026), so one customer segment can still be one market with one catalog. The cap of three is what binds, which means you should count catalogs the way Shopify counts them before you plan the migration.

How many price structures do your segment catalogs actually hold?

Your segment catalogs hold as many price structures as they have distinct sets of effective prices, and that number usually sits below the catalog count. Legacy business-to-business (B2B) platforms make catalogs cheap, so many exist for reasons other than price. Think of a sales territory label, a merger snapshot, a test copy, or a per-account clone one stock-keeping unit (SKU) apart. A wholesale group that only moves a retail buyer onto trade prices isn't a structure either, because on Shopify that buyer stays one customer record assigned to a company location.

Run this count before you model anything:

1. Export every price list with its effective price per SKU. Not the discount label, the resulting number.
2. Hash each list. Lists that produce identical prices across the SKU set are one structure, whatever their names.
3. Sort the rest by distance from list price. Many collapse into a few percentage bands.
4. Isolate the genuine exceptions. Contract prices on named SKUs for named accounts are real, and usually a short list.
5. Count what is left. That number, not the catalog count, decides between three catalogs, an app and Shopify Plus.

In our experience the count lands below what the client expected, so we run it before anyone picks a plan.

Where do a named account's contract prices go?

A named account's contract prices go in a catalog of their own, because a catalog's prices reach every buyer it serves. Shopify's fixed prices "override any overall adjustments that you set" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). So contract rows added to a band catalog, one percentage tier that many accounts share, would reprice every account in it.

• Below Shopify Plus, the contract catalog sits on a business-to-business (B2B) market built from that account's company locations, which spends one of your 3 catalogs on one customer. If the account also stays in a band market that lists specific company locations, Shopify ranks the two markets equally and shows the lower price (Shopify developer docs, October 2026). So a contract price above the band price won't show.
• On Plus, a small catalog holding only the contract products can sit directly on the account's company location. Where it and a market's band catalog price the same product, "your B2B store displays the most specific price for that item" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). So the contract price shows, even above the band price.

Branch pricing follows the same rule. A headquarters with regional branches becomes one company with a location per branch, and each branch with prices of its own needs its own catalog.

Which way past three catalogs costs least?

Collapsing business-to-business (B2B) segments by pricing rule costs least, because it needs only data work, and Shopify Plus costs most. In our ranking:

1. Collapse by pricing rule. Three catalogs hold three percentage bands, and each band takes every account whose economics match. Volume tiers sit inside a catalog as up to 10 price breaks per product (Shopify Help Center, October 2026), so they take no catalog of their own. Below Plus, each contract account still takes one of the three. NetSuite quantity schedules still need rebuilding as Shopify price breaks.
2. Buy a pricing-rules app. Our 3-catalog cap record scores an app BUY while the cap is your only blocker (October 2026). Paid plans on the three listings it names run $24.99 to $299 a month (Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B, SparkLayer and BSS B2B Wholesale Pricing listings, October 2026).
3. Upgrade to Shopify Plus. Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a 3-year term or $2,500 on a 1-year term (Shopify, October 2026). Upgrade for catalogs only when a second Plus-only need joins them. Plus still caps each company location at 25 catalogs, so the collapse happens anyway. Our 30-plus price tiers record handles that ceiling by splitting an account across locations.

When should two price lists stay separate?

Two price lists should stay separate when they differ for a reason a collapse would erase: a contract, a hand-set currency or product availability.