Shopify wholesale without Plus: features and limits

What you can do in Shopify

Your buyers can log in, see their wholesale prices, place orders and reorder from their history. You can offer payment terms and send invoices from draft orders. These are included on Basic, Grow and Advanced. Shopify's plan comparison.

You can also buy shipping labels in Shopify where your fulfillment location is eligible, or connect a shipping app. Shopify shipping labels.

You can keep retail and wholesale in one store or set up a dedicated B2B store. For a business whose customers share a few pricing tiers and place their own orders, that may cover what you need. Shopify store types.

When every account has a different deal

Say you sell the same espresso blend to a cafe, a restaurant and a grocery shop. You have agreed a different price with each. As those relationships grow, you need a practical way to keep track of who pays what.

On Basic, Grow and Advanced, you can assign up to three active catalogs in total across your B2B markets. With Plus, you get unlimited catalogs and can assign them directly to individual companies or locations. Non-Plus catalogs use new Shopify Markets. Catalog limits and setup requirements.

Crate lets you manage custom prices for individual customers, with unlimited price lists on both wholesale plans. Each buyer signs in to your customer portal and sees their prices.

Starter is $50/month for up to 150 orders per month. Growth is $80/month for up to 400 orders per month. Both include unlimited buyers.

What if a cafe wants the same order every week?

A cafe wants six bags every Monday. They should be able to set that up once, then change it when they need more coffee or skip a week when they close for a holiday.

Shopify has subscriptions, but its documentation currently lists them as incompatible with native B2B. Recurring B2B orders may therefore need an app or custom setup that supports the customer's prices and payment terms. Shopify subscriptions and B2B limitations.

Standing orders are included in Crate Growth. Your customer chooses every week, two weeks or four weeks, and can change quantities, skip the next order or pause from their account. Each scheduled order uses their current prices and goes through your usual approval and invoicing process. The four-week schedule repeats every 28 days.

The customer who always emails

“Can we have 10 bags of the Ethiopia and five of the Brazil?” Some customers prefer a quick email. Someone on your team then has to turn that message into an order.

With Crate's email-to-order add-on, the request arrives ready for review. Check the customer, products and quantities, make any corrections, then accept it to create the wholesale order.

Which would fit your business?

If your customers fit into a few shared pricing tiers and are happy ordering through your Shopify store, start there. You may already have everything you need.

If you spend time keeping track of individual prices, chasing regular orders or typing up emails, those are good reasons to try Crate. It can connect to Shopify or run on its own. Bring one real customer's usual order to a trial and walk through these tasks:

1. 01Show the customer's agreed prices without affecting other accounts.
2. 02Create the next scheduled order, then skip one occurrence.
3. 03Review an emailed request and correct an item before accepting it.
4. 04Follow an order through its invoice, payment status and shipment.

The useful comparison is how much work is left for you each week. Include any extra apps, payment processing and shipping labels in the cost, then choose the setup that fits how you and your customers actually order.