Shopify Wholesale Portal: How to Set One Up Without Plus

What is a Shopify wholesale portal?#

A Shopify wholesale portal is the part of a Shopify store that only approved business buyers can sign into, where they see their own prices and products and order on terms. On the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, native Shopify B2B already provides that for any buyer who belongs to a company, so most distributors need the right settings before they need an app.

That answer surprises a lot of merchants, because the search results for "Shopify wholesale portal" are crowded with lock apps, login-to-view-price apps and all-in-one wholesale suites. Some of those fill real gaps. But the baseline moved: what used to require a separate wholesale channel or a Plus contract is now part of Shopify B2B itself. This guide walks through what that baseline does, how to gate prices and access with it, and what a native setup still leaves on the table.

Every Shopify fact below comes from Shopify's own Help Center, fetched 2026-10-20.

Do you need Shopify Plus for a wholesale portal?#

No. Per Shopify's B2B overview in the Help Center (fetched 2026-10-20), Shopify B2B is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, and it is not available on the Starter or Retail plans. You can run B2B and direct-to-consumer sales from one store, or build a separate B2B-only store.

What Plus changes is depth, not access. Here is how the portal-relevant features split, from Shopify's B2B features by plan page (fetched 2026-10-20):

One more line on that page matters for a blended store: contextual storefront and contextual checkout through Shopify Markets are on Advanced and Plus, not Basic or Grow.

The practical read: if your price ladder fits in three catalogs, a Basic store can run a real wholesale portal. If every key account needs its own catalog, that is where Plus earns its fee. We go deeper on that ceiling in Shopify B2B limits by plan.

How do you hide wholesale prices from retail shoppers?#

You mostly do not have to hide them yourself. According to Shopify's page on sign-in and customer accounts in B2B (fetched 2026-10-20), only logged-in B2B customers can access B2B-specific pricing, B2B-only products and B2B-exclusive store content, and the prices they see are the ones set in the catalog for their company location. A shopper who is not linked to a company location, or who does not sign in, is treated as a direct-to-consumer customer and sees retail.

That gives you two shapes to choose from:

• A blended store. Retail shoppers browse and buy at retail prices. A wholesale buyer signs in and the same store shows their catalog prices and any B2B-only products. If you are weighing this setup, we cover the tradeoffs of running B2B and DTC on one Shopify store.
• A dedicated B2B store. Nobody but business buyers should be browsing at all.

For the second shape, Shopify has a setting under Online Store, then Preferences, in the Store access section: "Restrict access to B2B customers only." Shopify's own page is clear about its limits, and they are worth knowing before you flip it:

• It prevents non-B2B customers from browsing, but it does not redirect every visitor to a sign-in page, so it is not a complete login wall.
• While it is on, prospective customers cannot request access to your store through company account requests.
• Restricting only certain pages, rather than the whole store, takes custom Liquid work or a third-party app.

That last point is where a large share of the lock and login-to-view-price apps live: page-level and collection-level gating that the native store-wide switch does not do.

How do wholesale buyers get in and sign in?#

Three native mechanics decide who gets in, all from the same Shopify sign-in page (fetched 2026-10-20):

1. Customer accounts have to be on. You must activate customer accounts, under Settings, then Customer accounts, to use Shopify B2B. Legacy customer accounts cannot be used for B2B customers and orders.
2. A buyer becomes B2B by belonging to a company location. Access to B2B pricing and products is limited to customers linked to a company location.
3. Sign-in is a code, not a password. Buyers sign in with a secure 6-digit verification code sent to their email address.

The approval step is the part Shopify leaves to your process, and it is where distributors should be strict. Decide what qualifies an account before you create the company: a resale or tax-exemption certificate on file, a credit application, a minimum opening order, a named purchasing contact. Then create the company and its locations, attach the right catalog and payment terms, and add the buyer as a contact. Shopify also supports company account requests from prospective buyers, but remember they switch off if you restrict the whole store to B2B customers. We walk through that form, its approval step and its limits in how a Shopify wholesale registration form works.

What does a native Shopify wholesale portal still not do?#

Take one worked example. You are an MRO distributor with a bearing catalog gated to contractor accounts. A contractor's purchasing agent signs in, sees their catalog price on the 6205-2RS deep groove bearing, and wants 200 units at a price below that catalog price because a competitor quoted them lower.

Native Shopify handles a lot of this. The buyer sees their own price, quantity rules keep them inside your pack sizes, and net terms and a PO number come with the order. Shopify draft orders can also carry a negotiated custom line price, so your rep can build a draft at the agreed figure on any plan.

What is missing is the record around the negotiation. Shopify has no RFQ object and no versioned quote record that keeps the buyer's request, each round of counter-offers and a margin check together. The request arrives by email, the rounds happen in the inbox, and the final price lands in a draft order with none of the history attached. When someone asks six months later why that contractor pays what they pay, the answer is in someone's sent folder.

Two more gaps show up as accounts get bigger:

• Approvals inside the buying company. Shopify's company structure has contacts and locations, but there is no approval chain where a junior buyer's order waits for a purchasing manager before it is placed.
• Credit limits. Net terms tell a buyer when an invoice is due. They do not cap how much a company can have open at once. Exposure tracking ends up in a spreadsheet next to the store.

None of this makes native Shopify B2B a weak portal. It makes it a good portal with an empty middle where B2B negotiation and control usually live.

Where does an app fit?#

Apps in the Shopify App Store cluster around those gaps, and it helps to name the category before you shop:

• Price-gating and lock apps add page-level or collection-level access rules and login-to-view-price behavior, the part Shopify says needs custom Liquid or an app.
• All-in-one wholesale apps layer tag-based wholesale pricing, wholesale registration forms and order forms on top of or alongside Shopify B2B.
• Quote and RFQ apps give buyers a way to ask for a price and give staff a place to answer.
• Net terms apps add rules or financing around payment terms.

If you want named apps in each category, sourced from their own listings, see the best Shopify B2B apps. The test for any of them is the same: does it work with Shopify's companies, catalogs and payment terms, or does it run a second wholesale system beside them that you have to keep in sync?

Where does Copiara fit?#

Copiara is ours. It is a Shopify app in early access, coming to the Shopify App Store, and it is not yet installable. It is built to sit on Copiara on top of Shopify B2B rather than beside it, so Shopify keeps the companies, catalogs, payment terms and checkout.

What it adds is aimed at the middle described above. Buyer tools come as blocks the merchant places on the Shopify theme: quick order, reorder and saved lists, quotes, approvals and orders, with buyers signing in once with the store's own login. Saved lists hold items and quantities, never a price. The quoting desk keeps the request, every negotiation round and a margin floor the server enforces on one record, then places the accepted quote in Shopify with the agreed prices locked. Buyer approvals add spend limits and approval rules for the buying company, cleared before the order is placed in Shopify. Credit adds credit limits with live exposure on top of the payment terms Copiara reads from Shopify. You can read more about the quoting desk and buyer approvals.

Shopify wholesale portal FAQ#

Can I run wholesale and retail on one Shopify store? Yes. Shopify supports one store for both B2B and direct-to-consumer sales. Retail shoppers see retail prices; signed-in B2B buyers see their catalog.

Can wholesale buyers pay on net terms? Yes. Per Shopify's B2B features by plan page (fetched 2026-10-20), net terms are available on every plan that includes B2B.

Can I lock the whole store to wholesale buyers? Yes, with "Restrict access to B2B customers only" under Online Store, then Preferences. It stops non-B2B customers browsing, but it does not redirect every visitor to sign in, and company account requests are off while it is on.

Do wholesale buyers need a password? No. Shopify sends B2B buyers a 6-digit verification code by email.

If your wholesale portal works but your quotes, approvals and credit still live in email and spreadsheets, ask for early access.