Shopify B2B vs a custom wholesale portal: what a funded D2C brand should actually build

The pattern is familiar. A consumer brand gets traction online, raises a seed round, and the plan for the money says "retail and wholesale". Within three months, orders from stockists arrive by email and WhatsApp, someone re-keys them into Shopify as draft orders, stock is in two places, and the finance lead has a spreadsheet called wholesale_orders_MASTER_v9.

This is the moment to decide how wholesale is going to work. There are three sensible options and one order to do them in.

Option 1: Shopify B2B (built in)

If you are on Shopify Plus, B2B is included: company accounts, price lists, payment terms, and a wholesale storefront that shares your catalogue and stock.

Cost: Plus starts at roughly $2,300 a month on a one-year term. If you are already on Plus, B2B is effectively free.
Strengths: one catalogue, one stock count, familiar checkout, native to the platform you already run.
Limits: price lists and terms are fine; anything bespoke (per-stockist minimums by SKU, mixed-case rules, promotional allowances, rep ordering on behalf of a store) gets awkward fast. The stockist experience looks like your D2C site with the price changed, which is fine for small accounts and underwhelming for a national grocer's buyer.

If you are not on Plus, the monthly cost of moving up just for B2B rarely makes sense under a few million in wholesale revenue.

Option 2: A wholesale app

Apps such as SparkLayer, BSS Commerce B2B, Wholesale Gorilla or B2B Rep Portal bolt wholesale onto a standard Shopify plan.

Cost: roughly $30 to $300 a month depending on tier.
Strengths: fast to switch on, cheap, usually enough for the first 20 to 50 stockists.
Limits: every app has its own idea of how wholesale works. You will hit a wall on one of: reorder flows, integration with your 3PL or Cin7/Unleashed, tiered pricing logic, or reporting by retailer. When you hit it, you work around it in spreadsheets, and the spreadsheet is back.

This is the right first step for almost everyone. Switch one on, learn what your stockists actually do, and only then decide whether you need more.

Option 3: A custom trade portal

A purpose-built ordering portal for your stockists, synced to Shopify (or your inventory system) for products and stock, and to Xero or QuickBooks for invoicing.

Cost: $3,000 to $8,000 to build; $200 to $500 a month to run. Shopify's own API handles products, stock and draft orders, so nothing is duplicated.
Build time: three to five weeks.
Strengths: the portal works exactly the way your trade customers expect. Your pricing rules, your minimums, your case packs, your rep flows. A per-retailer velocity dashboard. Stockist onboarding that doesn't need a human. Branding that looks like a serious supplier, not a discount code on a consumer site.
Limits: it is a build, and it needs an owner on your side. Don't do it before you have real stockists and know what they do.

The comparison

	Shopify B2B (Plus)	Wholesale app	Custom portal
Up-front cost	$0 if on Plus; otherwise the jump to Plus	$0	$3,000 – $8,000
Monthly	Part of Plus	$30 – $300	$200 – $500
Stock sync	Native	Native	Via Shopify API, near-real-time
Bespoke pricing rules	Limited	Limited	Anything you can describe
Stockist experience	Your D2C site, repriced	App's template	Designed for buyers
Reporting by retailer	Basic	Basic	Whatever you need
Time to live	Days	Days	3–5 weeks
You own it	No	No	Yes

The order to do things in

Month 0: switch on a wholesale app. Spend nothing on custom work. Get ten stockists ordering through it.
Month 2–3: write down every place you still use a spreadsheet or a human to make wholesale work. That list is the spec.
Month 3–6: if the list has more than three items that cost real hours every week, build the portal. Keep the app running until the portal has every stockist on it, then turn it off.
Always: keep stock in one place. Whatever you build, it must read stock from the system of record and never hold its own copy.

What a good trade portal includes

From the portals we've scoped, the features that actually get used:

Company accounts with multiple users and approval limits
Price lists per tier, case-pack and minimum rules enforced at the cart
One-click reorder from the last order, which is how most stockists order
Live stock and expected dates, so buyers don't email to ask
Invoices and statements pulled from Xero or QuickBooks, visible in the portal
A rep mode: your sales rep places an order on behalf of a store from their phone
A velocity dashboard: units per store per week, so you know who to visit
Automated investor-friendly numbers (because after a crowdfunding round, 700 people want a monthly update)

And the creative side

Retail launches also need creative at a volume agencies charge a lot for. If you are planning launch ads, see AI-made motion ads. We make them in packs, sized for each platform, and show you samples before you commit.

Next step

If you have stockists ordering by email today, we can show you a mockup of your portal from your current Shopify catalogue in a few days. Book a 15-minute call. Pricing is on the pricing page.