The best B2B eCommerce platforms, compared honestly.
Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce. Every one of them demos beautifully. None of them demo your ERP sync, your quoting workflow or your credit terms, and that is where B2B builds actually die. We build on all five, we take no referral money from any of them, and this page scores them on the things that decide the outcome. Adjust the weighting for your kind of business and the winner changes, which is exactly the point.
How the five B2B platforms actually compare.
This page is the written, interactive companion to our five-platform comparison video: the same scores, the same corrected API numbers, and the same honest verdicts. Prefer to read? The full scorecards, API limits, and build costs are on our interactive comparison page.
From our YouTube channel. No sponsor, no affiliate links; we build on all five platforms.
Five platforms, and what each one actually is.
Ordered from simplest to run to most you can change. That trade-off, operating burden against control, is the axis every B2B platform decision moves along.
Choosing a platform is like choosing where to live.
Immaculate and maintained for you, and you cannot move a wall. Checkout is locked, and your B2B rules have to fit the building code.
Less glamour, and a garage. Open checkout, real API access, native quoting, and still nobody asking you to patch the roof.
Build anything. The scaffolding never comes down, because enterprise commerce is never finished, and you fund the crew forever.
Ten capabilities, scored from real builds.
These scores come from shipping on all five platforms, not from feature matrices. Pick the profile closest to your business: the weighting changes, the totals recompute, and the best fit updates. Hover any capability for what it covers.
Weighted for a business where B2B is the core revenue line.
| Capability | Shopify | Shopify Plus | BigCommerce | Magento Open Source | Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 10 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 2 |
| Low maintenance burden | 10 | 10 | 9 | 2 | 3 |
| Design freedom | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 10 |
| B2B power | 6 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 10 |
| Quotes & approvals | 2 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 10 |
| Payment terms & credit | 6 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 10 |
| ERP integration depth | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 10 |
| API headroom | 3 | 6 | 9 | 10 | 10 |
| Technical SEO | 6 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 10 |
| International selling | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Weighted total | 5.3 | 6.5 | 8.3 | 5.5 | 9.0 |
Scores are IWD's judgment from sixteen years of builds, current as of mid-2026. Your weighting will differ from every preset here, which is the strongest argument for a conversation before a contract.
The six dealbreakers no demo will show you.
Platform demos show checkout. B2B builds fail on the workflows underneath it. Check your requirements against these six before you shortlist anything.
Your ERP sync chokes on rate limits
Every price update, inventory change and order is an API call. At 50,000 SKUs syncing hourly, a 2-4 calls/sec ceiling means the sync never finishes. This is the failure nobody demos.
Hits Shopify core hardest; Plus and BigCommerce have real headroom; Magento and Adobe set their own ceiling.
Buyers need quotes, the platform does checkout
If your sales motion is quote, negotiate, approve, order, a checkout-first platform forces the whole workflow into email. Native quoting is a BigCommerce and Adobe strength.
Hits Shopify and Magento Open Source; both need apps or custom build for quote-to-order.
Net terms and credit limits are an afterthought
Wholesale runs on Net 30/60/90 and per-account credit. Platforms that treat payment as card-at-checkout make your AR team work in spreadsheets.
Adobe is strongest; Shopify now covers basic net terms on all plans; Magento OS needs extensions.
Real-time ERP pricing is impossible
When contract pricing lives in the ERP and must be quoted live at the PDP, the platform needs the integration surface to ask, per account, per SKU, without caching lies.
Adobe and Magento can do it natively; SaaS platforms approximate it with synced price lists.
The catalog outgrows the platform
A million SKUs, fitment data, parts finders and configurators are normal in B2B. Theme-level customization hits a ceiling; open platforms keep going.
Deep catalogs favor Adobe, Magento and BigCommerce; Shopify variants-per-product limits still bite.
Multi-store, multi-brand, multi-region
Selling five brands into three regions with different catalogs and price books is one install on Adobe or Magento, Multi-Storefront on BigCommerce, and multiple stores on Shopify.
One back end vs many: a real TCO difference at multi-brand scale.
Accounts, pricing and the ordering workflow.
| B2B capability | Shopify | Shopify Plus | BigCommerce | Magento OS | Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accounts & pricing | |||||
| Company accounts & locations | Native | Native | Native, advanced | Extension | Native |
| Buyer roles & permissions | Native | Native | Native | Extension | Native |
| Contract price lists | Native, max 3 | Native, unlimited | Native | Extension | Native |
| Volume & quantity rules | Native | Native | Native | Partial | Native |
| Ordering workflow | |||||
| Quick order / SKU pad | Native | Native | Native | Extension | Native |
| Requisition & shared lists | Partial | Partial | Native | Extension | Native |
| Quote / RFQ to order | App | App | Native quote-to-cart | Extension | Native |
| Multi-level approvals | No | No | Native, basic routing | Extension | Native |
| Rep ordering / masquerade | Draft orders | Draft orders | Native | Extension | Native |
Payments, credit and the ERP reality.
| B2B capability | Shopify | Shopify Plus | BigCommerce | Magento OS | Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payments & credit | |||||
| Net 30 / 60 / 90 terms | Native | Native | Native, per company | Extension | Native |
| Purchase order numbers | Native | Native | Native + invoice portal | Extension | Native |
| Hard credit limits | No | No | Limit stored, not live AR | Extension | Native |
| Deposits / partial payment | No | Native | No | Custom | Native |
| Vaulted cards for buyers | No | Native | Buyer only, gateway dependent | Custom | Native |
| Storefront & integration | |||||
| Checkout customization | Locked | Functions only | Open checkout | Code level | Code level |
| Real-time ERP pricing | Scheduled sync | Scheduled sync | Live via your own API | Yes, at code level | Yes, at code level |
Native ships and configures · Partial exists with limits or a workaround · App / Extension extra license, build or middleware
API calls per second, where ERP syncs choke.
Every price update, inventory change and order your ERP exchanges with the store is an API call, and every platform meters them differently. Same unit across the board here: REST admin API calls per second.
Calls back up behind the gate. A nightly catalog sync and a live ERP lookup cannot both fit through this pipe.
Metered by the hour, so you can burst. 20,000 an hour on entry plans and 60,000 on Scale.
Ten times the standard plans. The least-discussed reason to buy Plus, and often the real one.
No gate at all. You own the server, so the ceiling is the hardware you paid for.
Sizing rule from our integration work: take your SKU count times sync frequency, divide by the platform's ceiling, and see whether the sync window fits inside an hour. On 2 to 4 calls per second, a 50,000-SKU catalog does not. Our Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento and Adobe Commerce NetSuite connectors are built around exactly these limits.
Quote to cash, and where each platform hands off.
| B2B capability | Shopify / Plus | BigCommerce + B2B Ed | Magento OS | Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Buyer requests a quote | Quoting app required | Native, from PDP, cart or quick order | Extension | Native |
| 2 · Rep negotiates line by line | Inside the app, or by email | Native, in platform | Extension | Native, with history |
| 3 · Internal approval to release | Not available | One hop, buyer to company admin | Extension | Multi-level with thresholds |
| 4 · Quote converts to order | Draft order, often re-keyed | One click, no re-entry | Extension | Native |
| 5 · Invoice on terms, paid later | Net terms native, no invoice portal | Native invoice portal | Extension | Native |
Decision rule: if quotes are more than about half your order volume, native quoting outranks every other criterion on your list.
Real budgets and timelines, from our own builds.
Implementation ranges below are what we actually see, not vendor marketing. Enterprise platform fees are negotiated, so treat them as brackets.
- Fastest route when B2B and DTC share a storefront
- Deepest app ecosystem to fill gaps
- Quoting and approvals arrive as apps
- Less custom work when quotes are core
- Higher API headroom for ERP sync
- Multi-storefront to split B2B and DTC
- Justified above roughly $50M GMV
- Or when the dealbreaker list demands it
- Needs a real team, forever, not just at launch
The bookends: standard wholesale on Shopify core plans ($39 to $399/mo) can launch in 4 to 8 weeks for far less, and Magento Open Source trades the $0 license for B2B extensions ($2K to $10K), managed hosting ($500 to $3,000/mo) and a build of 10 to 18 weeks. Enterprise platform fees are negotiated; treat every vendor number as a bracket.
Choose the platform that matches your business.
Shopify Basic / Grow / Advanced
You are a brand adding a wholesale channel. Stockists rather than a sales team, three price lists is plenty, and you want it live this quarter. This is the correct answer far more often than the internet thinks. How we build B2B on Shopify →
Shopify Plus Enterprise plan
You run B2B and DTC together at volume and hit a specific Plus wall. Unlimited catalogs, a B2B storefront on its own domain, deposits, vaulted buyer cards, or the API headroom for a real ERP sync. Upgrade for a named limit, not for the badge. How we build B2B on Shopify Plus →
BigCommerce + B2B Edition
You are B2B first and quotes are the business. Half or more of orders start as a quote, reps order on behalf of customers, buyers want an invoice portal. The best native B2B you can get without leaving SaaS. How we build B2B on BigCommerce →
Adobe Commerce Licensed enterprise
You are a manufacturer or large distributor and the dealbreakers are real. Multi-level approvals, hard credit limits, multi-entity accounts, live ERP pricing. Above roughly $50M GMV with a team to run it. How we build B2B on Adobe Commerce →
Magento Open Source Open source
You need real-time data and cannot fund Adobe Commerce. The same code-level control, so the ERP lookup lives inside the application instead of behind a scheduled sync, but you assemble the B2B layer yourself from extensions. Only viable with real developers in house, and rarely as cheap as the $0 license suggests. How we build B2B on Magento Open Source →
What buyers ask before choosing a B2B platform.
Straight answers, including the ones vendors avoid. If yours isn't here, ask us directly.
What is the best B2B eCommerce platform?
There is no single best, which is why vendor listicles are useless. In our weighted comparison, Adobe Commerce scored highest for B2B-heavy operations (9.0) on the strength of native quoting, credit limits and ERP integration depth, with BigCommerce B2B Edition second (8.3) as the strongest SaaS option. But for a DTC brand adding wholesale, Shopify or Shopify Plus wins on operating burden. The right answer depends on which of those businesses you are.
Is Shopify good for B2B now?
Far better than the old advice suggests. B2B on Shopify is no longer Plus-exclusive: company accounts, price catalogs, net payment terms, quantity rules and quick order now ship on the core plans. The real constraints are quoting workflows, which Shopify still handles poorly, and API rate limits of roughly 2 to 4 REST calls per second on core plans, which choke serious ERP syncs. Plus raises that to about 20 per second.
Should I choose BigCommerce B2B Edition or Shopify Plus?
Choose BigCommerce B2B Edition when native quoting, a buyer portal and corporate price lists are must-haves out of the box, and when you want B2B and B2C on one store without platform transaction fees. Choose Shopify Plus when your DTC operation already leads, your team values the Shopify ecosystem, and your B2B needs are accounts, catalogs and terms rather than negotiated quoting.
Do Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce still make sense?
Yes, for specific businesses. Adobe Commerce remains the deepest native B2B suite available: company hierarchies, quotes, requisition lists, shared catalogs and credit, plus no vendor-imposed API cap for ERP integration. Magento Open Source offers the same architectural freedom with a $0 license, if your team can carry hosting, security and upgrades. Neither makes sense if you do not have, or will not hire, real engineering.
How much does a B2B eCommerce build actually cost?
From our own builds: Shopify Plus implementations typically run $60K to $150K over 8 to 14 weeks, BigCommerce B2B Edition $60K to $150K over 8 to 16 weeks, and Adobe Commerce $90K to $200K over 12 to 20 weeks, before platform fees. Standard wholesale on Shopify core plans can be far less. Enterprise pricing is negotiated, so treat every vendor number as a bracket, not a quote.
Which platform handles ERP integration best?
Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source, structurally: no vendor API cap, full code access, and the ability to query the ERP for real-time contract pricing. Among SaaS options, Shopify Plus (about 20 REST calls per second) and BigCommerce (20K to 60K calls per hour by plan) both sustain serious syncs; Shopify core plans at 2 to 4 calls per second are the common failure point. We build NetSuite connectors for all of them, so we see where each one strains.
Still undecided? That is the right instinct.
A platform choice is a five-to-ten-year commitment, and the scorecard above can only take you to a shortlist. Tell us about your catalog, your buyers and your ERP, and we will tell you which platform we would build on, with the reasoning.
Book a 15-minute assessmentNo obligation · We build on all five platforms · Reply within 1 business day