Order Book vs Shopify B2B
Shopify B2B has been part of every Shopify plan since April 2026, so every roaster already on Shopify will ask whether it is enough. For some it is. This page is about which half of the job each one does.
Published 16 September 2026
Pick Shopify B2B if you already run retail on Shopify, want one product list and one place to look, and your trade buyers are happy to sign in to a storefront and pay by card at a checkout.
Pick Order Book if your wholesale is cafés on a rhythm: an account per café with no password, deliveries the café confirms, a price per account rather than per market, and a weekly list of who has gone quiet.
Side by side
| Area | Shopify B2B | Order Book |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Any wholesale seller already on Shopify | Specialty coffee roasters and their café accounts |
| Plan needed | Any plan since April 2026; catalogs behave differently below Plus | Any plan; it does not use Shopify's checkout |
| Catalogs and prices | Up to three active catalogs across all your B2B markets on Basic, Grow and Advanced, assigned by market; direct assignment to a company, and unlimited catalogs, are Plus | Unlimited catalogs, overrides and volume breaks per café, no market workaround |
| How buyers order | A storefront with a company account and a login | An account per café, signed in with the address the roastery holds, no password |
| Standing orders | No. Shopify's own documentation says B2B does not support purchase options such as subscriptions, so a weekly repeat has nowhere to live | No; the café places each order from its account, with its usual order at the top of the sheet |
| Delivery confirmation | Fulfilment status set by you | The café marks each order Received; a problem it reports is credited against the order |
| Quantity rules | Minimums, maximums, case packs, increments, volume price breaks | Volume price breaks per catalog; minimums per client |
| Payment | Card at checkout, vaulted cards, net terms, and ACH bank debit — the United States bank network | No payment processing: cafés pay by transfer on your terms, recorded against the account with a running balance, or an order marked as paid |
| Invoices | Order confirmations; VAT invoices for EU and UK buyers | Issued in your own invoicing software and attached to the order for the café |
| Stock | Yes, the same inventory as retail | Its own count of the roasted stock on the shelf, not Shopify’s |
| Orders by text or email | No | Yes: paste a WhatsApp message, an email or spreadsheet rows and it becomes a priced order |
| Drift detection | No. It starts when an order arrives | Core feature: each café measured against its own rhythm, with a call list |
| Price changes | Edit the catalog | Scheduled, with each café told its own new price ahead of the date |
| The morning after | Export orders | Roast plan, picking list, run sheet and delivery notes from confirmed orders |
| Pricing model | Included in your Shopify plan; card and ACH processing fees apply per order | €49, €149, €249 per month, flat, on the number of clients; no per-order fee |
Where Shopify B2B is stronger
- One store. Your retail catalog, your wholesale catalog, your stock and your reporting are the same objects in the same admin. Nothing to import, nothing to keep in step. If that is what you want above all else, stop here.
- A real storefront. Buyers who like to browse, see photography and build a basket get exactly that, in your theme, on your domain. Order Book gives a café its own list with its usual order at the top, which is faster but is not a shop.
- Card and ACH at checkout. Shopify takes money. Order Book does not process payments at all, so an account that insists on paying by card stays in Shopify.
- Stock and fulfilment. Shopify knows what you have, decrements it, and prints labels. Order Book counts the stock on the shelf and what is free to order, but prints no carrier labels.
- Plus, if you are on it. Unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned directly to a company location, deposits, partial payments and per-fulfilment payment requests. A roastery on Plus with genuinely negotiated prices per account has most of what it needs.
Where Order Book is stronger
- Three catalogs, forty cafés. Below Plus, Shopify assigns catalogs to B2B markets, not to companies, and allows up to three active ones across all of them. Forty cafés on three prices is not how wholesale coffee is priced. Order Book gives each café its own list and its own breaks.
- No password. Shopify B2B needs a company account and a password before a café can order. In practice the manager orders from the counter on a phone at half past four. A sign-in link to the address you already hold, with the usual order at the top, beats any password, however good the storefront is. Why cafés order by text.
- Deliveries the café confirms. The café marks an order Received when it arrives, or says what was wrong with it, and you decide the credit on that order. The disputed bag is settled on the order rather than in an email thread three weeks later.
- It notices what did not happen. Shopify begins at the moment an order arrives, which means it can never tell you that Café Aurora has ordered every Tuesday for a year and is now 19 days quiet. That is the order that costs you an account. How that works.
- Net terms that work in Europe. Shopify's bank debit for net terms is ACH, the United States bank network; a café paying you by SEPA transfer is not on it, so you are back to card fees or to recording payments by hand. Order Book expects transfer on terms and keeps the balance — delivered less paid — on the café's page.
- Orders in the shape they arrive. A pasted WhatsApp message, an email, rows from a spreadsheet — each becomes a priced order against the right account. No checkout accepts any of those.
- Price rises told, not discovered. A scheduled change, announced per café with its own new price before the date, instead of a catalog edit a manager finds at the basket. How to raise prices without losing accounts.
- The morning after the orders. Confirmed orders become the roast plan, the run sheet, the picking list and the delivery notes, rather than a CSV export you rebuild in a spreadsheet.
The question underneath
Shopify B2B and Order Book are not really competing for the same job. Shopify B2B is a better place for a trade buyer to shop. Order Book is a better place for a roaster to hold accounts. If your wholesale is a hundred small trade orders from buyers you barely know, the storefront wins. If it is thirty cafés you deliver to on a route and would notice going quiet, the storefront is the wrong shape and no plan tier changes that. There is a longer version of this argument in Shopify wholesale for coffee roasters, including what retail checkout costs you in card fees.
Can you use both?
Yes, and most roasters who switch do. Shopify keeps retail: the store, the theme, the domain, the consumer subscriptions, the stock. Order Book runs wholesale off the checkout. The connection is one-way and manual — you paste a store domain and an Admin API access token from a custom app made before 2026, Order Book reads your products and your wholesale order history, and nothing is ever written back to your store. The history matters more than it sounds: every account's rhythm is known from the first day, so the call list is useful before you have taken a single order in Order Book.
Some roasters keep Shopify B2B switched on for the two or three accounts that want to pay by card, and move everyone else to Order Book. That is a reasonable place to stop.
Shopify details are taken from public pages at help.shopify.com and shopify.dev as of September 2026 and may have changed. If something here is out of date, write to [email protected] and it will be corrected.