Shopify B2B & Wholesale Checkout Links: The Complete Playbook (2026)

Shopify B2B used to be a Plus-only feature. As of 2026 the foundational pieces (company profiles, custom catalogues, volume discounts, payment terms) are available on Basic, Grow, and Advanced too. That changes the wholesale playbook for a much bigger audience.

This guide is how to run B2B and wholesale order flows on Shopify in 2026 — with or without Plus — using checkout links. Total reading time about 12 minutes; skim with the table of contents.

The state of B2B on Shopify in 2026

Three things changed in the last year:

  1. B2B-for-all rollout. Shopify extended company profiles, catalogues, volume pricing, and payment terms to Basic / Grow / Advanced plans. The Plus-only era of native B2B is over.
  2. Customer-account-driven flows. The B2B customer account is now the central object. Pricing, catalogue access, payment methods (including net terms), and order history all key off the company-customer record.
  3. Checkout extensibility maturity. B2B checkout runs on the standard checkout extensibility platform, which means apps like Checkout Links integrate cleanly with B2B without Scripts or checkout.liquid hacks.

The net effect: most of what required a wholesale portal, draft orders, or PDF-quote email workflows now runs through standard Shopify infrastructure. The question is how to wire it up so your wholesale customers actually use it.

Where checkout links fit in B2B

A B2B Checkout Link is a URL per account that:

  • Logs the customer into their B2B account at checkout (so they see B2B pricing).
  • Pre-loads the cart with the items you want them to reorder, sample, or pay for.
  • Surfaces the right payment options (including net terms, if configured).
  • Tracks the order back to the link (and the channel: rep, email, QR, sample card).

That single URL replaces a lot of legacy wholesale workflow:

  • Email + PDF quote → Checkout Link. Sales rep negotiates a quote, drops a single link in the follow-up email, buyer signs off in one tap.
  • Draft order → Checkout Link. Reusable, customer-friendly URL instead of a one-off draft.
  • Portal-only flow → Portal + Links. Portal stays for self-serve, links cover repeat orders and sales-rep deals.
  • Spreadsheet reorder → Checkout Link. Standing-order SKUs pre-built into one link per account.

The 5 wholesale workflows that benefit most

1. Repeat / standing orders

Wholesale customers often reorder the same SKU mix every month or quarter. Building that cart manually (or via portal) every time is friction.

  • Setup: Build one Checkout Link per account with their typical SKU mix.
  • Distribution: Drop in monthly reorder reminder emails, on order confirmation PDFs, on packaging QR codes.
  • Effect: Reorder becomes a tap. Customer adjusts quantities at checkout if needed; the link handles the rest.

2. Sales-rep deal handoff

A rep negotiates a custom order on a call. Today: rep manually builds a draft order, customer gets a draft-order email link with a clunky UI. Tomorrow: rep builds a Checkout Link with the agreed cart, drops it into the follow-up email, customer taps to confirm.

  • Setup: Train reps to build Checkout Links instead of draft orders for new deals.
  • Distribution: Email follow-up, WhatsApp Business, in-person QR.
  • Effect: Higher close rate on negotiated deals; the customer-facing experience matches their B2C buying experience.

3. Sample / first-order outreach

When a new account is in the prospecting phase, a free or discounted sample order is the standard hook. The link layer makes it scalable.

  • Setup: Build a per-prospect Checkout Link with the sample SKU and a one-time discount.
  • Distribution: Direct outreach email, LinkedIn DM, conference handout (QR).
  • Effect: Sample order conversion goes from "let me build you a draft order" to "scan this and the sample is on its way."

4. Tiered catalogue / account-specific promotions

Different B2B accounts see different pricing or assortments. Checkout Links targets the right account and the right tier's pricing comes through automatically.

  • Setup: Build per-tier or per-account Checkout Links targeting their B2B customer account.
  • Distribution: Per-tier email segments, per-account follow-ups.
  • Effect: Pricing is correct by construction. No "I got the wrong price" support tickets.

5. Net-terms checkout

Net 30, Net 60, and other payment terms are a B2B staple. Configured on the customer account, they automatically surface at B2B checkout. A Checkout Link that targets the account inherits the payment options — including net terms — without any extra config.

  • Setup: Configure net terms in your B2B setup (Shopify admin → Customers → company → Payment terms).
  • Effect: Net-terms-eligible customers see "Pay later (Net 30)" at checkout from a Checkout Link, same as they would from the portal.

The "B2B without Plus" angle

A growing segment of Shopify merchants run real wholesale operations on Basic, Grow, or Advanced — without the $2,300+/mo Plus tier. The 2026 B2B-for-all rollout made this viable for the first time.

Checkout Links is built for this segment as much as for Plus stores. The infrastructure (B2B-aware checkout, Functions for discount layer, Flow integration) works on every plan. The only thing you lose without Plus is some of the advanced governance features (multi-store, organisation-level reporting, dedicated launch engineering) — none of which affect day-to-day wholesale order flow.

For a Basic/Grow/Advanced merchant who's been running wholesale via draft orders, switching to Checkout Links is usually the biggest workflow improvement available without upgrading to Plus.

Replacing draft orders

The single most common pre-Checkout-Links wholesale workflow is the draft order:

  1. Sales rep or merchant creates a draft in Shopify admin.
  2. Adds line items, sets custom prices.
  3. Sends a draft-order invoice email to the customer.
  4. Customer clicks the email link, lands on Shopify's draft-order checkout UI, pays.

That works but has three drawbacks:

  • Single-use. Each draft is a one-off. Repeat orders mean repeat drafts.
  • Customer experience. The draft-order UI is functional but not designed for marketing. It feels like an invoice form.
  • No analytics. No way to know which draft drove which revenue, no per-source attribution.

A Checkout Link replaces all four steps with one URL, gains reusability, gets the standard branded checkout experience, and adds per-link analytics. For 80%+ of draft-order use cases this is a strict upgrade.

The 20% where draft orders still win:

  • True bespoke invoicing (custom line items per order, partial payments).
  • Manual order processing flows you've already built around the draft-order email template.
  • Pay-by-invoice scenarios where the customer isn't paying through Shopify at all.

See our dedicated Checkout Links vs draft orders page for the side-by-side.

Sales rep workflow

For B2B teams with named sales reps, the link-per-deal pattern compounds:

  • Each rep generates their own Checkout Links for their deals.
  • Each link carries the rep's name as a UTM or attribution field.
  • Per-rep performance lands in the same Shopify-native analytics as the rest of the business.
  • Reps can drop links into WhatsApp, SMS, email, or in-person QR codes — same link, multiple distribution channels.

Compared to the legacy "each rep has their own discount code" approach, this is leak-proof (the discount is in the URL, not a typed code), attributable (per-link analytics, not per-code reconciliation), and customer-friendly (one tap, not a code to remember).

Distribution channels for B2B links

Where to put the link matters. The patterns that pay off:

  • Order confirmation emails. When the customer's current order ships, surface a Checkout Link in the confirmation for the next reorder.
  • Packaging QR codes. Print the QR on the shipping box or product label. Repeat customers scan and reorder.
  • Sample cards. Trade-show or pop-up sample cards with a QR-to-cart. Scan, place sample order.
  • Quarterly newsletters. "Restock for Q3" with one-tap links per account.
  • WhatsApp / Telegram for international. Wholesale buyers in India, MENA, LATAM often communicate by WhatsApp. The link works there.
  • Sales-rep email signatures. Standing link to a sample order or onboarding flow.

Analytics: what to measure

The metrics that matter for B2B link campaigns:

  • Per-account revenue. Every order coming through a Checkout Link attributes to the account it targeted. The Checkout Links dashboard surfaces this.
  • Per-rep performance. UTM-tagged per rep, then reconciled against quota.
  • Reorder rate. Of accounts that received a reorder Checkout Link, what % actually reordered? Below 25% suggests the link timing or copy needs work.
  • Time-to-reorder. Days between previous order and reorder click. Useful for setting the next reorder reminder cadence.
  • Net-terms vs upfront mix. What % of B2B order revenue is paid upfront vs deferred via net terms? Drives cash-flow planning.

The 60-day B2B rollout

If you're starting from "we use draft orders for wholesale and that's it," here's the order to mature it:

Weeks 1-2:

  • Install Checkout Links and build one Checkout Link per top-10 wholesale account.
  • Move the next 10 sales-rep negotiations from draft orders to Checkout Links to measure the workflow lift.

Weeks 3-4:

  • If you're on Plus or have B2B enabled, configure net terms on the highest-volume B2B customer accounts and validate that the Checkout Link surfaces them at checkout.
  • Add a Checkout Link CTA to your standard order-confirmation email template for wholesale orders.

Weeks 5-6:

  • Build a per-rep dashboard (UTM-tagged Checkout Links per rep) and review with the sales team.
  • Print packaging QR codes for the top 3 reorder SKUs.

Weeks 7-8:

  • Run a holdout test: 50% of next quarter's accounts get reorder Checkout Links, 50% don't. Measure reorder rate delta.

By the end of 60 days you'll have a measured wholesale link program operating alongside your portal (if you have one) and your draft-order workflow (which should now be the exception, not the default).

Further reading

Try Checkout Links

Start a 7-day free trial. $25/month. Works on any Shopify plan, B2B-aware on accounts where you've configured B2B. Most wholesale teams see the workflow improvement within the first week of usage — the draft-order replacement alone usually pays for the month.