How to run a Shopify B2B quote workflow without Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus B2B gives you a fully separate wholesale storefront, branded wholesale checkout, customer portals with repeat ordering, and 200+ checkout customizations. For distributors, small wholesalers, custom-manufacturer shops, and niche brands selling to other brands, most of that is overhead. The real B2B surface area is the quote workflow: a buyer sends a request or PO, you build a quote, you share a link, the buyer accepts, you fulfill.

This guide walks through standing up a professional B2B quote workflow on Shopify Basic, Grow, or Advanced — using a third-party app for the quote layer — at a thirtieth of the cost of Plus.

What you're building

The end state is a workflow where:

1. A B2B buyer sends a request or a PO.
2. You build a quote in the Shopify admin with negotiated per-line pricing.
3. You click Send. A public quote link is generated.
4. You share the link by email, Slack, or any channel.
5. The buyer opens the link in a browser — no Shopify account needed.
6. The buyer clicks Accept.
7. A real Shopify order is created via the draftOrderCreate GraphQL mutation.
8. The buyer pays through your normal Shopify checkout.
9. The order shows up in your Shopify admin like any other order.

All of this works on Shopify Basic, Grow, and Advanced. No Plus required.

Step 1 — Install the quote workflow app

Several Shopify apps handle the quote layer. We'll use AI B2B Quote Desk as the example because it's the lowest-priced full-feature option on the Shopify App Store at $29/month Starter (14-day free trial). Alternatives include B2B Wholesale Club (browse-and-checkout focused), SparkLayer (full B2B portal), and BSS Commerce B2B (wholesale storefront focused) at $19–249/month depending on feature coverage. See the honest comparison for which fits your B2B flow.

Step 2 — Set negotiated per-quote pricing

The first thing that differentiates a B2B workflow from a retail one is per-deal pricing. Acme gets the box at $1.09 instead of $1.40 on a 500-unit run. Beta negotiates a flat per-unit price on a key SKU. Gamma gets net-30 terms.

In Quote Desk, you set the unit price directly on each line as you build the quote. Adjust a line, and the line total and quote total recompute as you negotiate:

• Per line — set the negotiated unit price on any line item in the quote.
• Per quantity — price the line to the volume the buyer is committing to on this order.
• Per deal — the prices live on the quote, so each negotiation stands on its own and is logged in the quote ledger.

Step 3 — Add company profiles

Most B2B buyers are companies with multiple people. Acme has Sue at HQ and Bob at the warehouse. Both send POs. Set up the company once with its contacts and ship-to locations — pulled from your Shopify companies — and the company context comes with every quote you build for any of its buyers.

Step 4 — Build your first quote

1. From the dashboard, click New Quote.
2. Pick the company. The buyer auto-selects if there's only one.
3. Add line items — search your Shopify catalog, set quantities, and set the negotiated unit price per line.
4. Set a Quote Valid Until date (typical: 30 days).
5. Add notes if needed (delivery date, shipping, special terms).
6. Click Save Draft to keep working, or Send to push it out.

Step 5 — Send the quote and share the link

When you click Send, the app generates a public URL — something like https://your-quote-app.example/q/abc123xyz with an opaque random token. The token doesn't reveal buyer identity or order value; only people who have the URL can open the quote. Share it by:

• Email — paste the link into your reply to the buyer's request or PO.
• Slack — drop it in a shared B2B channel.
• A PDF — generate a branded quote PDF with the link in the footer and attach it.

Step 6 — The buyer accepts

The buyer opens the link in a browser and sees a clean quote page — your branding, the line items, the negotiated prices, the total, your terms, and an Accept button. They click Accept (or Decline, or let it expire on the Valid Until date).

Step 7 — A real Shopify order is created

Behind the scenes, the app calls Shopify's draftOrderCreate mutation with the line items from the quote. Shopify creates the order in your admin, the buyer is invoiced through your normal checkout, and the order flows into Orders, fulfillment, and reporting — the same as any other order.

Step 8 — Upgrade for PO PDF parsing + AI counter-offers

Starter covers the full quote workflow. If your B2B is heavy on inbound POs, Pro ($49/mo) adds PO PDF parsing — drop an incoming PO PDF and the parser extracts line items, quantities, and prices and matches them to your catalog with a confidence score per line. A 15-minute manual flow becomes a 60-second review-and-send.

Growth ($79/mo) adds an AI counter-offer engine: when a buyer counters, the engine reads that company's order history and your margin floor and drafts a reasonable counter-counter. You approve, edit, or override before it sends. Growth also includes the verification harness, which replays your pricing rules against past orders so you can prove totals still match before a change.

How it compares to Shopify Plus B2B

Plus's B2B suite adds a separate wholesale storefront with B2B-only product visibility, customer portals with repeat ordering, branded wholesale checkout, and 200+ checkout customizations. If you need any of those, Plus is the right pick. If you just need the quote workflow — and most under-$5M-B2B merchants do — a third-party app on your existing tier delivers the same outcome at a thirtieth of the platform cost.

Frequently asked questions

Do I really not need Shopify Plus?

For most B2B Shopify merchants under $5M/year in B2B revenue, no. The quote workflow is the main B2B surface; the rest of Plus is overhead most under-$5M merchants don't need. Above $5M, Plus's base price gets diluted and the full suite makes more sense.

How does the buyer accept without a Shopify account?

The public quote URL (/q/<token>) is a stateless page anyone with the URL can view. When the buyer clicks Accept, the app uses your Shopify Admin API access to create the order on their behalf, then invoices them through your normal checkout. The buyer never authenticates with Shopify directly.

What happens if a buyer counter-offers?

You can edit and resend the quote — the quote ledger keeps the full revision history — or use the AI counter-offer engine on Growth to get a margin-aware suggestion in seconds. You always approve before sending.

Is this PCI compliant?

Yes. The quote app never touches credit card numbers. Payment is handled by Shopify's checkout, which is PCI-DSS Level 1 certified.

Can I export quotes for accounting?

Yes. Export quotes to CSV — filtered by status, company, or date — including line items, company, total, status, send date, and accept date. Drop it into your accounting software.