The hard cap, in plain English
As of April 2026, Shopify's native B2B is on every paid plan: Basic, Shopify, Advanced, Plus. The non-Plus tier comes with a strict ceiling: three pricing catalogs. Total. Across all markets. There is no setting to raise it.
If you have a wholesale business with more than three pricing tiers, this matters. A four-tier wholesale book is common — Stylist / Spa / Retail Small / Retail Large is a typical setup; many beauty and apparel brands run six or more. Once you outgrow three, you have a decision to make.
Why Shopify capped it at 3
The cap is a deliberate Plus-vs-non-Plus pricing lever. Plus has unlimited catalogs and per-company catalog assignment. The non-Plus B2B feature set is intentionally constrained so that brands with serious wholesale books still have a reason to upgrade. That's not a complaint — it's a product strategy. But it means your wholesale plan needs to budget around it.
Three options when you outgrow the 3-catalog cap
Option 1: Consolidate tiers down to 3
Look at your current tiers. How different are they really? Many wholesale tier structures grew organically — one founder gave a one-off discount to a friend's stockist, then someone else got a similar deal, then "Tier 2" was born. Some tier structures genuinely consolidate without losing customers; others don't.
Cost: hard sales conversations with customers whose tier might shift. Free in dollars.
Option 2: Upgrade to Shopify Plus
Plus removes the cap. It also costs ~$2,300/month as of 2026. At wholesale GMV under $20M/year, the math is uncomfortable; over $50M, it's a rounding error.
Cost: ~$27,600/year platform fee, before apps.
Option 3: Add a tag-based pricing app on top of native B2B
Keep the three native catalogs for whatever they're best at — usually your three biggest segments — and add an app that handles tier #4+ via customer tags. Total cost: $29/month app fee on TagTier's Standard plan (Free for dev stores).
Cost: app subscription. Slight ops complexity (two systems instead of one).
The decision flow
- Wholesale GMV $50M+? → Plus. The platform fee is small relative to revenue at this scale, and you'll want Plus's other features anyway.
- Tiers consolidate cleanly to 3? → Stay on native B2B. Free in dollars, simpler in operations.
- Need more than 3 tiers, GMV under $50M? → Native B2B + tag-based pricing app. Best dollar-for-dollar.
What you don't want to do
- Don't ignore the cap and run discount codes for tier 4+. Codes leak (see leaky codes); your fourth tier ends up applied at retail.
- Don't run a separate Shopify store for tier 4+. Inventory drifts; promo runs twice; customers complain.
- Don't rebuild a fourth catalog with Shopify Functions in-house unless you have a developer specifically for this. The maintenance burden is real.
The hybrid model that works
This is what we recommend for most brands hitting the 3-catalog cap:
- Native B2B catalogs for your three biggest segments (probably accounts for >80% of wholesale GMV).
- Tag-based pricing app for everyone else — tier 4+, per-customer overrides, VIP/staff/subscriber pricing.
- One Shopify store, one checkout, one source of truth for inventory.
This is exactly the architecture TagTier was designed for. See pricing →