How much does a B2B ordering portal cost?

What does a B2B ordering portal do that a retail store does not?

A B2B portal lets known trade customers order on their own terms: their prices, their credit, their usual products. A retail store sells one price list to anyone. That difference is why a B2B portal costs more than its storefront suggests.

Capability	Retail store	B2B ordering portal
Prices	One price list, promotions	Customer or group price lists, contract prices, quantity breaks
Payment	Card at checkout	Account terms, credit limits, card, bank transfer or PayTo
Buyers	Individuals	Several buyers per company, with approvals and spend limits
Ordering	Browse and add to cart	Reorder lists, quick order by SKU, CSV upload, standing orders
After the sale	Order confirmation	Invoices, statements, back orders, proof of delivery
Catalogue	Everything public	Products and stock visible by customer or region

This page covers wholesale and trade ordering. If you need a portal for service requests, documents or account management, see our customer portal guide.

What do off the shelf B2B options cost per month?

Dedicated B2B SaaS starts at a few hundred dollars a month, inventory platforms sell B2B as an add on, and Shopify ranges from $42 to $3,700 AUD a month depending on how many catalogues you need. Prices below are list prices at the time of writing (November 2026).

Option	Listed price	B2B scope	Watch for
Shopify Basic, Grow, Advanced	$42, $114, $431 AUD a month paid yearly	B2B with up to 3 catalogues	Catalogue limit; third party payment fees of 2% to 0.6% if you don’t use Shopify Payments
Shopify Plus	From $3,700 AUD a month	Unlimited B2B catalogues	Platform cost dominates at small volume
B2B Wave	Pro US$350, Scale US$612 a month	Unlimited orders and customers, customer price lists	US dollar billing; ERP connector scope
Unleashed B2B eCommerce store	From $119 AUD a month, on top of an Unleashed plan	Ordering store tied to Unleashed stock and pricing	Needs Unleashed as the inventory system
Cin7 B2B portal	Included as a Cin7 feature	Self service ordering for customers and sales reps	Needs Cin7; plans start at US$349 a month

At the RBA’s rate of about US$0.69 to the Australian dollar in early November 2026, B2B Wave Scale is roughly $887 AUD a month. Check each vendor’s AUD pricing and what its connector to your ERP or accounting system actually syncs.

What drives the cost of a custom B2B portal?

Pricing rules and the ERP sync are the two biggest drivers. The storefront is the smallest part of the work.

Driver	Lower cost	Higher cost
Pricing	A few price groups	Contract prices per customer, quantity breaks, promotions by region, rebates
ERP or accounting sync	One way order push to Xero or MYOB	Two way sync of products, stock, prices, credit limits, invoices and statements
Credit and terms	Show the terms field	Live credit checks, holds over limit, overdue blocks
Buyers and approvals	One login per customer	Several buyers, spend limits, manager approval
Catalogue	Same catalogue for all	Restricted ranges by customer, region or brand
Channels	Web only	Sales rep app, EDI with large retailers

Each sync and rule needs its own error handling. Our API integration cost guide shows how one way and two way syncs differ in effort.

What do typical builds cost?

Three bands cover most projects. These are indicative market ranges, not quotes.

Build	Typical scope	Indicative range (AUD, ex GST)
Configured platform portal	Shopify B2B, Cin7 or Unleashed portal set up, with an ERP or accounting connector	$10,000 to $40,000
Custom portal	Customer price lists, credit checks, reorder lists, invoices and statements, Xero or MYOB sync	$50,000 to $120,000
Multi brand trade platform	Several brands or entities, EDI, buyer approvals, a sales rep mobile app	$150,000 to $300,000+

The custom band sits within Expeed’s published range of $40,000 to $150,000 for a customer portal with account management. Effort converts at an assumed blended agency rate of $1,100 to $1,500 a day; Re:Sourced’s July 2026 guide puts senior software contractors in Sydney at $800 to $1,100 a day ex GST, and agencies charge more because their rate includes testing and project management.

What does it cost over three years? A worked comparison

For a hypothetical wholesaler with 300 trade accounts and 8 price lists, dedicated B2B SaaS is the cheapest option over three years, and a custom portal costs less than Shopify Plus. The setup and build figures are assumptions inside the ranges above, at $1,300 a day; it is not a quote.

Option	Assumptions	3 year total (AUD, ex GST)
B2B Wave Scale	About $887 a month × 36, plus $15,000 assumed setup and ERP connector work	$46,932
Custom portal	55 days × $1,300 = $71,500 build; hosting $3,600 and maintenance at 15% ($10,725) each year	$114,475
Shopify Plus	$3,700 a month × 36, plus $25,000 assumed setup and integration	$158,200

Eight price lists rule out the Shopify plans below Plus, which list up to 3 catalogues. The custom portal earns its place if the pricing or credit rules do not fit the SaaS model, if the portal needs to sit inside a wider system the business already owns, or if the business expects to add a rep app or EDI later. Payment fees apply to all three.

Which option fits which business?

Match the tool to how your pricing and systems work today, not to the portal you might want in five years. A rough guide:

• Shopify below Plus suits a brand that sells retail online and wants a simple trade price list or two alongside it.
• Shopify Plus suits a brand with a large retail store already on Shopify that also needs many B2B catalogues and is comfortable with the platform cost.
• Dedicated B2B SaaS suits a wholesaler with many trade accounts, standard ordering and an ERP or accounting system the vendor already connects to.
• An inventory platform’s portal suits a business that already runs Cin7 or Unleashed and wants orders to land straight in stock.
• A custom portal suits a business whose pricing, credit rules or product configuration don’t fit any of the above, or that wants the portal inside a wider system it owns.

If two options look close, trial the SaaS first. It is easier to move from a subscription to a custom portal than the other way around, and the trial shows which rules really matter.

How can you reduce the cost of a first version?

Launch with reordering, prices and order sync, and leave the rest for phase two. Most trade customers want to see their price, check stock and repeat last month’s order. Credit checks, approvals, rep apps and EDI can follow once you know how customers use the portal. Keep card payments on the provider’s hosted checkout, use the ERP as the single source of prices, and resist building custom reports until the standard ones prove inadequate.

How should a portal handle payments on account, cards and PayTo?

Offer account terms for established customers and at least one low cost way to pay invoices; do not add card surcharges. The RBA’s FAQs say eftpos, Mastercard and Visa introduced no surcharge rules from 1 October 2026, that card payments between businesses are not exempt unless a network’s rules or a law provides an exemption, and that a card payment made on or after that date may not be surcharged even if the invoice was issued earlier.

The same FAQs say the RBA does not regulate surcharges on non card payment methods, and that businesses can offer discounts for particular payment methods, following the ACCC’s guidance on price displays. In a portal that usually means:

• account customers pay on terms, by bank transfer or PayTo, with invoices and statements in the portal;
• new or cash customers pay by card at checkout, with card costs built into prices;
• any early payment or payment method discount is shown clearly before checkout.

PayTo lets customers authorise payment agreements from their bank account, which suits recurring trade orders. Our PayTo integration guide covers how it works for businesses.

How do you roll a portal out to trade customers?

Treat rollout as its own phase with a named owner, because adoption decides the return. A typical sequence:

1. Clean the data first. Check customer accounts, contacts, price lists and product descriptions in the ERP. The portal will show every error.
2. Pilot with five to ten friendly accounts for a few weeks and fix what confuses them.
3. Onboard in groups, with a welcome email, a short video and someone to call.
4. Have sales reps place a first order with each customer inside the portal.
5. Keep phone and email ordering open for a period, and track the share of orders through the portal each month.

What are the ongoing costs?

Budget for hosting, maintenance, payment fees and the people who keep product and price data accurate. For a custom portal, maintenance is roughly 15 to 20% of the build each year, plus hosting and any connector or API fees. For SaaS, the subscription covers the platform, but connectors, apps and extra catalogues often add monthly fees. In both cases the largest hidden cost is data upkeep: wrong prices in a self service portal reach customers immediately.

How AWLabs approaches B2B portals

We start by checking whether your ERP, inventory platform or Shopify can do the job with configuration, because that is cheaper. The first conversation is a 15 minute Development Consult. If a custom portal or a custom integration is warranted, a paid Discovery Audit maps your pricing rules, credit terms and systems, and the fee is credited in full against the build. You then get a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options, The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build. See our API development service, wholesale and distribution software, and our manufacturing and retail and ecommerce pages.