Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce (Magento): which is better for B2B e-commerce?

With Adobe Commerce's B2B features switched on, a buying company's administrator writes the approval rules for its own purchases, and buyers negotiate quotes and draw on a credit limit inside your store. Shopify includes companies, locations, net terms and merchant-reviewed draft orders on its Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. Its B2B feature list names no buyer-side approval rules, credit limits, saved requisition lists or punchout, so those come from partner apps or custom work.

We compared the two on October 5, 2026, using each vendor's help documentation and app marketplace listings. We didn't test either platform, so the matrix below records what those documents say and the plan or edition each entry depends on.

Which Shopify plan and which Adobe product are you comparing?

Shopify opened its native B2B features to the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans on April 2, 2026, so B2B no longer requires Shopify Plus. The plan table gives all four plans companies, company locations, net terms, PO numbers, reorders and checkout-to-draft review.

Basic, Grow and Advanced stores must be on the new Shopify Markets to use B2B catalogs. They get three active catalog assignments across all B2B markets combined. Plus removes that cap and adds catalogs assigned directly to a company or location. Deposits and partial payments stay on Plus. Market-specific storefront and checkout content needs Advanced or Plus.

Adobe sells three deployment models under one name, and its comparison page treats B2B differently on each. On Adobe Commerce on Cloud (PaaS) and on-premises, the B2B features arrive after you install Adobe's own B2B extension. On Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS, the SaaS model), Adobe says core B2B features come pre-installed and names company management and quoting as examples. On ACCS, Adobe applies upgrades itself and limits extensions to APIs, events and App Builder apps.

The install guide lists Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure and on-premises as the extension's supported platforms, and Magento Open Source isn't among them. The install is a Composer package that has to match your Commerce version. After it, an administrator switches on each feature and starts the message queue consumers that quotes and purchase orders depend on.

Adobe marks documentation that applies to one model with a badge, and its badge rules say a page with no badge applies to every Adobe Commerce product. In the B2B guide, only the install page and the command-line steps carry the PaaS-only badge. The quote, purchase order, requisition list and company credit pages carry none. That describes documentation scope. Your contract decides entitlement, so confirm B2B appears on your Adobe order form for the model you're buying.

Both vendors document one store that serves wholesale and consumer buyers. Shopify's B2B overview describes one store for both or a separate B2B store, and Adobe's B2B introduction says it supports both models.

What does each platform include for the six procurement workflows?

In the table, "included" means the vendor documents the workflow as part of the plan or product with nothing further to install. "First-party add-on" means the vendor's own extension that you install and enable. "Partner app" means a third-party listing with its own fee, and "custom" means development work.

How does a quote move from request to order?

On Adobe, a buyer requests a quote from the cart, and the sales rep assigned to that company gets an email. The seller opens the request, changes prices, quantities or items, adds a comment and sends it back. Only the side currently reviewing can edit, so the quote passes back and forth until the buyer accepts or the seller declines. Accepting sends the buyer to checkout at the negotiated price, and no further discount applies. A rep can also start a quote in the Admin on a buyer's behalf, as a draft the buyer doesn't see until it's sent.

On Shopify, the quote is a draft order your staff build. They pick the company location, add products, set a custom price on any line that differs from the catalog and lock the pricing so later price changes don't alter it. They then send an invoice, and the buyer pays from that invoice. A buyer can start the process only if you set the company location to submit orders as drafts, which replaces payment at checkout with a "Submit for approval" button.

Shopify's draft order page describes no step where the buyer counters your price inside the store. That exchange happens by email or phone, or in a partner app. Duos B2B Self-service, from Qikify Plus, lists quote requests and negotiation among its features and showed two reviews on October 5, 2026, so ask for a demo store before relying on it.

Who approves a purchase before it becomes an order?

On Adobe, the buying company approves its own spending. Once you enable purchase orders for a company, every order it places starts as a purchase order. A company user with permission then writes approval rules in their own account. Each rule names the roles it applies to, a trigger and the approvers, and the triggers are order total, shipping cost and the number of distinct SKUs.

When several rules catch one purchase order, every required approver has to approve it, and company administrators skip the rules entirely. A buyer using an offline method such as Payment on Account enters it up front, and the order converts once approvals finish. A buyer paying online comes back after approval to enter the details. Adobe says this flow needs a checkout that stays on your site, and it doesn't support gift cards, store credit or reward points alongside online payments.

On Shopify, the approver is your team. With orders submitted as drafts, nothing is charged at checkout, and staff confirm the draft before charging a saved card or sending an invoice. That blanket setting applies to every order from the location. Sending only some orders to review, by order value or cart contents, takes a custom Payment Customization Function, and Shopify's developer reference limits that review operation to B2B purchases on Plus stores. A PO number on Shopify is a reference field on the order and triggers no approval.

For a sign-off by the buyer's own manager before the order reaches you, the route we found is an app. B2B Company Controls, from BlueBolt, lists buyer spending limits and multi-level approval workflows from $19 a month plus usage charges, and it had no reviews on October 5, 2026.

How do buyers reorder and buy on credit?

Adobe's requisition lists are saved, named lists a buyer keeps in their account, up to 999 depending on configuration. Buyers add items from product pages, category pages, the cart, past orders and quotes. Sending a list to the cart doesn't empty it, so the buyer can reuse it for the next order.

Shopify's B2B feature list says customers can duplicate a past order from their account, which puts every item back in the cart. A quick order list shows a product's variants on the product page so a buyer can add several in one click. Neither one is a saved, named list that a buyer can keep for each vendor or job site.

For credit, Adobe's Payment on Account gives each company a credit limit and currency that you set, with an option to let orders exceed the limit. The company profile keeps a ledger of allocations, purchases, reimbursements, refunds and reverted orders, and shows the outstanding balance. The page describes credit that you allocate and reimburse as the merchant, and it mentions no credit check or financing from Adobe. Payment on Account doesn't appear on orders with more than one shipping address.

Shopify's payment terms set when an invoice is due, not how much a company can owe. You choose net 7 through net 90 or due on fulfillment for a company or location, and a fixed date on a single draft order. Orders past the due date show as overdue in the buyer's account, and Shopify doesn't capture payment automatically when terms expire. The page describes no credit limit, so holding a company to a cap takes a check outside the payment terms, by staff, an app or your ERP.

How do company accounts and hierarchies differ?

Shopify models a customer as one company with up to 10,000 locations. Each location holds its own tax ID, addresses, catalogs, payment terms and contacts, and a buyer with access to several locations picks one at login. Buyers get one of two permissions: ordering only, or location admin, which adds the location's full order list and address editing. A buyer belongs to a single company, and your staff add each buyer from the Shopify admin.

Adobe separates the structure inside a company from the hierarchy between companies. Inside one company, the company's administrator builds a tree of teams and users from the storefront account and assigns roles. Approval rules that send a purchase to the buyer's manager read from that tree. Across companies, your Admin users assign companies to a parent, and the parent's administrator can then view and manage each child's account. A child has one parent, and a parent can't sit under another company.

Adobe lists franchise operations and corporate subsidiaries among the uses for that second level. On Shopify, the nearest fit is one company with a location for each franchisee or subsidiary. A head-office buyer can be made location admin at each one, which gives order visibility location by location. Neither documented permission covers managing users or roles.

What does punchout take on each platform?

Punchout lets a buyer open your catalog from inside a procurement system such as SAP Ariba or Coupa, return the cart for internal approval and send back a purchase order. The punchout routes we verified on both platforms are sold by partner companies.

On Shopify, Punchout Cloud, from PunchOut Catalogs LLC, lists cXML and OCI support at $399 a month for one connection, with purchase order and invoice connections as paid upgrades. TradeCentric says its managed connector also links Shopify and Shopify Plus stores to procurement systems.

On Adobe, TradeCentric's Marketplace module requires a TradeCentric subscription and carries extra fees. The listing's compatibility section, checked on October 1, 2026, named Adobe Commerce 2.4 on cloud and on-premises and Magento Open Source 2.4. That doesn't establish ACCS support, and Adobe's comparison page says ACCS accepts App Builder apps only, so ask TradeCentric how it connects before choosing that model.

What should you ask each vendor to demonstrate?

Before you ask either vendor for pricing, write down your hardest order: the person who requests it, each approver, the credit it draws on and the procurement system the purchase order comes from. Then ask each vendor to run that order in a demo on the plan or deployment model you'd buy.

On Shopify, the buyer-side steps in that demo run in apps with their own fees and developers, so ask each developer to run its part. The two listings we found for approvals and quotes had two reviews or fewer. On ACCS, ask Adobe to show purchase approvals, requisition lists and Payment on Account in a SaaS instance, because its comparison page names only company management and quoting.