Magento vs Shopify for B2B: which one actually scales?

Both Magento 2 and Shopify Plus now market themselves directly at B2B sellers, which makes the choice feel closer than it is. The right answer depends less on brand preference and more on how complex your pricing logic and catalogue actually are — and how much of the back office needs to talk to it.

Where Shopify Plus wins

Shopify's B2B tooling covers company profiles, wholesale price lists and basic tiered pricing out of the box, with hosting, security and uptime handled for you. Combined with a large app ecosystem, it gets a B2B storefront live faster and with a smaller in-house dev team than Magento requires.

For catalogues that are reasonably standardised, and pricing logic that fits "tiered by customer group," Shopify Plus is usually the faster, lower-overhead choice.

Where Magento 2 wins

Magento's strength is depth: negotiated, per-customer or per-SKU pricing, complex catalogue attributes and configurable products, and full control over checkout logic and data. If your business runs on quote-based pricing, tiered contracts, or a catalogue too irregular for Shopify's pricing rails, Magento bends to that reality more easily.

It also gives you more direct control over ERP and warehouse integrations when those systems have unusual requirements that a managed platform's API cannot accommodate.

Total cost of ownership

Shopify's costs are subscription, app fees and (depending on plan) transaction fees, offset by lower development overhead. Magento has no platform fee but carries higher hosting and development costs, since you own the full stack. Which is actually cheaper depends on how much custom logic your B2B pricing and catalogue genuinely require — simple needs make Shopify cheaper overall; complex needs can make Magento's dev cost pay for itself by avoiding workarounds.

A simple way to decide

If your pricing and catalogue logic is standard and speed to launch matters most, choose Shopify Plus. If you have negotiated pricing, deep ERP integration needs, or catalogue complexity that does not fit a managed platform's rules, Magento 2 is usually the better long-term fit.

— FAQ

Frequently asked questions

• Can Shopify handle customer-specific pricing at all?+

  Yes, through B2B on Shopify Plus and company profiles — but very granular, negotiated per-SKU pricing has a ceiling before it becomes a workaround rather than a native fit.

• Is Magento harder to maintain than Shopify?+

  Yes — Magento has more moving parts than Shopify's managed infrastructure, so it needs proper ongoing developer support rather than being a "set and forget" platform.

• Can you migrate from one to the other later?+

  Yes, but it is a real project — product data, order history, customer accounts and pricing logic all need to be mapped and tested, with SEO redirects handled carefully.