The B2B feature parity between Shopify and Adobe Commerce has been a moving target for the last two years. Adobe Commerce B2B was the mature option through most of 2023 and 2024. Shopify B2B caught up meaningfully in 2025 with company profiles, customer-specific catalogs, and customer-specific pricing as first-class concepts. In 2026 both platforms are credible options for mid-market B2B operations, and the right choice is no longer obvious.
That said, “credible” does not mean “equivalent.” The two platforms model B2B differently, and the differences are practical enough that the same business requirements can land much more naturally on one platform than the other. Bemeir has built on both, and we have run the platform-selection conversation often enough to know where each platform genuinely shines and where each one struggles.
This is the comparison we run with clients evaluating B2B platform choice in 2026. The framing is meant to surface the operational reality rather than to advocate for either platform.
The data model in one paragraph each
Adobe Commerce B2B models a Company as a top-level entity with a hierarchical structure of customer accounts and roles. A company has a primary administrator, sub-users, configurable approval workflows, and shared catalog assignments. The hierarchy can be multiple levels deep, and permissions can be configured granularly per role within a company.
Shopify B2B models a Company as a first-class object with locations, contacts, and catalogs. A company has multiple buyers, each of whom can be assigned to specific company locations with role-based permissions. The hierarchy is generally flatter than Adobe Commerce, with company and location as the two levels rather than a configurable depth.
The data models reflect different design philosophies. Adobe Commerce assumes complex distributor and manufacturer-style operations where the buying entity is itself a hierarchy. Shopify assumes simpler enterprise-buyer operations where multiple users buy on behalf of a single organization with a few branch locations.
Company hierarchy depth
The clearest difference is how deep the company hierarchy can go.
Adobe Commerce B2B supports arbitrary hierarchy depth. A parent company can have child companies, and those can have grandchild companies. This matches the operational shape of distribution networks where a large national distributor has regional branches, which have local branches, which have on-site purchasers. Roles cascade down the hierarchy, and pricing and catalog access can be assigned at any level.
Shopify B2B supports company plus locations, which is effectively a two-level hierarchy. The location concept handles most use cases for businesses with branch offices but does not handle the deeper hierarchies that distribution networks often run. Workarounds exist, like modeling each branch as a separate company linked through a parent customer, but the workarounds are not as clean as a native hierarchy.
If your business has a flat or two-level customer structure, the Shopify model is operationally cleaner. If your business has genuine three or four-level hierarchies, the Adobe Commerce model fits more naturally.
Buyer roles and permissions
Both platforms support role-based permissions within a company. The granularity differs.
Adobe Commerce B2B ships with standard roles like Company Admin, Senior Buyer, Junior Buyer, and Assistant, with the ability to configure custom roles. Each role has granular permissions over actions like viewing catalogs, placing orders, approving orders, managing payment methods, and managing other users. The permission surface is broad and configurable.
Shopify B2B supports two primary roles: Location Admin and Ordering Only. These cover the most common buyer use cases but are less configurable than Adobe Commerce. Custom permissions can be implemented through apps, with the trade-off that the customization lives in the app layer rather than the core platform.
For businesses with sophisticated approval and segregation-of-duty requirements, Adobe Commerce’s permission model is the more capable platform. For businesses with simpler buyer structures, Shopify’s two-role model covers most of the practical needs.
The Adobe Commerce B2B roles documentation and the Shopify B2B permissions documentation are the references for the specific permissions each platform exposes.
Approval workflows
Approval workflows are a B2B-specific feature that handles the case where a junior buyer’s order needs to be approved by a senior buyer before submission.
Adobe Commerce B2B supports configurable approval workflows out of the box. You can define conditions like order value, payment method, or shipping address that trigger approval, and you can route approval to specific users or roles. The configuration is admin-level, which means non-developers can adjust the rules.
Shopify B2B supports approval workflows through apps. The capability exists but is not native, which means the implementation lives in third-party software rather than in the core platform. The trade-off is that the workflows can be customized more freely through app development, but the configuration is engineering work rather than admin configuration.
For businesses where approval workflows are core to the buying process, Adobe Commerce’s native support is the cleaner fit. For businesses where approval is occasional, Shopify’s app-based approach is workable.
The table below summarizes the workflow comparison.
| Capability | Adobe Commerce B2B | Shopify B2B |
|---|---|---|
| Native approval workflow | Yes | Via apps |
| Multi-step approval | Yes | Via apps |
| Approval routing by order value | Native | Via apps |
| Approval routing by payment method | Native | Via apps |
| Approval routing by shipping address | Native | Via apps |
| Admin-configurable rules | Yes | Limited |
Catalog and pricing per buyer
Both platforms support customer-specific catalogs and pricing. The implementations differ in important ways.
Adobe Commerce B2B uses Shared Catalogs as the mechanism. A shared catalog is an assignment of products and prices to a company or customer group. The same product can have different prices in different shared catalogs. The model is mature and handles complex pricing scenarios cleanly.
Shopify B2B uses Catalogs as the mechanism. A catalog is a subset of products with associated pricing that is assigned to a company location. The model is simpler than Adobe Commerce’s and is sufficient for many B2B use cases. The constraints become visible when you need pricing that varies by both customer and time, or pricing that varies based on quantity tiers within a single order.
The Adobe Commerce Shared Catalogs documentation and the Shopify B2B catalogs documentation cover the specifics. The practical test for which fits is whether your B2B pricing has dimensions beyond customer and product. If yes, Adobe Commerce is the more capable platform. If no, Shopify is the simpler operational fit.
Quote workflows
Quote workflows handle the case where a buyer requests a custom quote from the seller, the seller adjusts pricing or terms, and the buyer converts the quote to an order.
Adobe Commerce B2B supports request-for-quote out of the box, with buyer-side and seller-side workflows. The buyer can request a quote on a cart, the seller can adjust pricing and add notes, and the buyer can accept the quote to convert it to an order.
Shopify B2B supports draft orders that can serve as quotes. The seller creates the draft, sends it to the buyer, and the buyer can pay through a checkout link. The mechanics are functional but less polished than Adobe Commerce’s native quote experience.
For businesses where quote-to-order is a primary buying motion, Adobe Commerce is the cleaner experience. For businesses where most orders are direct purchases with occasional draft order use, Shopify is sufficient.
Integration with ERP and CRM
B2B operations live or die by their integration with the back-office systems. Both platforms have integration patterns, with meaningful differences.
Adobe Commerce has a long-established pattern of ERP integration via custom modules and via dedicated middleware. The platform exposes a rich REST and GraphQL API surface, and the data model maps reasonably to standard ERP concepts like customers, items, prices, orders, and invoices. Integration projects to NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Acumatica are well-trodden patterns.
Shopify exposes the same surface through its API and supports integration through the Shopify ecosystem of apps and through custom development. The integration patterns are more standardized than Adobe Commerce because Shopify’s API has been more consistent over its history.
For businesses with complex ERP integration requirements, either platform can work. Adobe Commerce gives you more flexibility per integration. Shopify gives you a more standardized starting point.
The NetSuite SuiteApps page and the Adobe Commerce integration overview are useful references for what the integration patterns actually look like in production.
Operational headcount and customization cost
The platform-selection decision often comes down to operational headcount.
Adobe Commerce B2B rewards investment in engineering and configuration. The platform is deep, customizable, and well-suited to businesses that have engineering resources or partner with agencies that do. Bemeir’s Adobe Commerce B2B practice typically runs B2B engagements with a dedicated technical lead because the configuration surface is large enough to justify the dedication.
Shopify B2B is more accessible to lean teams. The configuration surface is smaller, the defaults work for most use cases, and the customization cost is lower for businesses whose requirements fit within Shopify’s model. Bemeir’s Shopify Plus practice runs B2B projects that ship faster than equivalent Adobe Commerce projects because the platform is doing more of the work.
The practical question is whether your B2B requirements fit within Shopify’s model or push beyond it. If they fit, Shopify ships faster. If they push beyond, the workarounds accumulate to the point where Adobe Commerce becomes the cheaper option in total cost.
When each platform genuinely fits
Adobe Commerce B2B is the better fit when the business has multi-level company hierarchies, complex approval workflows, sophisticated catalog and pricing rules, native quote workflows as a core motion, deep ERP integration requirements, and the engineering capacity to invest in configuration.
Shopify B2B is the better fit when the business has flat or two-level customer structures, simpler approval workflows or none, straightforward catalog and pricing, occasional draft-order quotes, ERP integration that fits within Shopify’s API patterns, and a preference for operational simplicity over configurability.
Both platforms can run successful B2B businesses. The wrong choice is to assume one platform is universally better. The right choice is to map your specific B2B requirements against each platform’s data model and ask which one fits more naturally. If you are also evaluating Shopware or BigCommerce for B2B, the same framing applies with platform-specific adjustments. The questions are the same. The platforms differ in how they answer them.
