Shopify Wholesale Pricing: Catalogs, Price Breaks, Margins
Shopify wholesale pricing is set in B2B catalogs: on Basic and higher plans you create a catalog, give it a percentage off your retail prices or fixed wholesale prices per product, add volume price breaks for larger quantities, and assign it to the B2B market your trade buyers belong to. The numbers themselves should come from your costs first, so work out what each wholesale price leaves you before you type it into a catalog.
Catalog rules: Shopify’s pages on creating catalogs, quantity rules and volume pricing and B2B discounts, read October 23, 2026; B2B catalogs have been available on Basic, Grow and Advanced since April 2, 2026. The margin figures are our example, not a benchmark.
Work out the wholesale price first
A retailer buying from you has to resell at a profit, so your wholesale price sits between your cost and your retail price. Two common ways to set it:
- Cost-plus. Cost multiplied by a markup you choose. Shopify’s own cost-plus example: a product costing $45 CAD with a 35% markup sells for $60.75 CAD.
- Working back from retail. Keystone pricing, a common retail convention, doubles the wholesale price to reach the shelf price. If your recommended retail price is $32, the wholesale price that lets them do that is $16.
Check both against your own numbers. An example for a product that costs you $8 to make or buy:
| Channel | Price | Your cost | Left for you | Your margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your own store (retail) | $32 | $8 | $24 | 75% |
| Wholesale, 1 to 23 units | $16 | $8 | $8 | 50% |
| Wholesale, 24 units and up | $15 | $8 | $7 | 47% |
| Wholesale, 48 units and up | $14.25 | $8 | $6.25 | 44% |
Margin here is (price minus cost) divided by price, the same formula Shopify’s profit reports use. Your own store’s figure still has to pay for shipping, payment fees and ads; a wholesale order often ships as one carton and has no ad cost behind it, which is why a lower margin can still be the better order.
If the wholesale price leaves less than you need, look at your costs or your retail price first; a smaller wholesale discount leaves retailers too little to resell.
Set wholesale prices in a Shopify catalog
- Go to Markets > Catalogs and click Create catalog.
- Enter a Title (buyers do not see it).
- Choose All products or Specific products and click Continue.
- Optional: under Currency, click Change for a catalog in another currency, and check Automatically include new products in this catalog if every new product should be wholesale too.
- Click Save.
- Set the prices:
- For a flat discount on everything in the catalog, choose Price decrease under Overall adjustments and enter a percentage. With 50% off, a $32 retail product shows at $16.
- For specific products, go to Products and pricing > Manage > Manage products and pricing and type a fixed price in the Price column, either for all variants of a product or per variant.
- Set Status to Active and assign the catalog to a B2B market.
Fixed prices override the overall adjustment. Shopify’s example: candles at $10 with a catalog adjustment of −20% sell at $8, except one candle with a fixed price of $9, which sells at $9. Use the adjustment for the bulk of the range and fixed prices for products whose margin does not fit the general rule.
For large ranges you can import catalog prices with a CSV; the Fixed Price column must be filled, and an empty Fixed Price and Compare At pair removes the fixed price for that product.
Add volume price breaks
Volume pricing gives a lower unit price once a buyer orders a set quantity in one order. You can add up to 10 price breaks per product, and they apply to each variant separately: a buyer needs 20 blue hats to reach a 20-unit break, not 10 blue and 10 gray.
Shopify’s example:
| Setting | Quantity | Unit price |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 1 | $20 |
| Price break 1 | 20 | $18.50 |
| Price break 2 | 50 | $17.75 |
| Price break 3 | 100 | $16 |
Set breaks in the same Manage products and pricing screen, through the Edit quantity rules and volume pricing dialog, where you can also set increments (sell only in cases of 12) and minimum or maximum quantities. Minimum order quantities are covered in more detail in our minimum order quantity guide.
One rule to remember: once a product has volume pricing, its price is fixed, and the catalog’s overall adjustment no longer applies to it. Check the margin of each break against your cost the same way as in the table above.
When several prices apply
Three rules decide what a buyer actually pays:
- Several catalogs, one product: a company can have more than one catalog, and the lowest price is shown.
- Discounts stack on catalog prices. Automatic discounts and discount codes apply on top of catalog prices.
- Blended stores: a retail discount set to All customers, Specific customers or Customer segments also applies to B2B buyers unless you limit its eligibility to a market. A 20% Black Friday code on top of a 50% wholesale price is a 60% discount off retail.
Before any retail promotion, check the eligibility of every discount if wholesale buyers share your store.
Limits by plan
On Basic, Grow and Advanced you can have 3 active catalogs across all B2B markets, which in practice means three price groups (for example trade, distributor and an overseas currency list). Shopify Plus allows unlimited catalogs and catalogs assigned directly to a company location, so each customer can have negotiated prices. If three groups are not enough below Plus, our Shopify B2B app comparison covers apps that add price lists. To create the companies and markets these catalogs attach to, see how to set up wholesale on Shopify; the Shopify B2B and wholesale hub has the rest.
FAQ
How much lower should wholesale prices be? There is no fixed rule. Under keystone pricing, a common convention, the retailer doubles the wholesale price, so wholesale sits at about half of retail. Start from your cost, check that the wholesale price still leaves you a margin you can live with, and test it with a few buyers.
Can different buyers get different prices on the Basic plan? Basic, Grow and Advanced allow 3 active catalogs assigned to B2B markets, so buyers can be split into up to three price groups. Prices for individual companies need Shopify Plus or an app.
Do discount codes stack with wholesale prices? Automatic discounts and discount codes apply on top of catalog prices, and in a blended store discounts for All customers also reach B2B buyers unless you limit them to a market.
Can I import wholesale prices by CSV? You can import catalog prices with a CSV file in which the Fixed Price column is filled. Quantity rules can also be imported by CSV.