In short: building a B2B online store or ordering portal costs between €7,500 for a Shopify or WooCommerce store with B2B features and €100,000 or more for a custom portal with ERP, PIM and EDI integrations in 2026. Most wholesalers land between €15,000 and €40,000 excl. VAT. Customer-specific pricing, ordering on account and a watertight ERP integration decide the outcome, not the design.
How B2B differs from B2C
A consumer online store sells 1 product to 1 person at 1 price. A business customer orders differently:
- Customer-specific pricing. Customer A pays €4.20 per unit, customer B €3.85 after an annual agreement. Prices come from the ERP, not from the shop.
- Volume tiers and packaging units. 1 box of 12, 1 pallet of 48 boxes, a discount from 10 pallets.
- Ordering on account. 30-day payment terms, a credit limit per customer, no iDEAL screen.
- Several buyers per customer. A technician orders, a purchaser approves above €500, the finance team sees the invoices.
- Repeat orders and order lists. 80% of orders repeat last month's order.
- Reverse-charge VAT and export. VAT number checks through VIES, reverse-charged VAT within the EU, incoterms per customer.
Anyone who makes a B2C platform 'quickly' suitable for B2B gets stuck on every one of these points. Choose a platform that understands this logic from the start.
Must-have features (checklist)
Put your wish list next to this one and tick what you really need in phase 1:
- Login with a company account, several users per customer, roles (buyer, approver, admin)
- Customer-specific price lists and discounts, live or synchronized from the ERP
- Tiered pricing, packaging units, minimum order quantities
- Live stock and lead time per item, also per warehouse
- Ordering on account with a credit limit, or iDEAL and card for new customers
- Quick ordering: type an item number, upload a CSV, order lists, repeat order
- Order history, order status, track and trace, invoices and packing slips to download
- Request a quote on the shopping cart
- VAT number validation, multiple delivery addresses, cost centers
- Approval flow above an amount
- Search on specifications, filters on ETIM or your own attributes, datasheets
- Integration with ERP, accounting and PIM
Items 2, 5 and 12 set the price. In 2026 everything else is standard or available as an extension on every mature platform.
Platform choice: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento or custom
| Platform | Suited to | Build cost 2026 (excl. VAT) | License and hosting per month | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Plus with B2B | Wholesalers with 50–5,000 customers, also selling B2C | €15,000 – 40,000 | from about €2,100 (Plus) plus apps | B2B features only on Plus, limited checkout customization |
| WooCommerce plus a B2B extension | Smaller wholesalers, up to about 5,000 items | €7,500 – 25,000 | €50 – 300 hosting and extensions | Performance with large catalogs, plugin maintenance |
| Adobe Commerce or Magento Open Source | Complex catalogs, multi-store, several countries | €40,000 – 150,000 | €300 – 2,000 hosting, Adobe license from about €20,000 per year | Heavy to run, scarce developers |
| Custom ordering portal (Next.js plus your own backend) | Unique processes, deep ERP integration, portal as a product | €30,000 – 100,000+ | €100 – 500 hosting, no licenses | Longer build, everything is yours |
| Ordering-portal SaaS (Sana, Propeller) | ERP-first companies on SAP, Dynamics or AFAS | €10,000 – 40,000 implementation | €500 – 3,000 license | Vendor lock-in, little freedom in the front end |
A rule of thumb: if you also sell to consumers or need a strong brand experience, Shopify Plus is the fastest route in 2026. If everything revolves around your ERP and your processes, a custom portal or an ERP-first solution wins. If you sit in between on a limited budget, WooCommerce with a good B2B extension is a defensible start.
ERP and PIM integrations: Exact, AFAS and SAP Business One
The integration is the heart of a B2B online store. Without it someone retypes orders and prices and stock drift apart. What needs to flow at minimum:
- From ERP to shop: items, customer-specific prices, stock per warehouse, customer data, credit limits, order status, invoices.
- From shop to ERP: orders with the correct customer code, delivery address, reference and cost center; new customers after approval.
Per system the costs look like this:
- Exact Online. A good REST API and many ready-made connectors. A custom integration for orders, customers, prices and stock costs €3,950 to €9,500. The details are in connecting Exact Online to your online store.
- AFAS. Integrated through GetConnectors and UpdateConnectors. Similar costs to Exact, but more configuration work on the AFAS side.
- SAP Business One. Through the Service Layer. Budget €9,500 to €25,000 because of the more complex data models and test rounds.
- PIM (Akeneo, Pimcore, Channable). Needed once you manage more than 5,000 items with specifications. Integration €2,500 to €7,500.
- EDI and Peppol. Large buyers in retail and construction order and invoice through EDI. Belgium has required business-to-business e-invoicing through Peppol since January 1, 2026 and the EU follows with ViDA by 2030 at the latest. An integration layer that sends orders, order confirmations and invoices as EDI or Peppol messages costs €9,500 to €24,500.
Ask every bidder: how often does stock synchronize, what happens when the ERP is offline and who owns the integration.
Cost range and 3-year TCO
Do not compare build cost alone. A €20,000 B2B store on Shopify Plus costs €110,000 to €130,000 over 3 years once licenses, apps and maintenance are included. A €45,000 custom portal with €300 hosting and €495 maintenance per month comes to roughly €75,000. The build cost says little; the license line and the integrations shape the picture.
What a B2B online store quote consists of:
- Discovery: processes, customer groups, pricing logic, data model (5–10%)
- Design and front end (20–25%)
- B2B logic: accounts, pricing, tiers, on-account ordering, approvals (25–30%)
- ERP and PIM integrations (20–30%)
- Data import, testing with real customers, launch, inside-sales training (10–15%)
What drives the price of a regular online store applies here too, with B2B logic and integrations as extra layers.
Adoption: moving customers from email and phone to the portal
The biggest risk is not the technology but a portal nobody uses. What works:
- Build for the ordering routine of your top 50 customers. They generate 80% of revenue. Have 3 of them test the prototype.
- Make the portal faster than email. Repeat an order list in 1 click, type an item number, upload a CSV. If ordering takes longer than emailing, you lose.
- Show something email cannot. Live stock, order status, invoices in 1 place, prices without a phone call.
- Let inside sales sell the portal. Every phone order is entered in the portal under the customer's name, followed by an email saying 'next time do it yourself in 30 seconds'.
- Measure and reward. Percentage of orders through the portal per month as a KPI, a temporary 1 to 2% discount on portal orders.
Expect 6 to 12 months to get 60 to 80% of orders through the portal. That is not a setback, that is the normal pace.
Example: ordering portal for an installation-supplies wholesaler
A wholesaler with 1,200 business customers, 18,000 items and AFAS as its ERP. Goal: 70% of orders digital within a year and inside sales down from 8 to 5 FTE on order entry.
- Discovery, pricing logic, data model, prototype tested with 4 customers: €4,500
- Front end and design, quick ordering, ETIM filters: €9,000
- B2B logic: accounts, roles, tiers, credit limit, approval flow: €8,500
- AFAS integration (items, prices, stock, orders, invoices) and PIM import: €8,500
- Data import, testing, launch, training: €3,500
Total: €34,000 excl. VAT, live after 11 weeks. Running costs €250 hosting and €495 maintenance per month. After 9 months, 74% of orders ran through the portal and order errors dropped by 60%.
RABZI estimate: a B2B online store from RABZI starts at €7,500 excl. VAT (Launch: Shopify or WooCommerce with B2B features), from €14,500 for Growth (custom theme, B2B logic and 1 to 2 integrations) and from €29,500 for Flagship (headless or custom portal with ERP, PIM and multi-store). A standalone ERP integration starts at €3,950. See online stores and e-commerce, our approach for retail and e-commerce or the full pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a B2B online store cost? In 2026 a B2B online store costs €7,500 to €25,000 on WooCommerce, €15,000 to €40,000 on Shopify Plus and €30,000 to €100,000 as a custom portal, excluding VAT. The ERP integration and the pricing logic account for most of the difference between quotes.
Can I combine B2B and B2C in 1 online store? Yes. Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce and a custom portal support both in 1 environment with separate price lists, payment methods and catalogs per customer group. On WooCommerce it works through extensions, but test performance carefully and check exactly what a logged-in business customer can and cannot see.
Which platform is best for a wholesaler? It depends on your ERP and your processes. If you also sell to consumers, Shopify Plus is usually the fastest route. If everything revolves around AFAS, Exact or SAP and unique ordering processes, a custom portal wins. Let the integrations decide, not the design.
How long does it take to build an ordering portal? A B2B store on Shopify or WooCommerce with 1 ERP integration is live in 6 to 10 weeks. A custom portal with several integrations takes 10 to 16 weeks. The longest lead time usually sits in cleaning up item data and price lists, not in the build itself.
Conclusion
Building a B2B online store or ordering portal costs €7,500 to €40,000 on a standard platform and €30,000 to €100,000 as a custom build in 2026, with the ERP integration and pricing logic as the largest items. Choose the platform based on your integrations, build for the ordering routine of your biggest customers and treat adoption as part of the project. Want to know what your ordering portal would cost? Book an intro call and you will have an estimate with a fixed price and schedule within 2 business days.