WooCommerce B2B: wholesale pricing and order quantities

Part one: price follows the customer

Wholesale pricing belongs to the user role, not the product listing. Give each role its own price per product and the same catalogue serves everyone — a logged-in trade account sees trade prices in the shop, the cart and the invoice, while a guest sees retail. Category-wide discounts handle the cases where a flat percentage per range is closer to how you actually negotiate.

Part two: quantity is part of the deal

A trade price usually assumes trade volume. Minimum and maximum quantities per product, per variation, per category or per role keep that assumption enforced at the cart rather than in an email after the order. Two cases need extra care: variable products, where the minimum should count across variations, and marketplaces, where the rule has to apply per vendor instead of per cart.

Part three: what guests may see

Public wholesale prices compete with your own retail pages in search results and hand your margins to competitors. Keeping trade prices behind login, with a visible route to apply for an account, protects both. It also gives you a clean signal for search: retail pages stay indexable, trade pages stay private.

Which plugin covers which rule

B2B and pricing guides

• Set a Minimum Order Quantity in WooCommerce
• Minimum Quantity by Category in WooCommerce
• Quantity Limits by User Role in WooCommerce
• Different Prices for Different Users in WooCommerce

Related hubs

• WooCommerce plugins for payment, shipping and delivery rules
• WooCommerce checkout optimization

B2B questions

Can one WooCommerce store serve both retail and wholesale customers?

Yes, and it is almost always the better option than a second store. You keep one catalogue, one stock count and one set of orders, and you attach the difference to the customer instead: a wholesale user role that changes the price, the minimum quantity and sometimes the available payment terms.

How does WooCommerce role-based pricing work?

Each product gets an additional price per user role. When a logged-in wholesale customer views the catalogue, the store swaps in their role's price everywhere — product page, cart, totals and order emails — while guests and retail customers keep the regular price.

Can I set a minimum order quantity for wholesale customers only?

Yes. Quantity rules can be scoped to a user role, so a wholesale account is required to buy in boxes of twelve while a retail customer can still buy one. The rule is enforced in the cart, not only in the quantity field, so it cannot be bypassed by editing the URL.

What about variable products where each variation has its own stock?

That case needs the minimum counted across variations rather than per variation, otherwise a customer meets a 12-piece minimum with twelve separate sizes. Our Min & Max Quantities for Combined Variations add-on totals the variations of one product before applying the rule.

Should wholesale prices be visible to visitors who are not logged in?

Usually not. Wholesale pricing is commercially sensitive and public wholesale prices undercut your own retail listings in search results. The common setup is retail prices public, wholesale prices behind login, with an application form for new trade accounts.

Do I need a separate B2B theme or plugin suite?

No. The three moving parts are price, quantity and access, and each is a focused plugin. A full B2B suite tends to replace parts of WooCommerce you were happy with, which makes updates riskier than they need to be.