SaaS to Self-hosted: A practical comparison between top B2B e-commerce platforms

4 November 2025

ecommerce

B2B businesses need scalable, secure and flexible solutions that can handle more than transactions and listing pages. B2B business requirements have evolved to include complex inventory, procurement processes and to support complex customer structures.

According to emarketer, the B2B e-commerce market is expanding rapidly. Global B2B e-commerce sales grew 10.5% in 2024, reaching $2.297 trillion and projected to rise to $3.027 trillion by 2028. In the UK, the market is forecasted to expand from USD 259.9 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach USD 1091.9 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 17.29% according to Imarc group report. Other similar reports by Grandview research also suggest a compounding growth rate of 17.7%

Recent industry research by Gartner suggests that more than 80% of B2B buyers prefer ordering and paying through digital commerce. There is a shift in buyers expectations for a B2C like shopping experience with self service portals. The message is clear – merchants investing in the right platform will be better positioned to capture this growth.

At SixBySix, we recently reviewed four major B2B platform configurations – Adobe Commerce B2B suite, Shopify Plus B2B, BigCommerce B2B, and Magento Open Source with marketplace modules. The breakdown below is to help assess which is best suited to your business model, indicative pricing, ballpark implementation effort, third party module differences, example business cases and integration with third party systems.

Adobe Commerce Cloud – B2B Suite:

With its vast amount of native features, Adobe Commerce B2B suits enterprise grade businesses with complex procurement flows, user permissions and external integrations allowing full ownership over commerce strategy.

Approximate licensing cost: Licensing starts around US £27,500 per year (tiered by GMV) and can increase based on the operational volume with cloud hosting and CDN included.

While the design effort can be minimal if the out of the box Luma theme is retained, a fast frontend drastically improves engagement and conversion so a Hyvä based frontend is highly recommended. Businesses opting for Adobe Commerce generally tend to build a bespoke frontend for branding. Due to the bespoke nature of build development, a typical build takes 4 – 8 months from kick off to launch though this can be shorter depending on the complexity of multi-store setups, integrations and bespoke implementation.

Native features:

Cloud hosting: PCI level 1 compliant enterprise grade hosting with staging environment, performance monitoring, automatic backups and CDN network infrastructure and Adobe support – fully managed by Adobe
Company accounts: Enables multiple buyers per company with custom roles and credit limits (purchaser, approver, finance etc)

Shared catalogues: Merchants can create multiple catalogues with different product selections, pricing, payment terms and assign catalogues to specific companies and customer groups.
This allows merchants to:
- Demonstrate different product ranges to different companies. (For example. Retainer vs Wholesaler vs Distributor)
- Set tiered or contract pricing per company so logged in customers see only the negotiated rates
- Control payment terms and availability so one company pays Net30 and another must pay by card.
- Centralised management – if the negotiated rates were to change or scale down product catalogues for a customer, this can be done by updating the catalogue and the assigned company sees in their catalogue view.

In practice a shared catalogue is a powerful feature for B2B merchants because it combines price management and access control in one place. This feature alone makes Adobe Commerce a strong choice for B2B business due to deeper and complex B2B hierarchy support.

Quote approval flow: Company users can request and negotiate prices from the company. The company sales team can handle negotiations within the admin interface using a single window system.
Purchase order: Granular control to allow companies to pay by card or PO based checkout and invoice payment.
Repeat orders and requisition list: Repeat customers can expedite ordering processing by creating a purchase list allowing one-click purchases. Buyer can share the list across business units for consistent reordering.
Credit limit: Assign credit limits to companies and track usage. If a customer exceeds their limits, new orders can be blocked and flagged for review.
Multistore architecture: Adobe commerce natively allows creation of websites and storefronts allowing distinct stores for B2B and B2C channels. This is another standout feature compared to Shopify and BigCommerce where there is no true multistore management. Adobe Commerce lets merchants manage independent B2B and B2C storefronts across regions, currencies and catalogues from one backend. Shopify and BigCommerce merchants require multiple instances or third party apps to emulate multistore setup.
API first infrastructure: Adobe commerce has extensive API support allowing native integration and future proof for headless or composable commerce

Tradeoffs/consideration:

Longer implementation time compared to Shopify’s plug and play model
Upfront licensing cost
Training and learning required to fully utilise the native features

Shopify B2B (Plus):

Ideal for growing B2B business that need simplicity, stability with less complexity in procurement and integration. The fully hosted SaaS model offers quick to market and low maintenance. However, much of the B2B relies on third party apps which introduce additional complexity and limitations as operational needs evolve. While the native features support simple use cases, businesses with layered procurement and bespoke requirements will find extensibility constrained over time.

The Shopify Plus plan starts at £1,800 a month for standard setups and integrations on a 3-year term, or £1,950 per month for a 1-year term plus 0.20% per transaction to Shopify for security and compliance costs.

Due to the SaaS nature of the platforms, users can subscribe to use the platform but cannot access or modify the source code. This speeds up the implementation timeline to 1 – 5 months in most cases – since the configuration is done via the admin and third party apps. Design effort is also low due to out of the box themes available in the marketplace.

While development is minimal for simple cases, costs grow as business scales and rapidly hit platform limits as they grow.

Native features:

Cloud hosting: Fully-hosted in Shopify infrastructure with limitless bandwidth meaning there is no overage fee for higher traffic periods. Also provides automatic backups and CDN network infrastructure.
Company profiles: Create B2B companies with multiple locations with specific payment terms, tax and shipping options.
User access with ACL permissions: Granular access to multiple company users rule based permissions such as buyer, admin to cover common B2B scenarios. However, Shopify is not as robust as Adobe Commerce in this area.
Price List: Define unique pricing per company and map to specific SKUs. This allows logged in customers to see the prices they are negotiated. This works in a similar way to Adobe Commerce B2B.

When a customer logs in using their company account, the customer automatically sees the negotiated prices rather than standard catalogue pricing. This works by linking each price list to one (or more) companies and prices can be assigned at per SKU level. This allows companies to manage prices in bulk via admin or CSV imports

While the feature mimics the shared catalogue feature in Adobe Commerce there is no true tiered pricing without workaround by creating separate SKU’s and assigning different prices to mimic bulk discounts.

Purchase orders: Customers can pay on invoice through Net payment terms. Checkout automatically surfaces the payment methods.
External integration: Limit capabilities and high reliance on third party modules for integration with third party ERP and WMS systems.
Third party apps: While the platform relies on third party apps for many functions, the size and maturity of the marketplace is an advantage. The merchants can quickly add and test apps without custom development. This also facilitates quicker time to market by installing and testing in days rather than months.

Tradeoffs/consideration:

No native quote negotiation or approval flows (requires custom build or apps)
No granular control over buyer roles and permissions
Training and learning required to fully utilize the native features
Extensive reliability on third party apps for extensive ERP integrations which quickly increases the total cost of ownership.

BigCommerce B2B edition:

Ideal for mid-market and enterprise sellers needing a blend of native B2B functionality. The licensing cost ranges from US $500 to 1500 per month depending on plan and usage with hosting included. The implementation effort is similar to Shopify with limited options to customise the storefront.

Native features:

Company accounts: While not as flexible and extensive as Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce allows buyers to mirror the organisational structure of the customers. This includes a role based permissions and built in company hierarchy allowing large businesses to manage procurement workflow within the storefront.

Companies can be organised into hierarchies for example: Parent Company > Franchise > Franchise Locations. Each note in the hierarchy can have unique permissions, catalogues and payment terms.

BigCommerce is more flexible than Shopify but still doesn’t allow granular permissions to SKU with the focus being role based account control.

Customer specific pricing and catalogues: BigCommerce also allows tiered pricing and catalogue assignment at company or customer group level. This allows surfacing prices for the relevant customer groups. Pricing can also be displayed by volume and contract agreement without workaround
Invoice payments: Supports Net payment terms and credit based purchases
Quick order and reorder: Out of the box, BigCommerce allows a lot more flexibility compared with Shopify’s primarily B2C solutions.

Tradeoffs/consideration:

A flexible middle ground for business scaling up from legacy systems who require a simple B2B workflow.
Robust out of the box integration and extensive API availability but may require middleware for Enterprise scale external integrations such as Dynamics 365 or SAP.

Magento 2 Open Source with Marketplace B2B Module:

The ideal option for businesses wanting to leverage Magento’s flexibility without the licensing fee of Adobe Commerce and other options. Magento open source is a free, self-hosted edition of Adobe’s Commerce platform. Out of the box, open source provides a robust B2C feature set – including catalogue management, customer accounts, promotions, checkout and a theme. The open source nature allows businesses to have full ownership of the codebase, hosting and all bespoke features. This provides complete flexibility to customise workflows, integrate with third party/external systems and a tailored storefront to match the branding.

However the open source version does not include the B2B features such as company accounts, shared catalogues and quote workflows. The B2B specific features can be added through third party modules. The Adobe marketplace is matured and modules available for most business cases.

Open source also means the business and the development agency share the responsibility for infrastructure, maintenance, security updates and performance optimisation. The key benefit is the core commerce product is Open Source and is free. The B2B module can cost between USD 1000-2500. Hosting will be an additional cost typically between £150 to £350 for a small-mid size store.

The implementation timeline is typically between 3-6 months depending on the complexity.

A number of B2B modules are available in the marketplace. Depending on the chosen module the features vary. However generally the modules will support the following:

Company accounts and roles – multiple customers under a company accounts with role based permissions (buyer, manager, finance) mirrors Adobe Commerce’s core functionality.
Quote request and negotiation – Buyers can request a quote for merchant to adjust pricing and send for approval
Convert quote to cart – Upon approving a quote, the quote is converted directly to an order
Tiered pricing and catalogues – Assigned negotiated rates to companies
Requisition list – build recurring lists to use a CSV upload or search by SKU for quick ordering
Purchase orders and pay on invoice – Supports invoice payments and net payment terms

B2B modules reviewed and feature comparison:

Features	Amasty B2B Premium	BSS Commerce	Aheadworks
Hyvä Theme supported	✔️	✔️	✔️
Hyvä checkout supported	✔️	✔️	✔️
Company and customer accounts	✔️	✔️	✔️
Custom pricing per company	✔️	✔️ (through customer groups)	✔️
Request a quote	✔️	✔️	✔️
Convert a quote to cart	✔️	✔️ (only from the admin)	✔️
Quick order	✔️	✔️	✔️
Search by SKU	✔️	✔️	✔️
Pay by invoice	✔️	✔️	✖️

Based on our review, Amasty B2B suite is the closest to the Adobe Commerce B2B native features. Amasty suite supports all core tools most B2B merchants need along with Hyvä theme and checkout support for a robust frontend.

Use Cases: When to choose each model: SaaS v Self-hosted

Choose Shopify and BigCommerce if:

Inventory management and procurement flows are simple (single level approval and no complex role hierarchies)
Predictable licensing cost and all inclusive pricing including hosting, SSL and CDN
Focus on product and marketing than infrastructure and features
Launch quickly and need to go live in weeks
Not keen on technical understanding of e-commerce and strategy

Choose self-hosted Adobe Commerce & Magento Open Source + module if:

Complex inventory management and procurement workflows requiring bespoke features (multi-tier approvals, purchase budgets per departments and split shipments)
Require total control of code, data and hosting
Anticipate scaling up significantly with multistore, multiwarehouse, multi-currency
Integrations with business critical systems like ERP, CRM, WMS
Have an inhouse team or a trusted partner to maintain and evolve
Avoid long term contracts and lock in for flexibility and quickly pivot to market changes (with Magento 2)

PLATFORM FEATURE COMPARISON

Feature	Adobe Commerce Cloud	Shopify Plus	BigCommerce	Magento Open Source + Module
Company accounts(supports multiple users per company account with distinct roles)	✔️	✔️	✔️	Via module
Customer specific pricing(assign pricing per customer or group, supporting negotiated contracts)	✔️	✔️	✔️	Via module
Quote request and approval workflow (enable customers to request quotes and sales reps to negotiate within admin)	✔️	App based	✔️	Via module
Pay on invoice (offers B2B buyers delayed payment via net terms or invoice checkout)	✔️	✔️	✔️	via module
Requisition List (customers can build and reuse lists for recurring purchases)	✔️	X, (workaround possible via app)	X (strong reorder tools out-of-the-box, but not multi-list requisitioning)	via module
Multistore architecture (manage multiple storefronts or regions from a single backend instance)	✔️	X	✔️	✔️
Company Credit limits (assign credit limits to company accounts and manage purchasing control)	✔️	X	✔️	via module
Multi-warehouse/Multi source inventory (Display real time inventory per fulfilment location or warehouse)	✔️	X	✔️	✔️
Hosting	Cloud hosting	SaaS	SaaS	Self-hosted
Total Cost of Ownership	High upfront cost but lower and predictable in the long run as the business scales. Cost decreases as the volume grows	Low entry cost, fast setup however app costs and transaction fees add up over time. TCO is often higher than expected.	Predictable cost	Low cost, requires a strong partner or inhouse team
Cost	£27,500 per year (tiered by GMV)	starts at £1,800 per month for 3 year contract or £1,950 per month for 1 year contract	Cost is bespoke but approximately £1,950 per month	Hosting – £150 to £350 B2B Module cost – £750 – £1,950 per year based on choice of the modules

Shopify and BigCommerce offer compelling features, but Adobe Commerce remains unmatched in depth and flexibility, albeit at an enterprise level cost. A hybrid cost effective recommendation is Magento open source giving businesses maximum control with the right technical partner to support it.

In addition to the SaaS players, it’s worth noting that there are also platforms such as OroCommerce that are purpose built for B2B. OroCommerce is developed by the founder of Magento and designed for B2B cases such as company pricing, RFQ workflow and Multi-site buyer portal. It is offered in an open source and fully-hosted SaaS model.

OroCommerce does not have the market presence of other SaaS applications but it’s an alternative solution where B2B workflows are the primary requirement.

At SixBySix, we have implemented the solutions across various verticals to guide you towards a scalable solution.

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